January 2, 2008
Bought a packet of white shirts at Marks & Spencer’s, and it feels special to crawl into a white shirt of a morning, especially after a night when no white shirts were worn.
I hiked across town New Year’s Night to the National Concert Hall to hear a concert by the National Symphony. In the lobby, the biddy factor was high, so I should have known what was coming. I bought the ticket to have something to do that night, without even asking what the program was. Predictably, the music was waltz-y, Strauss-y, very Viennese. I wonder how the Viennese managed to capture New Year’s? The music was unchallenging, frothy, amusing, and at the end I realized I’d had a good time. The conductor was an excellent showman; the soprano was a local favorite, and the tenor–one Michael Bracegirdle–was superb. I was seated almost under the stage, near enough to hit the concertmaster with a brick thrown underhand, and I could watch every detail of the soloists’ physical technique. My location made the orchestra sound stringy, and I knew the mix was off for me a little. It will be years before I need to hear Strauss–those Strausses–or Lehar again.
Ranged the darkness for a while. Found an alley for an emergency piss, like a good Irishman. I ended up at the George, which I didn’t think I would do. I met many, so it was some angel led me there. Ray was compact, handsome, maybe a little desiccated, as though he had been left out in the sun too long. He looked very gentle, but also very disillusioned by everything around him. I was interested, but I could feel his interest cooling into the default mode of polite disappointment. John with his prematurely white hair was garrulous and funny, but also a little competitive, the way educated Irish sometimes are. I said something which he thought was profound, and we spent the rest of our time together dealing with that, he alternately challenging and honoring the intelligence which I’d had–God knows–no intention of revealing. Had to refuse his offer of a bed for the night, as I had no stomach to continue fighting that fight. One slurring but quite beautiful Irishman suggested an alliance between us, but in the end he was too drunk, and all the name I have for him is “Sheeshosh.” he looked like a farmer out of a Benton painting, all sinew and shoulder. Sweet Martin was from Brasilia and makes pizza in a Dublin suburb it would cost him a hundred euros to taxi to if he missed the last bus.
Then came Francisco. Francisco is from Barcelona, with the dark, fragile beauty and sculpted black hairline of Spaniards. He was twenty six, I would guess, perhaps younger, and as great as his beauty was, the beauty of his spontaneous, absolutely un-self-conscious affection was greater. Francisco was kissing me within moments. I did myself proud by not asking why, but responding one for one. His demonstrativeness might have been embarrassing in another place, or if I had very much of a capacity to be embarrassed. I couldn’t stop smiling, even laughing, with his dark head burrowing into my chest. I think he and I were playing in different theaters, but as he had little English and I no Spanish to speak of, our separate dramas could keep their uncommunicated purity. I walked him home to his hostel. He wasn’t very drunk but he was very– something– innocent?–and I was afraid for him. I’m glad I made the effort. He didn’t have a private room in the hostel, and if it didn’t bother him, it didn’t bother me, either. I have met men who were pure desire. Francisco was something else. He was pure generosity. At one point I lost consciousness– it’s melodramatic to add “wafted off in a sea of bliss,” but that was precisely the case–and when I came to he was kissing my eyelids, the cardamon-scented warmth of his body all around me. I left when Francisco fell asleep, his body buried so hard into my chest that I didn’t know how to breathe. I left because the room was beginning to fill with other guests, and I didn’t know how to make my excuses with my reason for being there asleep. In any case, bless Spain. Bless Catalonia. Bless the gold sun and the gold son of the Mediterranean.
The thought crossed my mind concerning Francisco’s choice in the bar, “Why me?” I was likely not the only one asking that. I think the answer is that he knew he was a fountain, and he needed a deep pool to contain him. He knew he was a whirlwind and he looked for the jagged coast which could endure his onslaught.
All the beggars in Ireland are frauds.
Pavel wants to send Edward the King to a theater in Prague. He asks me if I mind.
The toilet in my room flushes with warm water.
The special display at the National Library is Yeats. After coffee in a French café where you can look out on Dawson Street through a great bubble of a window, I hurried there, whimpering with greed at the not-yet-open door. It was a series of videos about his life, quite well done, along with objects such as specimens of handwriting and a trophy he won in a foot race as a schoolboy. I could not hear the poems read without weeping. There were movies of the poet, as well, which were a good thing. One assumes he moved like a heron or a phantom, but among family and friends, drinking and laughing, he was a strong natural Irishman, and that put a foundation under all. Yeats is my spiritual father. There amid the ghosts of my father I realized it was time to stop mourning and start spending the inheritance.
Crossed the street to see Hugh Leonard’s adaptation of Great Expectations at the Gate. I had planned not to like it, but in fact it was thrilling, and, as I had never read the book, the surprises were an actual surprise.
