So, what can I say now that the jet lag is gone?
Air Travel
Red-eye was perfect for us. We left on a 9:45p out of JFK to Dublin (arriving 9:30a). The flight with Aer Lingus was nice despite an individual who preferred to be the only jackass in the entire plane to have their window open over the cloud line. We even arrived in Dublin early!
Getting Around
Getting from Dublin Airport to Dublin city center was easy providing you’re okay with asking some questions - we asked some kiosk attendants in the designated bus area and pretty soon we were waiting for the line that would take us to our hotel. The only oversight here was that we almost missed our bus when they changed attendants and I didn’t tell the new guy to warn us.
I’d like to put out there that it was brilliant to do the bus; still reeling from the flight length and timezone travel, I was not in any condition to decipher the driving-on-the-other-side-plus-wheel-on-the-other-side car thing while also trying to navigate traffic circles.
First (and only!) Hotel
We arrived, got our room set up at the O’Callaghan Merrion Square hotel. Our first room was… not good. Short list: No A/C, I had fix the TV speakers (with my fists), and I ended up jamming our window open with the Guest Service binder. I called the desk but the women there blew us off. Half an hour later my girl went downstairs to retrieve someone, he had us moved to a much more functional room. I would rate their customer service high, and the new room was as expected and very nice.
We went off to walk around to the city and try to find the ‘Queen of Tarts’ for tea and lunch. We had two hurdles here 1) we were in a touristy area, so no one knew where we were going, and 2) our Frommer’s map was off by like, 4 blocks.
Allow me to stress this: Ask a bartender. Every bartender we talked to was perfectly polite.
We made it there with the bartender’s direction. The food was delicious and the coffee excellent considering the wild number of warnings I received about the lack of good coffee in Ireland.
On Cork Lane near there were some excellent local artisans who made some awesome stuff. One guy who works in one of my favorite artistic styles whose name evades me completely. It’s really like ‘found art’ but anything that breaks the ‘4th wall’ between art and canvas works for me. This particular guy made bowls and display pieces in chunks of wood, allowing the natural contours of the bark to show through when it’s appropriate. It was truly brilliant.
We next wandered to Ha’Penny bridge and at Grafton street found plenty of familiar places; Starbucks, McDonalds, Burger King, all the stuff we were so desperate to escape. So it goes.
Trinity College
Our hotel was right near Trinity College so we stopped in for a tour but the last one had already left by 3:40. We did a naughty thing here and jumped on with an in-progress group, but I would have happily paid if given the chance. The campus is beautiful and I urge anyone to take the tour to get an idea of the college, there’s plenty of photo opportunities.
We ended the first night (and 32 hour day) with dinner at Porterhouse bar, which is known for it’s good food and craft beers. We both had the sampler which was three drinks each a third of a pint. We picked a Porter, a lager and ale each, all awesome.
I feel like I have too many good things to say. The weather sucks! When someone tells you that Ireland ‘is the country of four seasons in one day’ then nods sagely, they are not kidding. Everyone neglects to mention, however, that it includes monsoon season in that rotation. Bring an umbrella, preferably a sturdy one, and some warm clothes. Despite being here in the Irish summer, I was wearing 3 layers at all times, two being a hoodie and a jacket.
Weirdest thing so far? Stuff closes. I live in NY, this closing thing is totally ridiculous. Plan to get your shopping done early kids! They don’t mess around when it comes to quitting time in Ireland.
July 30, 2012
July 26, 2012
Reflect on Change
Today has been a day of reflection. Partially in the Buddhist sense, partially in the western reality check sense. If two years ago you told me I'd lose 100 pounds, get a tattoo, put 1,000 miles on a motorcycle, start writing a novella, attend a writing conference, and end a 6 year relationship, I would have scoffed. I definitely wouldn't believe you if you told me I was going to Ireland either, but here I stand on a precipice with two tickets and an appetite for the unknown.
