Surprisingly mundane

No friends yet, but I feel some in the wings.

After work the other night the manager pulled us pints of Murphy's (Guinness's nitrogenated cousin) and we hung around and talked for a while. The guy who runs the Bewley's Cafe Theatre is a jazz bassist, graduate of Trinity, so I might try to be his friend. I'm working almost 40 hours next week, as well as doing orientation activities, so it might be a long week.

Today I played piano for the second time in three weeks. The first time was at a music store, when I just sat down and played for a while, but this time was in Bewley's Cafe Theatre. I found out that they have a piano there all the time, so now I might just practice whenever I can. It wasn't an unordinary experience, except in its mundanity. That sentence makes no logical sense, but when you travel to a foreign country and all your habits are broken and you find a way to reconnect with those habits in some extraordinary circumstance you'll understand.

Orientation tomorrow. Hopefully the Jazz Society has a booth that I can assault.

Not quite awake at 2 p.m.

So, the job just got a bit better, in the sense that free things make something better. A large part of the Cafe is a restaurant called Cafe Bar Deli, a light Italian-style restaurant with good food and a relatively casual feel. But what I didn't know is that during closing they feed all their workers--gourmet pizzas, pretty salads, pasta dishes--so, naturally, the Bewley's employees just walk up there and take some food for ourselves. Also, at the end of the night, I took a loaf of black bread. I mean, the Hungarian man said I could. Small payment for having to ride my bike back at midnight.

Really, that is almost all that I've been able to do lately. Working from 3-midnight or 5-midnight makes it tough to get up very early, and I'm just waiting until I register next week. So, until then.

Bye, bye Miss American Pie

...is the song that Alessandro, the very tall Italian man was singing, in a country accent, behind the espresso bar today. Apparently, in his version, they drink "whiskey and wine."

Bewley's, as a new person, is pretty funny at this moment in time. First of all, the ownership has changed hands around three dozen times in the past year. Second, the management has changed almost as often. So, the new owner came by this morning, saw the disorganized, chaotic mess
that it was, and called a meeting. I didn't have to go, because I'm new, so I just stayed behind the bar and served customers. Moral of the story: everyone is stressed out because someone's getting sacked. It's like a reality show, except there aren't eleven million people watching. But I'm working all week, 30 hours or so, so that's good.

While I have no friends yet, I feel like I might soon. Maybe by the end of the week. I mean, don't put bets on it, but it's a possibility. Until then I'll just keep to my Beckett and Cormac McCarthy.

Howth, environs

I've been composing this as I pedal.

After waking up and finally getting out of bed around two today, I had a quick lunch and decided I had better do something that I can write about. Yes, I structure my life around you. So, now I am sitting on the rock-shore at Howth watching two masts rock back and forth while surreptitiously picking my nose, hoping nobody notices. I would take a picture, but my camera ran out of batteries at the cemetery.

Howth is really a pretty fishing village. Even the new suburban condos and hipster fish bars can be overlooked in light of the view of the water and the salty smell of the sound. Technically, this is probably a bay, or a cape, but it seems so much like the Puget Sound that I forget what ocean it is.

But I didn't know any of this before I got here. According to Google Maps, this would be a simple eight-mile each way trip along the shore. However, due to the Irish philosophy of not posting street signs, I was surprised by a roundabout--with, of course, no signs. Oh, there were signs for directions to schools, shopping centres, just not streets. So, I asked for directions: "Oh, go down there, take a right--no, left, right, straight, you'll be on the main road." At least, I assume those were her directions. They were really a combination of left, right, and straight, with no landmarks or streets. To be polite, I went the general direction she was pointing and got lost. Eventually, after many lefts and right, I found a bus stop map that showed me where to go. I believe the reason Joyce is so hard to understand is that he wanted his writing to be authentically Dublin.

The sun is setting; I will write more at home.

That was a blog entry, direct from Howth shore, via my notebook. Edited for clarity, but nothing else really. I could continue this narrative through the rest of the entry, but why bother. I went back, got lost again, asked a Garda (Irish police) for directions, got lost again, made it back eventually. But pictures, now for some pictures.

First, the view from the bike ride there. This looks a bit dirty, and it was, but it was not what Howth's shore itself looked like. The shore itself was rock, but the water was far cleaner. The only downside was that you had to circle around past the yachts and hip bars, as this fishing village is now a wealthy suburb.

Second, the cemetery at Howth. This was just as the sun was about to begin setting, and the light was quite pretty. The building in the middle is the shell of an old church.