There is a terrible wind. I keep thinking of horses.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Dublin
January 1, 2008
I set out like a panther in a new forest last night. I stopped at pubs along what I supposed from signs I saw on the bridge to be Tara Street. Began at Kennedy’s, where the barman reeked of urine, which was a shame, as he was a tall, strapping man. Went from bar to bar feeling drunk and free and happy, but my steps were winding, whether I willed it or not, toward Camden Street and familiar territory. There too I went from pub to pub, choosing those which didn’t seem stuffed yet with revelers. I was hungry and very drunk, so I stopped at Bo Bo’s, a place advertizing “gourmet Irish hamburgers,” hamburgers with different toppings named after places in Ireland. I could even get one wrapped in lettuce rather than a bun. The place was fronted by a graceful Argentine named Sebastian. Sebastian’s brother guarded the door, and a Chinese kid with the most perfect manners did the cooking. Sebastian covered me with a variety of Argentine blessings for the new year, and accepted my drunken benedictions in return. Worked my way through the Grafton area. Grafton Street is hung with faux light curtains and chandeliers of lights, as though it were a great ballroom. Finally found myself in the Temple Bar, thronged and merry. The night was mild enough that boys were rampaging in T-shirts and the girls were out in low-cut and high-hemmed sparkly dresses. Hare Krishnas came dancing into one side of the square, while American frat boys bellowed out cowboy songs in another. Found myself pressed against a boy from Belfast who was–I gather– a professional golfer who had played in Atlanta and lived for a while, unhappily, in Pennsylvania. He looked like a very young Bob Hope, which, so much time having passed, he is likely never to have been told. Clocks strike midnight at different times in Dublin, but I think it struck first in Temple Square. Everybody was kissing everybody, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, the big boys traveling together on a lark. Nobody was kissing me, and I was too embarrassed to solicit it, even for luck. How much luck is a coerced kiss? In an analytical sense, it was the saddest moment of my life, an old man with nobody to kiss him at the stroke of midnight, surrounded by those whose most careless gesture won for them what a lifetime of exertion had failed to win for him. But, except in the moment it took to perceive and say all that, I was not sad. I was in fact quite merry, quite genuinely happy. I was in my way happier than they, for while they had their separate and particular nourishment, I was sampling from a table that offered thousands. I was like one of those aliens in the space movies which feed upon human emotions, and the emotion which fed me was joy, and all my gluttony didn’t seem to diminish the supply. If a movie director had set up a scene to exemplify mirth and goofy goodwill among the many-colored and many-tongued variety, he could not have done as well as New Years night in Dublin did by chance.
Garda were arresting and giving lectures along O’Connell Street. Drunken Irish men (and women) were arguing bitterly with them, but I thought if they had an American cop to compare to theirs, they would bless the night and the stars.
New Year’s Morning. Misty first-dawn now. I am ready for it. Wandered through the rainy morning, which never seemed to include actual rain. Found Grogan’s open near Grafton Street. It’s a remarkable pub, its walls covered with art in a wide variety of styles, and a wide spectrum of quality. It’s the sort of pub I might run if I ran one. The most impressive objects are two works in lighted glass, one a striking mass of portraits, the other a rendition of the interior of the pub itself. Beautiful. But what knocked this fine experience askew was the behavior of the bartender, an object-tossing oaf of a man who clearly woke New Year’s morning with a grudge or a hangover or both. He threw four lovely girls out of the pub because he suspected they had been out all night. They almost certainly had been, by the look of them, but I wondered why it was his issue, what justified his display of self-righteousness, why he thought denying them morning coffee struck a blow for morality. I’ll come to Grogan’s again, just to see if the beauty of the art balances, finally, the ugliness of the proprietor.
Went to the National Museum on Kildare Street, and ogled the bog men in their miraculous state of preservation. One had his nipples cut off. Among the ancient Gael, sucking the nipples of the king was a sign of submission; so, no nipples, no hope of kingship. You’d think being dead and in a bog would curtail that ambition just as well.