Life is a chore, it can be a drag, and you can do two things with it: let it bring you down or rise despite it. I learned to be unsatisfied with what I was, what I had, and what I wanted. I wanted all that was easy, nothing that took effort, and had been afraid of change. Change is scary, change is hard, and most of all it upsets a status quo of ease we accept.
But fight it. When you reach the other side, reflect on change, and be satisfied.
This will be one place I don't pull an Irish goodbye. I'll be looking to update on Ireland if the places I'm staying have wifi, otherwise I will schedule a few posts when I get back. It'll be a full itinerary tagged separately using the blogger system so that if anyone is looking for ideas they can easily stroll through it. Ciao kids!
Life is a chore, it can be a drag, and you can do two things with it: let it bring you down or rise despite it. I learned to be unsatisfied with what I was, what I had, and what I wanted. I wanted all that was easy, nothing that took effort, and had been afraid of change. Change is scary, change is hard, and most of all it upsets a status quo of ease we accept.
But fight it. When you reach the other side, reflect on change, and be satisfied.
This will be one place I don't pull an Irish goodbye. I'll be looking to update on Ireland if the places I'm staying have wifi, otherwise I will schedule a few posts when I get back. It'll be a full itinerary tagged separately using the blogger system so that if anyone is looking for ideas they can easily stroll through it. Ciao kids!
July 23, 2012
Why Write? Oranges
Why write?
It's a devious question to ask. It's a dangerous question to ask. There are things you can do that have much simpler explanations: Why do you ride roller coasters? Because it's fun, it's a rush, I like that weird screaming/laughing thing people do on it. Why do you ride a motorcycle? I tried to convince myself it was because it was eco-friendly, but shit I just like the marriage of grace and screaming death you get from riding. Why do you drink? Because drunk. Simple.
But why write?
Writing is something for masochists. You basically go through 5 stages of writing a work and they follow thus:
1) Get an idea!
I have this great idea! I should write a (novel, poem, short story, etc).
You're super excited about your idea. You develop it in your mind, flesh it out, rack your brain on how to start it. Pretty soon it's boiling out your ears and all you want to do is commit it and rake in royalties for the next 10 years. You may piss off at work to scribble sentences in a notebook, you might spend lunchbreaks on a laptop, you may even carry notes in your cellphone.
Perfect title! Well, maybe a working title: "The Ur-Angeh"
2) You start to really write it
Yeah, now I'm getting in to the meat of it. The ideas are coming out on to the paper, it's all beautiful and pretty, and so easy!
You're etching meaning into something with permanence! Yes! Every sentence is another shining beacon of intellect and witty humor. You can smell the benjamins from here, move over 'Catch in the Rye', you're about to drop a bomb in the American subconscious.
That funny thing you did with the oranges was awesome, people are going to buy it just for that shit.
3) You start to really... actually... write it
Ugh, why is it taking so long to get this stuff out? I've been writing for 5 weeks straight! I've only got like, 40 pages! What the hell! This writing thing takes too long.
That boundless energy wears off. Now writing is just a second job you do at night once you're done cleaning off the barstools or teaching orphans how to read or murdering drifters to sell to the roach coach on Northern Boulevard.
I'll just half-ass some of those chapters. I can fill them in later. People will still be high on the oranges thing.
4) You finish it
I... I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! I've only got forty pages and twelve storylines to tie in, then off to the presses!
Ah, you're very close! Perhaps you're like me and you like to write the last chapter at the midpoint and see how well things tie in, maybe you just know how it ends and you just 'feel' it coming. Either way you're just about there. Not long now, then you can take a break from your indentured servitude.
Maybe if I bring back the orange thing right before the end, then that first orange thing was only foreshadowing the real orange thing. Yeah, that's good.
5) You start editing it
I get to read it in it's entirety! This is going to be great, I can finally see where all my hard work went and OH MY GOD THIS IS AWFUL. WHAT WAS I THINKING? I used "orange" nine times in two sentences! What is wrong with me?