I'm tired after a 25-mile round trip, but it was nice to get out and not go into a city. I'm sick of seeing the same street musicians every day. Although this man played violin behind his back:

The new kid

Well, it looks like I need a new place to read. Bewley's is going to work out as a job, but not as both a job and a place to hang out and read. I think the difference, that is, why I could hang out at Barracuda's and not at Bewley's is that Barracuda's was a job mostly for fun. Not only that, but I was genuinely invested in the coffee and the drinks that I made. Bewley's, on the other hand, I don't really care about. Maybe just "not yet," but some of the details of the espresso were lost in the pounding-out of drink orders. I could bore you with details and rants of over-extracted shots, but really?

Luckily, I stopped by The Cheese Pantry, just near my house, and so I'll have to give that a trial. Good soups, not good coffee. But, know what? I don't care about the coffee. I finished Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, my mother's favorite book, and it got me thinking about migration in literature. In other words, not literature as "quest," because I believe that is over-generalized--it is not all about the Odyssey--but rather as migration, a search for the self within the turmoil of change. So, while it's not my new favorite book, it's a good read; plunge through it.

This is turning into a book blog, because I have no friends in this country. I started the novel Watt by Samuel Beckett last night. Unexpectedly funny, and more readable than his later works. It was written just before Waiting for Godot, and is one of his last pieces of writing in English. As the back cover says, it is distinctively Irish. Really, that's why I bought it. I know next to nothing about Beckett's novels, but bought it because I wanted something untranslated and explicitly Irish.

It has given me some good quotes, so far. Mainly two I would like to share. First, the middle of section one: "But he being what he has become, and the place being what it was made, the fit is perfect." As an internal monologue of Watt's, this shows some very subtle yet profound insight into his mind. I'm not sure I would put it in the realm of Calvanist predestination, but maybe closer to the Zen-like (I'm guessing; I'm not a very Zen-like person) acceptance of whatever is, simply for the sake that it is. Second, the end of section one: "...of the new day at last, the day without precedent at last." Such fantastic wordplay. New, without precedent. Okay, enough. I miss writing essays. Could you guess?

This week's wrap-up; wine-based sauces.

The most important element of security, to me, is a reliable grocery store--one where you know exactly where to find the tomatoes.

Really, store-bought pasta sauces are a crock. All you need is to sautée some garlic, throw in some peppers and oregano or whatever, eighth some tomatoes, and dump in a third-cup of red wine and cook it down. Way better than Prego.

This week has been a lesson in bicycling. Specifically, not dying. The bicycles share the lanes here with taxis and buses. Now, I don't know the workings here, but it seems counterintuitive to put the bicycles with a) the largest vehicles; and b) the most aggressive, hateful, no-regard-for-safety vehicles. So, I've managed to ride into town and back safely, without dying, and even rode back at midnight the other night. Which would seem like the most dangerous, but it was really probably the safest. At midnight, once you pass the city centre, the sidewalks are empty. It made for a very nice ride.

I've been reading Angle of Repose, my mother's favorite book, every day while at Bewley's Cafe in the James Joyce room (ref. the post about how I beat James Joyce). I view it as a part of my routine. I ended up getting a job out of it, though, and I start this Saturday at 7 a.m. The building is right on Grafton Street (downtown, pedestrian only) and has two restaurants, three cafe areas, and a small theatre. And I'm in love with the waitress.

Another Dublin favorite so far is The International Bar, just near Grafton Street. While all the surrounding places have been modernized, cleaned-up, whatever, the International still has that 70s, pre-economic boom charm. They have comedy nights three or four times a week, jazz every Tuesday, this singer-songwriter night on Mondays. There's this tiny room upstairs and a lounge downstairs where the people are. Most importantly, the people I've talked to there are pretty cool. Aside from the one guy who said "Love Islam!" and made a beard motion.

Almost two weeks in Dublin and today was the first time I got rained on. I should probably tell Arthur Guinness.

p.s.: If you add parmasean (the real Reggiano stuff, not the shakey-cheese) just before you take the sauce off, it will stick to your teeth. Delightful.

Important tips for selecting a duvet

Who ever thought bed linens could be so troublesome? Trying to bike back up the hill to my house with a duvet on the handlebars and a cover in my backpack while the wind whipped my bike back and forth through rush-hour traffic is something I'd not like to repeat. But the forecast says it will get to 2 deg. C. (36-ish Farenheit) tonight, so I'm sure I won't regret the decision. As it is, we don't heat the house yet (not until October, apparently) so it's a battle against the elements. Mostly the element of cold.

Clearly, it was necessary for me to arrive in Dublin a month early, but what I didn't realize was that getting things in order mostly involves waiting. Waiting for the bank account to clear, waiting for international transfers to happen, waiting in line at the student fees office for a letter confirming I have, indeed, paid the school. So, I spend my days reading in Bewley's Cafe. Coincidentally, I may end up with a job there (hopefully in the James Joyce Room) after the manager said he definitely needs another part-time barista and will give me a call this week. At least I have something to do in the future. Even the near future seems so far away sometimes.