I set out like a panther in a new forest last night. I stopped at pubs along what I supposed from signs I saw on the bridge to be Tara Street. Began at Kennedy’s, where the barman reeked of urine, which was a shame, as he was a tall, strapping man. Went from bar to bar feeling drunk and free and happy, but my steps were winding, whether I willed it or not, toward Camden Street and familiar territory. There too I went from pub to pub, choosing those which didn’t seem stuffed yet with revelers. I was hungry and very drunk, so I stopped at Bo Bo’s, a place advertizing “gourmet Irish hamburgers,” hamburgers with different toppings named after places in Ireland. I could even get one wrapped in lettuce rather than a bun. The place was fronted by a graceful Argentine named Sebastian. Sebastian’s brother guarded the door, and a Chinese kid with the most perfect manners did the cooking. Sebastian covered me with a variety of Argentine blessings for the new year, and accepted my drunken benedictions in return. Worked my way through the Grafton area. Grafton Street is hung with faux light curtains and chandeliers of lights, as though it were a great ballroom. Finally found myself in the Temple Bar, thronged and merry. The night was mild enough that boys were rampaging in T-shirts and the girls were out in low-cut and high-hemmed sparkly dresses. Hare Krishnas came dancing into one side of the square, while American frat boys bellowed out cowboy songs in another. Found myself pressed against a boy from Belfast who was–I gather– a professional golfer who had played in Atlanta and lived for a while, unhappily, in Pennsylvania. He looked like a very young Bob Hope, which, so much time having passed, he is likely never to have been told. Clocks strike midnight at different times in Dublin, but I think it struck first in Temple Square. Everybody was kissing everybody, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, the big boys traveling together on a lark. Nobody was kissing me, and I was too embarrassed to solicit it, even for luck. How much luck is a coerced kiss? In an analytical sense, it was the saddest moment of my life, an old man with nobody to kiss him at the stroke of midnight, surrounded by those whose most careless gesture won for them what a lifetime of exertion had failed to win for him. But, except in the moment it took to perceive and say all that, I was not sad. I was in fact quite merry, quite genuinely happy. I was in my way happier than they, for while they had their separate and particular nourishment, I was sampling from a table that offered thousands. I was like one of those aliens in the space movies which feed upon human emotions, and the emotion which fed me was joy, and all my gluttony didn’t seem to diminish the supply. If a movie director had set up a scene to exemplify mirth and goofy goodwill among the many-colored and many-tongued variety, he could not have done as well as New Years night in Dublin did by chance.
Garda were arresting and giving lectures along O’Connell Street. Drunken Irish men (and women) were arguing bitterly with them, but I thought if they had an American cop to compare to theirs, they would bless the night and the stars.
New Year’s Morning. Misty first-dawn now. I am ready for it. Wandered through the rainy morning, which never seemed to include actual rain. Found Grogan’s open near Grafton Street. It’s a remarkable pub, its walls covered with art in a wide variety of styles, and a wide spectrum of quality. It’s the sort of pub I might run if I ran one. The most impressive objects are two works in lighted glass, one a striking mass of portraits, the other a rendition of the interior of the pub itself. Beautiful. But what knocked this fine experience askew was the behavior of the bartender, an object-tossing oaf of a man who clearly woke New Year’s morning with a grudge or a hangover or both. He threw four lovely girls out of the pub because he suspected they had been out all night. They almost certainly had been, by the look of them, but I wondered why it was his issue, what justified his display of self-righteousness, why he thought denying them morning coffee struck a blow for morality. I’ll come to Grogan’s again, just to see if the beauty of the art balances, finally, the ugliness of the proprietor.
Went to the National Museum on Kildare Street, and ogled the bog men in their miraculous state of preservation. One had his nipples cut off. Among the ancient Gael, sucking the nipples of the king was a sign of submission; so, no nipples, no hope of kingship. You’d think being dead and in a bog would curtail that ambition just as well.
Dublin
At Trastevere
There is something to be relieved about
to have you far away
and me here at my table for one,
able to gaze at the stunning Italians next door,
able to gaze at the gray sky comma-ed with gulls,
at the fire-dancers in the square.
instead of your half-hidden
girders of cheekbone,
black wrath of hair,
those blue eyes
bewildering, inflaming, enemies to every other appetite.
I know there is a blue under the waves
the color of them.
I would dive for it even if I didn’t know how far.
There is something to be said for consuming
this goddamn salad
with the same salt sea in neap tide from my eyes.
Yes, waiter, I would like another glass of red.
I am crying over that.
The Italians at the next table see me.
Watch me, then. Watch me lean over, making the gesture
of the connoisseur,
shaking it down upon my plate. I’ll say,
“You cannot know the savor, salted like this,
thinking of him, and he, thank God, years now away.”
December 31, 2007
Took an early bus to Dun Laoghaire. It’s a pretty town, but something, maybe DJ’s account of it long ago, made me expect more. The Irish Sea lay gray and calm, gulls arrayed around his head like a crown. I didn’t know whether to walk by the sea or through the down. I chose the town, and I think that was wrong.
I stopped at the town’s bookshop and asked for Gogarty. One being told that Gogarty was a poet, the girl said, “Ah, all the poetry is down in the cellar for the Christmas season.”
Late lunch at Trastevere put it into my head that I should go seeking Diarmuid. I ate there with him, and then watched him moving on the other side of the glass, with the people in the street stopping with their mouths open to stare at him. What a romantic idea, having only his name and the remembrance of a body. I believe those old stories, though, where lover finds lover through impossible odds. It could happen. That it doesn’t happen to me doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I stood in Temple Square looking this way and that, not knowing where to begin, then realizing there was no way to begin, no reason once more to be going down that road. If he had looked for me once he could have found me. I pressed my book into his hands. If he googled me I would be there on forty pages, and any one would lead him to me. No, that’s not the shape my life took. Finish the excellent lunch and move on.