Now you get to start from the beginning and read the whole thing through as if you weren't the putz that wrote it. That will be fun right? WRONG. You learned things while you were writing, probably read books and generated a style for the story. Now the beginning is wonky and you can tell the exact moment that phase one wore off because the writing takes a dramatic nosedive. Now for the pain of editing...
Fucking oranges man.
In short, I write because I hate myself on a very deep personal level and I prefer the hell I control to the one I'd experience huffing paint fumes in the alley behind the Walmart.
Or because it's great to create an entire world, a society, and to lay a glamor over someone else and bring them into it to experience a world created entirely from your imagination. But that sounds a little too trite.
I'll go with 'drunk' again.
It's a devious question to ask. It's a dangerous question to ask. There are things you can do that have much simpler explanations: Why do you ride roller coasters? Because it's fun, it's a rush, I like that weird screaming/laughing thing people do on it. Why do you ride a motorcycle? I tried to convince myself it was because it was eco-friendly, but shit I just like the marriage of grace and screaming death you get from riding. Why do you drink? Because drunk. Simple.
But why write?
Writing is something for masochists. You basically go through 5 stages of writing a work and they follow thus:
1) Get an idea!
I have this great idea! I should write a (novel, poem, short story, etc).
You're super excited about your idea. You develop it in your mind, flesh it out, rack your brain on how to start it. Pretty soon it's boiling out your ears and all you want to do is commit it and rake in royalties for the next 10 years. You may piss off at work to scribble sentences in a notebook, you might spend lunchbreaks on a laptop, you may even carry notes in your cellphone.
Perfect title! Well, maybe a working title: "The Ur-Angeh"
2) You start to really write it
Yeah, now I'm getting in to the meat of it. The ideas are coming out on to the paper, it's all beautiful and pretty, and so easy!
You're etching meaning into something with permanence! Yes! Every sentence is another shining beacon of intellect and witty humor. You can smell the benjamins from here, move over 'Catch in the Rye', you're about to drop a bomb in the American subconscious.
That funny thing you did with the oranges was awesome, people are going to buy it just for that shit.
3) You start to really... actually... write it
Ugh, why is it taking so long to get this stuff out? I've been writing for 5 weeks straight! I've only got like, 40 pages! What the hell! This writing thing takes too long.
That boundless energy wears off. Now writing is just a second job you do at night once you're done cleaning off the barstools or teaching orphans how to read or murdering drifters to sell to the roach coach on Northern Boulevard.
I'll just half-ass some of those chapters. I can fill them in later. People will still be high on the oranges thing.
4) You finish it
I... I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! I've only got forty pages and twelve storylines to tie in, then off to the presses!
Ah, you're very close! Perhaps you're like me and you like to write the last chapter at the midpoint and see how well things tie in, maybe you just know how it ends and you just 'feel' it coming. Either way you're just about there. Not long now, then you can take a break from your indentured servitude.
Maybe if I bring back the orange thing right before the end, then that first orange thing was only foreshadowing the real orange thing. Yeah, that's good.
5) You start editing it
I get to read it in it's entirety! This is going to be great, I can finally see where all my hard work went and OH MY GOD THIS IS AWFUL. WHAT WAS I THINKING? I used "orange" nine times in two sentences! What is wrong with me?
Now you get to start from the beginning and read the whole thing through as if you weren't the putz that wrote it. That will be fun right? WRONG. You learned things while you were writing, probably read books and generated a style for the story. Now the beginning is wonky and you can tell the exact moment that phase one wore off because the writing takes a dramatic nosedive. Now for the pain of editing...
Fucking oranges man.
In short, I write because I hate myself on a very deep personal level and I prefer the hell I control to the one I'd experience huffing paint fumes in the alley behind the Walmart.
Or because it's great to create an entire world, a society, and to lay a glamor over someone else and bring them into it to experience a world created entirely from your imagination. But that sounds a little too trite.
I'll go with 'drunk' again.