I am a social caterpillar

For the past week or so of nights in Dublin I've found that I don't have much to do. Short of any plays to see, I've found that I really just want some human interaction, people to talk to. Not necessarily friends; I'll probably make friends when I start school in October. This is like the not-over-the-breakup-testing-the-waters part of my social life. Needless to say, I am not too good at casual conversation with a group of strangers when I can only occasionally understand what they're saying.

Here follows a brief set of guidelines I've taken upon myself, as well as the one success story involving Denmark:

There are a few "NOs" that are important to note. Obviously, one should not sit down with a couple on a date. Either you would be uninvited, or you would be too invited, in which case it would be weird. However, there is always the hard-to-spot double date. In this case, the same criteria apply. Next, I avoid sitting with a group of all guys, as they always ask where the girls are, when, obviously, they're on (double) dates. Finally, as tempting as it is, I try my best (sober) not to sit with a group of all girls.

So, what does that leave? A group of guys and girls, out for a friendly pint, makes some good conversation. To date, I have only found one of these groups and they were Danish students who quickly fled the country.

These students were in O'Shea's Pub, a small pub out of the common pub district which has Irish music seven nights a week. There was one Irish man singing and playing guitar and making bawdy jokes: "The next song is called Finnigan's Wake. During the chorus, you clap until the word 'wake.' Men, if you continue clapping you'd better buy me drinks for the night. Ladies, you will give me your bra. Unless you don't wear one, in which case you'll have to prove it."

So, the pub was almost all 50-and-up, people who knew the songs, except for this one small group of five people, two girls and three guys, clearly not on any date-related activity. I asked if I could sit down and, after I did, was asked two questions--one of which is not really a question. First: "Where are you from in America?" Second: "You voted for Bush!" If it's early in the evening I say no the second question. If it's later in the evening I threaten to bomb them.

I ran into these Danes again at the same pub a few days later, just as they were leaving. I talked to one of the girls (Veibeken, I think) for a bit, and I think she started hitting on me. They said some things in Danish and then moved and told me to sit by her. I then found out they were high school seniors on a school trip. So, that was weird.

Moral of the story: if you're lonesome and looking for funny conversation, try Irish music and Danes. I might visit Copenhagen soon. They are just so friendly.

Andrew: 1; James Joyce: 0

around halffour today bewleys cafe james joyce room but sitting inside now with that scone finished and taken that coffee and tea all gone I reached the final word Yes on page six hundred forty four molly or penelope says Yes to poldy or ulysses this is the cumulation of many clouds of words or that you cannot quite make the meaning of but somehow it reaches through and finds proteus or protons or something think of these scribbled all over sheets of manuscript exercise exercise indeed at least exhausting if it is something in this james joyce room in bewleys that waitress I cant quite get the words out as she stares at me waiting for my order or waiting for me to ask for the check her eyes are a bit haunting Im not sure if all of eire has eyes like that but I must say I hope so and this is a bit much for indulging myself if you have made it through I say thank you and congratulations although we will have to post the score then You: 1; Andrew: 0.

Yeats runs out of paper

There is a large W.B. Yeats exhibit at the National Library right now. It includes documentary films, original publications, and artifacts from his life. However, the most revealing items are his hand-written manuscripts. Specifically, the manuscript for "The Second Coming."

These manuscripts humanize Yeats, who seems at times to be detached, majestic, and almost superior. He writes in this ballad-like verse, where the words seem to come easily. The manuscripts, then, are nearly mundane. He writes, "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Moves toward Bethlehem to be born?" Moves? Of course, he promptly crosses it out to write "Slouches," but this alone crushes my thoughts of the man. Not only that, but it is a line squashed onto the end of a page, a poem where he clearly did not plan his space well. I wonder if, had he carried a binder of loose-leaf paper with him at all times, would we have a poem twice as long? Surely, that wouldn't get anthologized nearly as much. I think, part of the appeal of this poem to English teachers is its succinctness--little do they know, he really just ran out of paper.

The foyer of the library held a few posters on James Joyce and Ulysses. To extend this paper-related electronic post (ironic?) I would like to add that Joyce wrote most of Ulysses on sheets of children's manuscript practice paper. Of course, in non-chronological order, without any real structure until he assembled the episodes into a serialization. Why did he do this? They were the cheapest, most available sheets of paper around. The Moleskine notebook may be hold the spirits of Hemingway and Picasso, but to be a true modernist you must ransack the children's school supplies.

The U.S. is getting destroyed in rugby. Against some small country, probably some country we've either bombed or where we've supported a dictator's coup. I guess this is their little way of sticking it to the man. Beat us at something we don't care about.

Classical music, BYOB

Well, I have been to some strange performances, but this one must top them all. A small hatch in the side of a garage door, in a seedy back-street of Dublin 1, with a tiny spray-stencil painted "17/21" which was apparently the address. Around the performance time, there was a sign up, "The Shed," with a phone number to call if you wanted to be let in. That's right, you had to ASK to attend this performance. Needless to say, the venue was packed.