There is something to be relieved about
to have you far away
and me here at my table for one,
able to gaze at the stunning Italians next door,
able to gaze at the gray sky comma-ed with gulls,
at the fire-dancers in the square.
instead of your half-hidden
girders of cheekbone,
black wrath of hair,
those blue eyes
bewildering, inflaming, enemies to every other appetite.
I know there is a blue under the waves
the color of them.
I would dive for it even if I didn’t know how far.
There is something to be said for consuming
this goddamn salad
with the same salt sea in neap tide from my eyes.
Yes, waiter, I would like another glass of red.
I am crying over that.
The Italians at the next table see me.
Watch me, then. Watch me lean over, making the gesture
of the connoisseur,
shaking it down upon my plate. I’ll say,
“You cannot know the savor, salted like this,
thinking of him, and he, thank God, years now away.”
December 31, 2007
Took an early bus to Dun Laoghaire. It’s a pretty town, but something, maybe DJ’s account of it long ago, made me expect more. The Irish Sea lay gray and calm, gulls arrayed around his head like a crown. I didn’t know whether to walk by the sea or through the down. I chose the town, and I think that was wrong.
I stopped at the town’s bookshop and asked for Gogarty. One being told that Gogarty was a poet, the girl said, “Ah, all the poetry is down in the cellar for the Christmas season.”
Late lunch at Trastevere put it into my head that I should go seeking Diarmuid. I ate there with him, and then watched him moving on the other side of the glass, with the people in the street stopping with their mouths open to stare at him. What a romantic idea, having only his name and the remembrance of a body. I believe those old stories, though, where lover finds lover through impossible odds. It could happen. That it doesn’t happen to me doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I stood in Temple Square looking this way and that, not knowing where to begin, then realizing there was no way to begin, no reason once more to be going down that road. If he had looked for me once he could have found me. I pressed my book into his hands. If he googled me I would be there on forty pages, and any one would lead him to me. No, that’s not the shape my life took. Finish the excellent lunch and move on.
Dublin
December 30, 2007
Last night at the concierge’s suggestion I went to the Brazen Head, where drinks have been served since 1198. Eight hundred and more years later it is still crowded and loud and pulsing with mirth, if rather too full of American tourists, in which group I never count myself.
Out on the Liffey is closed, replaced by a poxy garlicky restaurant. I think of the joy I had in past times from those three grubby rooms (if you count the loo) and I weep.
Visited the George, where there was nothing, then out into the Temple Bar, where there was plenty. Talked a while to a lanky Frenchman who kept a notebook, one section of which was dedicated to the origins of people he met. Under “Ohio” he already had “Akron”–which I found amazing, somehow– but I was able to add Asheville to his North Carolina list. His name is Cyriac (Cyriaque). And he was delighted when I was able to quote to him Milton’s poem, “Cyriac my grandsire . . . ,” which he had never heard, and which he wrote down greedily in his book. Even, I suppose, as I do now.
Late in the day now I must say this has been one of the remarkable days of my life, though whether I can tell of it, or will want to tell of it, when the time comes I don’t know. Maybe the center of it should remain secret knowledge, so all may work itself out in the secret gardens where it grows best.
Rose, of course, too early to have access to any of the places I needed to go. It was too early for services at Christ Church, so I had coffee at Jury’s across the street–free coffee, as it turned out, for the till girl, American Alana, had run out of change. As I sipped my free and therefore sweet coffee and waited for church, it felt as though a roof in my brain was peeling back, and a clear, brisk illumination pouring in. I crossed the street and sat down. The beautiful floor of Christ Church was all around me. I speculated on the shapes in the floor, especially the doughboy dogs–dogs on their hind legs, wearing helmets and backbacks, and walking with walking sticks-- which seem to be the central motif not only of the floor but the new chairs as well. I finally asked the old gent next to me, and he said they are meant to be Franciscan monks, rendered as pilgrim wolves because they used to scurry down to the Liffey to beg alms from newly arrived sailors and voyagers, alms which the clergy of Christ Church believed rightfully to belong to themselves. A thousand year old grudge repeated endlessly, expensively, in imperishable stone. The sermon was something about how we should tolerate Muslims because the Holy Family fled from Herod to safety in Egypt. I wondered why the Flight into Egypt should be celebrated before the Epiphany, but nobody had an answer for me. Coffee in the crypt afterwards, where I go whenever I can, for I love it so much, where you can see the still older wall built by King Silkbeard when everybody was a Viking, where I talked with an American woman who had moved to Ireland to do good deeds for the insane. Something like that. Had lunch at the Bull and Castle, in a little bowed-out window where I could watch all those passing between me and the cathedral, all those pausing to read the menu board. I thought, thought, thought all the while. Then I went to Dublin Castle. Meanwhile, the Bull and Castle meal (or the Irish coffee with which I ended it) was making me sick, so I had to find a place to vomit, and finally asked for the combination of the locked lavatory (it had become a gay cruising area, and we can’t have that) and the combination is 1-3-1-1, in case anyone is in the same state as I. And I vomited heartily, almost endlessly, and when I was done I strolled to the Chester Beatty Library, where there are lovely oriental things, including a stunning series of prints called One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, and I kept writing The Beautiful Floor of Christ Church and One Hundred Aspects of the Moon alternately in my notebook, as though some great discovery or work were going to come out of one or the other of them, and then I climbed up to the roof garden, and there, amid the rooftops and spires, with the gulls gold-bellied from sunset flying over, the vision was complete in three seconds.
