May 30, 2024

Not a day of the journey when I have not worn the old lined yellow raincoat that I thought I’d brought just for arctic emergency. Looks just as cold this morning, though a shaft of light punches under the clouds from the harbor. 

Bad night last night, sleep-deprived as is measured in my well-slept world. Partially it was the Africans in the next room. I thought they were fighting, but after a while I realized it was simply conversation in a tradition louder than my own. I didn’t want to be the elderly white guy shouting “Quiet” at people who had no idea they were trespassing in any way. Also it was the mistake of poring through old journals. The past is always a tragedy, always sad with the sadness of a range of mountains that allow one to get so high and no higher, forever. 

Also it was the snippy hotel bar waitress who looked everywhere but at me, hoping I’d go away and let her continue stocking.

One more thing about the opera: Verdi can take two arias to make a point for which the playwright has a sentence. 

Returned to the Crawford, where my visit had been interrupted by opera tickets. Contemporary offerings thin and ephemeral, traditional offerings mostly patriotic, though several galleries were closed.

Fish & chips at the Oliver Plunkett. If inedible is a 6 and nasty is a 5, my lunch was a 4. Am becoming reconciled, however, to mashed peas.  A family of eleven from Mauritiaus wanted to be seated together in the pub.

Wandering north of the north river in a bit of sunny afternoon. Five French kids had pulled café tables together on Pope’s Quay and played cards in the slanted, mellow light. Three girls, two boys. I considered how providing that French kids playing cards beside the river in peace and safety is the goal of all government. 

Beamish at Dennehy’s.

 

May 29, 2024

Hiked to Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral. Passed Sullivan Quay on the way, where I felt a frisson of remembrance. To a bar there (it must have changed its name since the event, and I don’t recall the current one) I came in 1980 to hear an Irish poet and met Liam Broderick, who lingers in memory as one of the great and momentary loves. I did seek him once later, a task impossible unless you’ve more than a name to go on, even adding that he was a university student. Forty-four years ago. It cannot be endured. Realized my journals from 2005 are on this computer, whereby discovering The Rose Lodge, the lovely B&B that I had when I spent New Year’s here, is still in operation, though my hostess Alice must be long retired. I spent more time in pubs in 2005 than I do now. Didn’t go to plays or operas every night. Could count on erotic assignations, as I cannot, or dare not, now. 

In the Cathedral a lovely docent was far more eager to give me a tour than I was to take it– wanting to be alone with my thoughts–but on it went, and I did learn a great deal. She asserts that the Cathedral was built as an assertive monument to Anglicanism in a time when Irish Catholics were beginning to build churches of their own again. That explains its voluptuous Victorian overstatement of every detail. It still remains loudly majestic. Forty-four years ago I met the assistant dean (or somebody) and we talked about Spenser. The ambulatory was closed for repairs, and I waited 25 years to see it, and saw it again today. The red Cork marble of the church trim is now used up. The docent told me twice that when the old cathedral was pulled own, they found one of King Billy’s cannonballs lodged in the tower. 

Cork is some 300 years older than Dublin. One does not feel such antiquity in the stones. 

Tonight, the National Opera Company’s La Traviata. I had the best possible seat, second inhabited row, dead center, the only impediment being the back of the director’s head. He was energetic and had lovely, silky hair. I’ve always been lucky in theater seats. I’d seen the opera years ago in London, but remember nothing but Violetta’s dress. It was gorgeous and adept in all the ways a show like that is meant to be gorgeous and adept. The choruses I sang with the Asheville Symphony made better sense in context. But, also, it was ludicrous, without one moment of what anyone would recognize as actual human emotion. This is not a flaw, but a typical and expected aspect of the art form, Italian Kabuki, a Venetian mask set to shield one from all untidy true (and therefore hurtful)  emotion and allow the curated tempests of a soap opera. I’d forgotten how flimsy and absurd the crisis is. It doesn’t matter to anyone who buys in. I did not fully buy in, alas, while admiring, as I had not before, Verdi’s musical and theatrical mastery. The young lady beside me lives in Alaska but was brought to the opera by her grandfather, who lives in New Hampshire– they have relatives or something in Cork. The Japanese man on the other side wore the only suit in the house and recorded the show on his phone. 

Drunken boys sing in the plaza below my window, between the hotel and the river. 

Opening Night

 May 28, 2024

Slept ten hours. Woke with most of the edema drained out of my legs. A new day.

Wandered to the opera house to get a ticket for tomorrow night’s La Traviata.  Sold out. Friday sold out too. I charmed the ticket lady into putting me at the head of the waiting list, and I was having tea in the art museum next door when she phoned and had a cancellation for me, Orchestra F, for sight-line reasons the first row of seating. Sometimes you see the hand of God moving. The tomato basil soup in the museum was memorable, subtle, delicious. Took full lunch at a health food store terrace, and, again, it was terrible, 3 selected salads with each ingredient tasting exactly the same, except for varying densities of curry powder. Ireland is not a gourmet’s destination.

It is said that Irish men are the homeliest in Europe, and that is true. They’re raw-boned and goofy. That is part of their charm. 

J messages to say that M has died. He figured large in my life in Syracuse, and once said in the hall of the Hall of Languages, “I love you, David.,” one of few such declarations that I did not flavor with irony. He had success written on every feature. I lost track of him and thought he was living the stylish life in LA, where he was the last I heard from him. His health failed, and after a long illness he died in New Jersey. I’d have written it differently had I been in charge of the story. 