July 19, 2012
Oil Changes
Anyone that knows me well knows I'm not all that handy. I most recently got a reminder when I busted my motorcycle mirror at the stem (bear combat) and tried to replace it. Despite the realization I could have used a socket wrench with a 6in extension to save me 2 hours of work, the actual disassembly and reassembly of the dash went fine... except that I didn't tighten one of the mirror nuts enough and it ejected while I was riding a few days after my 'repair'.
I don't want to go on a tangent, but I feel it's important to note I'm terribly lazy and it's still an issue. Anyway, I finally decided it was about damn time to get my 1000 mile checkup (at 1,150 miles) so I went to call my dealership/mechanic...
They are closed. Like super closed. So closed that the old building is being used to sell "As Seen On TV" shit.
So I turned to some friends, then coworkers for a bike mechanic. The leads didn't pan out so I ran to the source of all solid advice: the internets. I posted on the r/Motorcycle reddit and was informed that the 1,000 mile maintenance isn't anything technical, just an oil change (important for a new motor), tire pressure checks and tightening shit. I thought, "I can tighten shit! I check tire pressure! What's all this about oil though?"
Bear in mind the last thing I wanted to do after the (ongoing) mirror fiasco was get too involved with maintenance. If I'm anything I'm contradictory and as such I commenced youtubing and googling.
Autozone nearby claimed they had the parts I needed so the girlfriend and I piled into my car and made a quick run over that weekend. Surprise surprise though, someone fibbed. The attendant was a good guy and told me of a nearby Autozone and Advance that carry motorcycle stuff. Still annoyed at the 'zone I punched us over to Advance and found all my stuff.
In the morning I went out with my pan, oil, oil filter, oil filter wrench, and acquired my tool kit from the seat storage. I was ready.
My girlfriend meandered out to watch. I suspect she wanted either to see me sensationally burn myself while ruining my engine block and/or to make snide comments about how little I knew about what I was doing. And she fulfilled her quota on the latter many times over while I struggled with "righty-tighty lefty-loosey" (Protip: If the screw is upside down, it's backwards) and socket wrench operation.
But my bike is purring like a kitten! I've learned a lot and I'll never have to pay for another oil change for my bike.
I spent all of $30 for all the supplies but took away some good stuff.
1) Doing your own maintenance is cheap
2) Knowing you did what you were supposed to is nicer then wondering if a mechanic is honest
3) Girls are not particularly impressed by oil changes
4) Riding a bike after you've worked on it is awesome
I don't want to go on a tangent, but I feel it's important to note I'm terribly lazy and it's still an issue. Anyway, I finally decided it was about damn time to get my 1000 mile checkup (at 1,150 miles) so I went to call my dealership/mechanic...
They are closed. Like super closed. So closed that the old building is being used to sell "As Seen On TV" shit.
So I turned to some friends, then coworkers for a bike mechanic. The leads didn't pan out so I ran to the source of all solid advice: the internets. I posted on the r/Motorcycle reddit and was informed that the 1,000 mile maintenance isn't anything technical, just an oil change (important for a new motor), tire pressure checks and tightening shit. I thought, "I can tighten shit! I check tire pressure! What's all this about oil though?"
Bear in mind the last thing I wanted to do after the (ongoing) mirror fiasco was get too involved with maintenance. If I'm anything I'm contradictory and as such I commenced youtubing and googling.
Autozone nearby claimed they had the parts I needed so the girlfriend and I piled into my car and made a quick run over that weekend. Surprise surprise though, someone fibbed. The attendant was a good guy and told me of a nearby Autozone and Advance that carry motorcycle stuff. Still annoyed at the 'zone I punched us over to Advance and found all my stuff.
In the morning I went out with my pan, oil, oil filter, oil filter wrench, and acquired my tool kit from the seat storage. I was ready.