For the first time I saw the shape of my life. It has a story, and not a bad one, when it comes to that, if not a spectacularly good one. It is easier to feel, to see, than to explain, and the explanation makes it seem more fragmentary that it feels, for some hurts must be protected always. I know now the story that will make life make sense, a story that I have been telling accidentally (or however you describe the power that rules the word) the whole time, a story substantially true, but which I have made truer by, I suppose, the subconscious recognition that I must. I don’t think I’ll tell it. I’ll let my work tell it. Some of it I will keep utterly to my heart. It is better than it might have been. I can work with it. It is worse than it might have been, too, in ways that seem to me arbitrary and wilful. But I can argue or I can go on, and I choose at this moment to go on.
It is a comedy, by the way. Sometimes it is actually funny, but I don’t mean that. I mean that all the invitations to degradation are ultimately refused. I don’t know exactly where the roof will be, but I stand upon the floor, and it is pretty high, and will not now sink under the flood.
One bit I will tell, and it is one of the funny parts: never was there a man whose appearance was more at odds with the qualities of his spirit. This is why I became an artist, so that one part might be explained to the other.
Doors which were always locked are not locked now.
The wine knows what cup will hold it.
The apprenticeship is over, the masters found, the workshop built. The work begins.
(You really can go on like this forever, once you get into the groove–)
Walked late. Went to a bar called Joxer’s. I guess the guidebooks would call Joxer’s “rough” if they mentioned it at all. A video was playing, with Dolly Parton at one moment and Andie MacDowell at another. I felt they were messages from home. Went to the Blue Goose, which had swallowed up Out on the Liffey. It looks the same, except the beer is Polish and nobody was there. Walked and walked. It is still a thrill to stand where Michael Collins stood, to touch a stone Maud Gonne touched as she walked.
Here’s a secret: I am better than I say I am. My secret places are not dark, but too bright to show.
Last night at the concierge’s suggestion I went to the Brazen Head, where drinks have been served since 1198. Eight hundred and more years later it is still crowded and loud and pulsing with mirth, if rather too full of American tourists, in which group I never count myself.
Out on the Liffey is closed, replaced by a poxy garlicky restaurant. I think of the joy I had in past times from those three grubby rooms (if you count the loo) and I weep.
Visited the George, where there was nothing, then out into the Temple Bar, where there was plenty. Talked a while to a lanky Frenchman who kept a notebook, one section of which was dedicated to the origins of people he met. Under “Ohio” he already had “Akron”–which I found amazing, somehow– but I was able to add Asheville to his North Carolina list. His name is Cyriac (Cyriaque). And he was delighted when I was able to quote to him Milton’s poem, “Cyriac my grandsire . . . ,” which he had never heard, and which he wrote down greedily in his book. Even, I suppose, as I do now.
Late in the day now I must say this has been one of the remarkable days of my life, though whether I can tell of it, or will want to tell of it, when the time comes I don’t know. Maybe the center of it should remain secret knowledge, so all may work itself out in the secret gardens where it grows best.