When I entered, it was a bit early so there was still sitting room. The sign out front had said "BYOB (no bar)," so people were cracking open cans of Carlsberg and discussing the future performance, last minute rehearsals, whatever needed to get done. I can't recall the Oregon Symphony putting "BYOB" on their programs, but I might be wrong about that one.

Anyway, for anyone who is interested, the composer (Brian Flynn) was quite good. He was a recent Trinity graduate in composition and electronic music, and this current group was called Engine Room Orchestra. His other music is at www.myspace.com/briangflynn and it is more fully composed than the pieces they played last night. He said afterwards that this was only their third gig, so they were focusing on more signal-based pieces, in case people got lost. Oh, that contemporary music. I bet Mahler never played in a construction site.

Recapitulation:

Still living in a hostel, I finally (very quickly, by Dublin standards) secured a room in a house. Now that I have some peace of mind, and especially now that every moment on the internet is not spent at daft.ie trying to find a home, I felt like I should communicate with the rest of you.

As I have been a bit tardy in establishing this thing, here is some recapitulation of events I've taken some notes on.

9-7-07:

I'm sitting here on the plane, less than an hour from Dublin, savoring the last red round freshly picked tomatoes--courtesy of my aunt Suzanne's garden--I'll have in, likely, a long, long time. The time will soon be 16 hours of travel, 8 hours of lost time, bringing me to 5:45 a.m., right about the time yesterday I checked my bags in Seattle. Upon landing, I should have no trouble finding my ride: Evan, a "short, fierce" man by Dennis's words. I'll probably be expected to repay him by playing bicycle polo and breaking a limb or two. This promises to be a long day; after searching for roommates and a house I'll probably have to explore the town. Hostel accommodations, after all, are not the type to encourage tucking in early.

Really, I was lost this entire day. Since Dubliners don't seem to believe in street signs, and since I couldn't find north, I walked maybe 20 miles trying to get around the city. It was the first day in months (the rainiest summer in 103 years) that it was sunny, and it was hot and humid. I don't even remember what happened. I looked at a house, right across the street from the Guinness factory. Didn't get it. Probably for the better.

On that note, celebrate with me my first Irish pint, from the International Bar, on Grafton St.

9-8-07:

Busy, busy day. I almost knew where I was headed, saw "Bones" at Trinity College's Samuel Beckett Theatre, saw Josh Ritter at the Tripod club on Harcourt, ate at Kennedy's Pub right next to Trinity, walked a lot.

Kennedy's was an excellent place; vegetable soup and a Guinness for lunch, with a cappuccino slightly later. Once I become established I may apply there, for 20 hours a week or so. They serve excellent coffee, perfectly steamed milk, right around the corner from Trinity. I will become a regular.

I also ran across a coaster saying "Coors Light -- Now on tap!" If I see it again, I'll take a picture.

9-9-07:

Bicycle polo is likely one of the scariest sports, especially if you haven't ridden a fixed-gear bike before and don't know how to stop. I mostly spent the game running into people and having bicycles fall on me. Basically a lesson in pain tolerance. Speaking of pain tolerance, rugby seems to be the most violent sport I have ever seen, aside from professional wrestling. Coincidentally, it is also Ireland's second love--the first being Gaelic football, a more violent form of regular football. Regular football, of course, meaning soccer.

Does anyone really think the NFL is violent? How about a bunch of unpadded guys pummeling each other, when a tackle does not end the play but rather escalates the violence? Needless to say, Ireland won, but 35-17 against Namibia is shameful. Yes, the 2007 Rugby World Cup is off to a rough start for Ireland; if they want to make it to the finals over Argentina and France they'll have to win by more on 9-15 against Georgia. Because after that, there's only France and Argentina--and they'll need quite a buffer of points in order to have a safe lead. As Colleen said, "My god, you're not even American any more."

9-10-07:

I successfully got a house. At first I didn't get it, but then they texted back and said I did. I feel like I'm on HGTV. Either way, I'm now living with three others, all in (I think) their late-20s or so, mostly professionals and architects. But it's a good price, right off the bus which heads straight to Trinity, and I have my own double room. The kitchen is also huge, and there's a garden out back. It seems safe, as it is very residential. It won't be a crazy place, so that will be nice during the weeks where I actually have to work.

9-11-07:

The day of this post. I got my bike back, although something is seriously wrong with it. I'll fix it later. For now, I had lunch at Davy Byrne's pub--Moral pub, according to Leopold Bloom in "Ulysses." A small salmon sandwich, with Guinness. Then a cappuccino and small scone at Bewley's. With this much time, I feel inclined to have two small lunches instead of one lonely one. Davy Byrne's pub, the original Dublin gastro-pub:


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