My girlfriend meandered out to watch. I suspect she wanted either to see me sensationally burn myself while ruining my engine block and/or to make snide comments about how little I knew about what I was doing. And she fulfilled her quota on the latter many times over while I struggled with "righty-tighty lefty-loosey" (Protip: If the screw is upside down, it's backwards) and socket wrench operation.
 |
| Pictured left - Celebratory whiskey that happens to be proper color of oil, right - my oil |
I spent all of $30 for all the supplies but took away some good stuff.
1) Doing your own maintenance is cheap
2) Knowing you did what you were supposed to is nicer then wondering if a mechanic is honest
3) Girls are not particularly impressed by oil changes
4) Riding a bike after you've worked on it is awesome
July 17, 2012
Twilight and the "Reading Decline"
[Ed note: I have not nor do I plan to read the twilight series. It's not because I'm counter-culture or anything, I just don't care for romance novels. I have read one of Stephanie Meyer's other works and think that she has great potential as a writer of science fiction and I wish her the best of luck in the future]
I was putzing around reddit.com's r/writing subreddit (Instead of actually writing) and came across a very interesting series of comments about the Twilight story and its success. People are surprised and appalled by the success of the series because of a laundry list of complaints; the characters are one-dimensional, the conflict can be resolved simply within the setting, it sets a bad example for tweens, whatever.
No one pisses and moans when a war strategy book appeals to a wide audience (Ender's Game), or when wizard stories grab children's imaginations (Harry Potter), or when a group of children murders one-another in cold blood for 3 books (The Hunger Games). But god forbid if you grab some tween attention from a book with some plot holes.
Look, girls and woman are going to dream about their perfect romance. If they're channeling it through a sparkly vampire, whatever. Stephanie Meyer created a work in the public space that became popular, and pioneered it into a series of movies that did well at the box-office because the books were popular. That is a huge achievement. It may not be the best writing, the characters might not be incredibly deep or interesting, but she got people reading. How can anyone, as a reader, be mad about that?
According to the National Endowment of the Arts research paper Reading on the Rise (2009), American adult readers have grown almost 7% since 2002 with the 18-24 age bracket growing by 3.4 million readers. Mind you that the first Harry Potter came out in 1997, the next two books in 1999, next in 2000, then 2003, 2005, and the last in 2007.
This is the first time the NEA has seen growth in readership in 20 years. Previously we were looking at a loss of 20% of readers since 1982. Now it's only 10%, and hopefully it will improve from there with more 'blockbuster' young adult lit (whether or not people deign it to be acceptable). On a personal note, I'm excited to see the reading of fiction is responsible for nearly half of the increase.
Readers and non-readers in the US are now to polarized groups each at near 50% of the population. It's an interesting demographic change!
Also note that poetry is in steep decline. Sorry guys! :(
Literature (yes literature) like Twilight, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games are going to feed adult readers. It may not be in earth-shattering numbers but it will be. And as a writer and an advocate of literature, I just want people to be reading and consuming content.
If it starts at Twilight, maybe it will evolve to be Nietzsche some day. Maybe someone will find, from reading about sparkly vampires, something people identify with having more 'meat' like the book I am Legend. I think we need to stop attacking people for their taste and just be glad they're licking.
A writer can dream, can't he?
I was putzing around reddit.com's r/writing subreddit (Instead of actually writing) and came across a very interesting series of comments about the Twilight story and its success. People are surprised and appalled by the success of the series because of a laundry list of complaints; the characters are one-dimensional, the conflict can be resolved simply within the setting, it sets a bad example for tweens, whatever.
No one pisses and moans when a war strategy book appeals to a wide audience (Ender's Game), or when wizard stories grab children's imaginations (Harry Potter), or when a group of children murders one-another in cold blood for 3 books (The Hunger Games). But god forbid if you grab some tween attention from a book with some plot holes.
Look, girls and woman are going to dream about their perfect romance. If they're channeling it through a sparkly vampire, whatever. Stephanie Meyer created a work in the public space that became popular, and pioneered it into a series of movies that did well at the box-office because the books were popular. That is a huge achievement. It may not be the best writing, the characters might not be incredibly deep or interesting, but she got people reading. How can anyone, as a reader, be mad about that?