Rose, of course, too early to have access to any of the places I needed to go. It was too early for services at Christ Church, so I had coffee at Jury’s across the street–free coffee, as it turned out, for the till girl, American Alana, had run out of change. As I sipped my free and therefore sweet coffee and waited for church, it felt as though a roof in my brain was peeling back, and a clear, brisk illumination pouring in. I crossed the street and sat down. The beautiful floor of Christ Church was all around me. I speculated on the shapes in the floor, especially the doughboy dogs–dogs on their hind legs, wearing helmets and backbacks, and walking with walking sticks-- which seem to be the central motif not only of the floor but the new chairs as well. I finally asked the old gent next to me, and he said they are meant to be Franciscan monks, rendered as pilgrim wolves because they used to scurry down to the Liffey to beg alms from newly arrived sailors and voyagers, alms which the clergy of Christ Church believed rightfully to belong to themselves. A thousand year old grudge repeated endlessly, expensively, in imperishable stone. The sermon was something about how we should tolerate Muslims because the Holy Family fled from Herod to safety in Egypt. I wondered why the Flight into Egypt should be celebrated before the Epiphany, but nobody had an answer for me. Coffee in the crypt afterwards, where I go whenever I can, for I love it so much, where you can see the still older wall built by King Silkbeard when everybody was a Viking, where I talked with an American woman who had moved to Ireland to do good deeds for the insane. Something like that. Had lunch at the Bull and Castle, in a little bowed-out window where I could watch all those passing between me and the cathedral, all those pausing to read the menu board. I thought, thought, thought all the while. Then I went to Dublin Castle. Meanwhile, the Bull and Castle meal (or the Irish coffee with which I ended it) was making me sick, so I had to find a place to vomit, and finally asked for the combination of the locked lavatory (it had become a gay cruising area, and we can’t have that) and the combination is 1-3-1-1, in case anyone is in the same state as I. And I vomited heartily, almost endlessly, and when I was done I strolled to the Chester Beatty Library, where there are lovely oriental things, including a stunning series of prints called One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, and I kept writing The Beautiful Floor of Christ Church and One Hundred Aspects of the Moon alternately in my notebook, as though some great discovery or work were going to come out of one or the other of them, and then I climbed up to the roof garden, and there, amid the rooftops and spires, with the gulls gold-bellied from sunset flying over, the vision was complete in three seconds.
For the first time I saw the shape of my life. It has a story, and not a bad one, when it comes to that, if not a spectacularly good one. It is easier to feel, to see, than to explain, and the explanation makes it seem more fragmentary that it feels, for some hurts must be protected always. I know now the story that will make life make sense, a story that I have been telling accidentally (or however you describe the power that rules the word) the whole time, a story substantially true, but which I have made truer by, I suppose, the subconscious recognition that I must. I don’t think I’ll tell it. I’ll let my work tell it. Some of it I will keep utterly to my heart. It is better than it might have been. I can work with it. It is worse than it might have been, too, in ways that seem to me arbitrary and wilful. But I can argue or I can go on, and I choose at this moment to go on.
It is a comedy, by the way. Sometimes it is actually funny, but I don’t mean that. I mean that all the invitations to degradation are ultimately refused. I don’t know exactly where the roof will be, but I stand upon the floor, and it is pretty high, and will not now sink under the flood.
One bit I will tell, and it is one of the funny parts: never was there a man whose appearance was more at odds with the qualities of his spirit. This is why I became an artist, so that one part might be explained to the other.
Doors which were always locked are not locked now.
The wine knows what cup will hold it.
The apprenticeship is over, the masters found, the workshop built. The work begins.
(You really can go on like this forever, once you get into the groove–)
Walked late. Went to a bar called Joxer’s. I guess the guidebooks would call Joxer’s “rough” if they mentioned it at all. A video was playing, with Dolly Parton at one moment and Andie MacDowell at another. I felt they were messages from home. Went to the Blue Goose, which had swallowed up Out on the Liffey. It looks the same, except the beer is Polish and nobody was there. Walked and walked. It is still a thrill to stand where Michael Collins stood, to touch a stone Maud Gonne touched as she walked.
Here’s a secret: I am better than I say I am. My secret places are not dark, but too bright to show.
Dublin
December 29, 2007
Delta found and delivered my bag, and the concierge, as he was carrying it up to my room for me–an unnecessary service, but one he would not be denied– explained that a lift could not be installed because the building is of historical significance, an honor bestowed on it by the birth of Gogarty. I said, “Could it have been in my very room?” and he said, “Not unless you start writing poetry in there.”
Visited the Hugh Lane, where there are nice drawings, and where you can get somebody else’s shoes at the door to wander around in. Then it was off to the National Gallery, and then I wandered sections of Georgian Dublin I had not seen before, and most of which seems to be To Let. Cold, but not unbearably so, the sky easing out a little rain although it seemed bright and cloudless. The Dead Zoo, the Natural History Museum is “Closed Until Further Notice.” Jack Yeats has his own gallery in the National now, low-roofed, rather solemn, rather like the interior of an old sailing ship. It seems wrong to me, somehow. I’d been feeling a little dreary, a little solemn myself, but my heart lightened the minute I began to cross St. Stephan’s Green. It was, amazingly, alive with flowers, narcissus and acanthus and a pale white blooming tree, and purple groundcover I did not know, and at the edge of the park a robin was singing with all his heart, and a little boy asked me what I was looking at, and I pulled out my one dependable fragment of Gaelic, spidog.
Delta found and delivered my bag, and the concierge, as he was carrying it up to my room for me–an unnecessary service, but one he would not be denied– explained that a lift could not be installed because the building is of historical significance, an honor bestowed on it by the birth of Gogarty. I said, “Could it have been in my very room?” and he said, “Not unless you start writing poetry in there.”