Foot substantially improved.

Almost midnight: Opening night at the Cork Art Theater a colossal success, personal and institutional. The ten short plays had only one clunker among them, and most of them were nourishing or (and) hilarious. Alfie and Greta was a smash, people roaring with laughter. I was very, very happy. In terms of efficiency and elegance of expression, the best of the lot. Met the sweet young cast afterwards. Compared to Irish actors, even amateur ones, most American actors seem to beg just a little for forgiveness or indulgence: “remember, I’m a volunteer!” I never saw an evening of one acts in the US that didn’t have some cringe-worthy performances, some (or mostly) cringe-worthy plays. Not here, not tonight. Lovely.

Noticed that I glide with assurance and confidence through the night streets of Cork. Most of my adventures in the past must have been nocturnal.

Noticed that I went fast on the way home from the theater, my wind solid, almost all the pain gone from my foot, like old bold times. During the last few blocks of my journey, I had the streets entirely to myself. A little creepy. If I drop down to the river there would be more people, though a longer way. 

Cork

 May 27, 2024

Clayton Hotel, Cork City. A bottle of Prosecco sat in ice awaiting me when I entered, and my room has a balcony overlooking the south branch of the River Lee. Lovely, and lovelier if the weather cooperated. The three legs of the journey were grueling. I sat in the lounge in JFK thinking, “this is too hard.” Travel from now on won’t be casual. But I’m here now, and all is well. The pain in my foot curtails my usual strategy of walking and walking till I know the environment pretty well, though in fact I did limp about while my room was being readied, and found the theater, despite its having been marked deceptively on the tourist map. I asked four people and three people told me wrong. They’d never heard of it. One sent me to the Opera House, and the girl at the desk there knew where the Cork Arts Theater is. The theater is dingy and small, exactly what I’m used to. Rain came a couple of times, went away a couple of times. Having been in Cork several times in the past isn’t helping me much. Certain things look familiar, but I’m not meshing them together yet. Odd dream trying (successfully, as it turned out) to sleep on the plane.  MH came to live with me, and convinced me to hire a friend of hers to do some remodeling. The friend and MH tried to take over my house and my life, and I caught them, by no means certainly in time. If I stood close to MH I noticed her flesh was rotting and old mucous had gathered about her nose. How do people earn being in dreams like that? Decided to taxi from Shannon, an expensive choice, but a necessary one given the state I was in after landing. F was my driver, eager to talk politics and well informed about matters on both sides of the Atlantic. I impressed him by being able to cite my favorite places in Limerick, his home town. I’m quite familiar with the land around Shannon, and I realized to day what sets it apart from American landscape. It is completely filled in. In America the land is torn and interrupted, heterogeneous. Here, it is of a piece, like a tapestry, or a pre-Raphaelite painting.  Worked on a play in the Delta Sky Lounges, despite being staunchly drunk. First supper, at the hotel,  disappointing, violently overcooked salmon with barely identifiable vegetables. Excellent sparkling water

 

May 25, 2024

Woke grumpy. The air heavy and gray. I was having an interesting dream, though, in which Ellen and I led an organization that would allow women some freedom or advantage that I can’t remember now. We were dividing up the country into areas of responsibility, and I chose Florida for Ellen, contemplating just before waking whether she’d like that or hate that. 

C the window washer calls periodically to ask if he can pick up a charger and a speaker which some apparatus tells him he left here a month ago. I assure him he did not (at least I haven’t seen them) but invite him to come anyway. He never does. “Oh. . . the traffic was so bad. . . sorry, can we try for Saturday? . . .I had my kid with me and he’s such a handful . . . .” I work not to sink into rage. His mother is the one who sets the time for housecleaning and has to call every time to ask to reschedule or come late. Family trait or red-neck tell? In any case, one of the human failings of which I am least tolerant. Make a date. Keep it. 

Fasciatus enduring, adjusting location, refining discomfort. Can’t wait to run through airports with this. 

Conversation I’d love to hear ONCE during rehearsal:

Director: “You’re behind the beat!”

Singers: “That’s because you’re rushing.”

Director: “Oh, I guess I am.” 

Note: C arrived. The objects he sought were not here.

Extended planning, reassessment, creation of redundant systems have exhausted me in terms of my journey tomorrow. Gigantic layovers may turn out to be restful. 

Cat and Crow

 

May 24, 2024

Rehearsal overwhelming. Too much new music, which will teach us to complain about doing the same old things again and again. C snarled at me during a rest. I could tell from his expression that I was being taken to task, but I actually couldn’t hear what he said. Didn’t ask him to repeat. 

Odd sounds emanating from a crow in the dogwoods brought me to the window. A black cat and a crow faced each other from various places in the tree; As the cat climbed, the crow changed his perch, but did not deign to fly. It was a game, an attempt at contact, neither much intimidated. I heard the same sound yesterday without getting up to look, so I suppose it’s an ongoing drama. 

Fasciatus problematic in my right foot, limping and ouching. 

Frog

 May 23, 2024

Rejoice, unwedded Bride

Celebratory dinner and de-briefing with SS last night. Concerning the production, I was disappointed in nothing, a sentiment which is hard to express without sounding insincere, but there it is. Exalted by much. Made more money than I thought I would. 

Watched as my bullfrog hopped out of the pond. He’s enormous, a little frighteningly so, and bronze as a penny.