According to the National Endowment of the Arts research paper Reading on the Rise (2009), American adult readers have grown almost 7% since 2002 with the 18-24 age bracket growing by 3.4 million readers. Mind you that the first Harry Potter came out in 1997, the next two books in 1999, next in 2000, then 2003, 2005, and the last in 2007.
This is the first time the NEA has seen growth in readership in 20 years. Previously we were looking at a loss of 20% of readers since 1982. Now it's only 10%, and hopefully it will improve from there with more 'blockbuster' young adult lit (whether or not people deign it to be acceptable). On a personal note, I'm excited to see the reading of fiction is responsible for nearly half of the increase.
Readers and non-readers in the US are now to polarized groups each at near 50% of the population. It's an interesting demographic change!
Also note that poetry is in steep decline. Sorry guys! :(
Literature (yes literature) like Twilight, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games are going to feed adult readers. It may not be in earth-shattering numbers but it will be. And as a writer and an advocate of literature, I just want people to be reading and consuming content.
If it starts at Twilight, maybe it will evolve to be Nietzsche some day. Maybe someone will find, from reading about sparkly vampires, something people identify with having more 'meat' like the book I am Legend. I think we need to stop attacking people for their taste and just be glad they're licking.
A writer can dream, can't he?
July 12, 2012
Book Review: The Year of the Flood (Sequel to "Oryx and Crake")
"The Year of the Flood" by Margaret Atwood is the successor to "Oryx and Crake" and delivers a completely different experience; you won't be reading much about Snowman in this installment.
Instead it follows the lives of two characters much in the style of the first book, right before the plague rips through the earth and demolishes most human life. Both are members of the Gardener sect casually mentioned by Snowman in the first book and appear to be foils of one-another.
Once again Atwood took on the concept of perspective and time and played with them: pay careful attention at the beginning and end of chapters and you'll be fine. Being slingshot around like this is jarring, but I have a feeling it was intentional in order to create for the reader a sense of what living in this future utopia/dystopia as the last remaining would feel like; living day-to-day with the horror of memory to break up the monotony.
Atwood plays short games of tag with the characters and situations presented in "Oryx and Crake". You can tell Atwood wrote these books together or at least with the stories crossing in mind. Some of the previous aspects of the society that were left to the imagination before were dredged up and put to the forefront here, with cameos of the characters from the previous installment.
All in all it's another home run. This woman has got it! Unfortunately the next (and last) part of the trilogy has yet to be complete; she's planning a 2013 publish for "Maddaddam".
This is another must-read for science-fiction genre enthusiasts, and I implore others to do the same. Atwood's raising plenty of interesting questions in this new world, and morality plays a big part.
Instead it follows the lives of two characters much in the style of the first book, right before the plague rips through the earth and demolishes most human life. Both are members of the Gardener sect casually mentioned by Snowman in the first book and appear to be foils of one-another.
Once again Atwood took on the concept of perspective and time and played with them: pay careful attention at the beginning and end of chapters and you'll be fine. Being slingshot around like this is jarring, but I have a feeling it was intentional in order to create for the reader a sense of what living in this future utopia/dystopia as the last remaining would feel like; living day-to-day with the horror of memory to break up the monotony.
Atwood plays short games of tag with the characters and situations presented in "Oryx and Crake". You can tell Atwood wrote these books together or at least with the stories crossing in mind. Some of the previous aspects of the society that were left to the imagination before were dredged up and put to the forefront here, with cameos of the characters from the previous installment.
All in all it's another home run. This woman has got it! Unfortunately the next (and last) part of the trilogy has yet to be complete; she's planning a 2013 publish for "Maddaddam".
This is another must-read for science-fiction genre enthusiasts, and I implore others to do the same. Atwood's raising plenty of interesting questions in this new world, and morality plays a big part.
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