Visited the Hugh Lane, where there are nice drawings, and where you can get somebody else’s shoes at the door to wander around in. Then it was off to the National Gallery, and then I wandered sections of Georgian Dublin I had not seen before, and most of which seems to be To Let. Cold, but not unbearably so, the sky easing out a little rain although it seemed bright and cloudless. The Dead Zoo, the Natural History Museum is “Closed Until Further Notice.” Jack Yeats has his own gallery in the National now, low-roofed, rather solemn, rather like the interior of an old sailing ship. It seems wrong to me, somehow. I’d been feeling a little dreary, a little solemn myself, but my heart lightened the minute I began to cross St. Stephan’s Green. It was, amazingly, alive with flowers, narcissus and acanthus and a pale white blooming tree, and purple groundcover I did not know, and at the edge of the park a robin was singing with all his heart, and a little boy asked me what I was looking at, and I pulled out my one dependable fragment of Gaelic, spidog.
Dublin
December 28, 2007
I am established on the third floor of the Charles Stewart on Parnell Square, part of which building was the birthplace of Oliver St.John Gogarty. My room is at the back and looks out on what must have been a lovely park or garden, but which is now a car park and a series of undistinguished blue-green outbuildings. It must be used sometimes as a playground, for the roof of the nearest outbuilding has a groove in it and the groove is lined with brightly colored balls and frisbees, soccer balls and kick balls and the like, kicked or thrown there and never retrieved. The far side of the space is a rank of tall brick houses, like this one, showing their narrow backs, some of which are, or were, quite elegant. It is by many levels of magnitude the quietest digs I have ever had in Ireland.
Shared my seat on the ride to Atlanta with a woman from Hendersonville who was reading a book on how the world will come to an end–as suggested by the ancient Maya–in 2012. The matter-of-factness of her tone left no room for the hilarity with which I wanted to approach the whole subject. Delta was its usual troubled self, and though I had plenty of time on paper, I eventually had to make my international connection at a dead run, and my luggage did not make it with me, so I am, for the moment, dispossessed of all accouterments of civilized life. My seat mate from Atlanta was a big, talkative man who goes on beer drinking vacations with his buddies in various European cities, their favorite being Brussels. He is meeting his Hungarian girlfriend in Dublin to celebrate the New Year.
Wandered, as I must, immediately upon arrival. The atmosphere was clear; indeed, the brightness of the northern winter is quite amazing. Fashion persuaded me to leave my cap at home, but I regretted it, for there was nothing to shield my eyes from the white blast from the south. The light seemed to flow like liquid around the spires and roofs, and they no shelter at all. How do the natives endure it? They are eagles from looking at the sun. It is well the weather is fine, for all my heavy gear is in the misplaced luggage.
The biggest and worse change in Dublin is the closing of the Andrews Lane Theater. A big “To Let” sign lies across the window. Andrews Lane was at the center of my cultural life in Ireland, and I never considered continuing one without the other. My conviction had been that one of my plays would be seen there. I’d even begun making inquiries back when Monday Morning was interested in 7 Reece Mews. Now no such thing is ever going to happen, and I am sorry.
The café north of Parnell Square where the proprietor was one of the handsomest men in the world, “Lovin’ Spoonful” or suchlike, is To Let as well.
*
I have disgraced myself by stumbling back to the B&B before midnight. Did a tour of nearby bars before heading to the Abbey. The Shakespeare is now Chinese-owned and serves Chinese bar food. Met Brian Kennedy in the Metro a few doors down. Brian is a follower of Manchester United, as is most of Ireland, and with brightened countenance told me of his holidays along the Welsh coast. Brian was excellent company, and I told him I would meet him again at the Metro, as I mean to do.
Saw Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer at the Abbey. It was funny and engaging, whereas I has expected it to be a cultural duty. I’d expected wit, and there was wit in abundance. It rockets near the top of my unexpected preferences, along with London’s The Man of Mode. The play inhabits a remarkable world. Everyone is dazzlingly witty, yet everyone is, in his own way, a bit of an idiot, locked-stepped in a peculiar, skew world view that will never quite get them what they want, until one of their number steps aside and is forgiving, or sincere, and then everyone is quite willing to realign themselves into happiness. Also, has anyone ever remarked on how aggressively homoerotic the play is? My God, the asking of men to lie with you, the oft-repeated preference of men over women, the kissing of other men and the uttering “my dear,” the dressing of women in pantaloons in order to gain the attention of men. It never even winks.
Scuttled through the wintery blast after theater to Madigan’s, where I met Ronan, from Limerick. He studied in Italy and now lives in Dublin, but heads out tomorrow morning with some mates to celebrate New Year in Berlin. He took a call from his mother in the bar, telling in what sales to take advantage of before he leaves. I thought for a moment that red Ronan was going to invite me to Berlin. I would have gone.
The room is grossly overheated, and I am cherishing every prodigal BTU. Moon over my courtyard, his bright hat flattened.
I am established on the third floor of the Charles Stewart on Parnell Square, part of which building was the birthplace of Oliver St.John Gogarty. My room is at the back and looks out on what must have been a lovely park or garden, but which is now a car park and a series of undistinguished blue-green outbuildings. It must be used sometimes as a playground, for the roof of the nearest outbuilding has a groove in it and the groove is lined with brightly colored balls and frisbees, soccer balls and kick balls and the like, kicked or thrown there and never retrieved. The far side of the space is a rank of tall brick houses, like this one, showing their narrow backs, some of which are, or were, quite elegant. It is by many levels of magnitude the quietest digs I have ever had in Ireland.
Shared my seat on the ride to Atlanta with a woman from Hendersonville who was reading a book on how the world will come to an end–as suggested by the ancient Maya–in 2012. The matter-of-factness of her tone left no room for the hilarity with which I wanted to approach the whole subject. Delta was its usual troubled self, and though I had plenty of time on paper, I eventually had to make my international connection at a dead run, and my luggage did not make it with me, so I am, for the moment, dispossessed of all accouterments of civilized life. My seat mate from Atlanta was a big, talkative man who goes on beer drinking vacations with his buddies in various European cities, their favorite being Brussels. He is meeting his Hungarian girlfriend in Dublin to celebrate the New Year.
Wandered, as I must, immediately upon arrival. The atmosphere was clear; indeed, the brightness of the northern winter is quite amazing. Fashion persuaded me to leave my cap at home, but I regretted it, for there was nothing to shield my eyes from the white blast from the south. The light seemed to flow like liquid around the spires and roofs, and they no shelter at all. How do the natives endure it? They are eagles from looking at the sun. It is well the weather is fine, for all my heavy gear is in the misplaced luggage.
The biggest and worse change in Dublin is the closing of the Andrews Lane Theater. A big “To Let” sign lies across the window. Andrews Lane was at the center of my cultural life in Ireland, and I never considered continuing one without the other. My conviction had been that one of my plays would be seen there. I’d even begun making inquiries back when Monday Morning was interested in 7 Reece Mews. Now no such thing is ever going to happen, and I am sorry.
The café north of Parnell Square where the proprietor was one of the handsomest men in the world, “Lovin’ Spoonful” or suchlike, is To Let as well.
*
I have disgraced myself by stumbling back to the B&B before midnight. Did a tour of nearby bars before heading to the Abbey. The Shakespeare is now Chinese-owned and serves Chinese bar food. Met Brian Kennedy in the Metro a few doors down. Brian is a follower of Manchester United, as is most of Ireland, and with brightened countenance told me of his holidays along the Welsh coast. Brian was excellent company, and I told him I would meet him again at the Metro, as I mean to do.
Saw Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer at the Abbey. It was funny and engaging, whereas I has expected it to be a cultural duty. I’d expected wit, and there was wit in abundance. It rockets near the top of my unexpected preferences, along with London’s The Man of Mode. The play inhabits a remarkable world. Everyone is dazzlingly witty, yet everyone is, in his own way, a bit of an idiot, locked-stepped in a peculiar, skew world view that will never quite get them what they want, until one of their number steps aside and is forgiving, or sincere, and then everyone is quite willing to realign themselves into happiness. Also, has anyone ever remarked on how aggressively homoerotic the play is? My God, the asking of men to lie with you, the oft-repeated preference of men over women, the kissing of other men and the uttering “my dear,” the dressing of women in pantaloons in order to gain the attention of men. It never even winks.
Scuttled through the wintery blast after theater to Madigan’s, where I met Ronan, from Limerick. He studied in Italy and now lives in Dublin, but heads out tomorrow morning with some mates to celebrate New Year in Berlin. He took a call from his mother in the bar, telling in what sales to take advantage of before he leaves. I thought for a moment that red Ronan was going to invite me to Berlin. I would have gone.
The room is grossly overheated, and I am cherishing every prodigal BTU. Moon over my courtyard, his bright hat flattened.
Dublin
December 27, 2007
Finished the last Harry Potter book while waiting for the limo to take me to the airport. I have made certain resolutions in preparation for the journey. I have resolved to use the break in my routine fully to break routine, to revolutionize the way I behave and behold in the most lasting ways possible. I am always a good man in Ireland. The task is to make that goodness–that mirth, that adventurous spirit–habitual.
Finished the last Harry Potter book while waiting for the limo to take me to the airport. I have made certain resolutions in preparation for the journey. I have resolved to use the break in my routine fully to break routine, to revolutionize the way I behave and behold in the most lasting ways possible. I am always a good man in Ireland. The task is to make that goodness–that mirth, that adventurous spirit–habitual.
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