- It's Father's Day! I have a Dad. I think that's great.
- Maria sets sail today!
- Caitlin leaves for Italy today!
- Today is Maria's and my 17 month and 1 Day anniversary!
As is natural with any day of great import, I celebrated by sitting on my bottom. I was tired and footsore from yesterday's activities and decided that a day of rest and reading was just the thing. It's also a much more exciting prospect to be shut up indoors now that I have acquired that glorious nectar of life, that healing balm of gilead, that tangy essence of goodness, that most glorious gift that any noble family has yet made to prosperity: Earl Gray tea. I so enjoy Earl Grey that it renders the prospect of an otherwise uneventful quiet afternoon quite exciting. In a restrained and dignified manner, of course.
So today I spent reading, alternatively, from Ulysses, Dubliners, and the Collected W.B. Yeats. I made tea. I went to the market for some absurdly bran-filled bread, bananas, and milk. I returned and, parched by my efforts, was forced to make more tea. I read and dozed with my feet out the window until rain drops on my toes and a slightly gnawing hunger woke me, and compelled me to get up and make dinner. I had crusty bread, cold chicken and irish cheddar, (which is exquisitely mild and smooth), chili, and Stella Artois, which is joyfully crisp and was just the right compliment to the more solid elements of the meal. It was a simple but filling meal, and it caused me to almost immediately fall asleep while I was waiting for my parents to call. I woke up and wandered around before talking to my parents and little brother for a bit. I'm sad to not be able to join them at home for Father's Day dinner, but am sure they will manage quite well in my absence. Brian probably regrets being plunged back into that deplorable circumstance that characterized the last two years of High School for him: being the only son around to do dishes. Poor Bastard.
And now I am preparing to go to sleep. I have done little active today, and feel good about it. Yesterday, my activities ranged significantly further afield.
I got up before noon - early for me on a weekend - and headed out. I sat on a stone in front of the market and ate a muffin while watching some kids play in the street. I walked to the bus and plopped myself down on top, again feeling happy about my ability to see the Wicklow Hills on the way into the city. I alighted at the now-familiar Parnell monument and set off down O'Connell street. It was my intention to view the national library, museum, and gallery, which are grouped conveniently together between Merrion and Kildare streets. The Museum was closed for refurbishment, however, and the library and galley are each only open for roughly two hours on Saturday, and at a far earlier hour than I would naturally be inclined to patronize them. I suppose that if I want to visit them (and I very much do, the Library has an exciting looking Yeats exhibit going on) I will have to make deliberate effort to bestir myself to enter at the appropriate hour.
It started to rain, but I found myself in the convenient proximity of the Kennedy and McSharin "Manshop" - a somewhat dishevelled and more dimly-lit Brooks Brothers sort of place. It was operated by impeccably dressed men with a surprising lack of teeth, each of which expressed admiration at my jacket (the old leather blazer I got from grandpa) and attempted to sell me a new one. It was the official outfitter of a local rugby team, apparently, and as such had pictures of swarthy and muddy men about the walls, several of whom - like the owners of the store - were also (and less surprisingly, for their profession) missing teeth. The men in the pictures were not wearing anything sold in the shop, nor did it look like they ever had or would, but I suppose the sentiment of sponsorship is a nice one. I told the sad men that I was not in need of a new jacket, which seemed to sadden them considerably. I told them that I did, however, require a new bumbershoot, which seem to brighten their aspects significantly. I was enthusiastically proffered several and, somewhat randomly, I selected one that looked serviceable. I left the shop with a handsome umbrella for not much money. One the way out of Kennedy and McSharin, a possible source of the dental connection. Perhaps the reason that both the proprietors and the sponsored ruggers were lacking teeth is that the proprietors were FORMERLY ruggers. Excellent.
The rain was brief and spitting for much of the rest of the afternoon, as I made my way along Clare street to Merrion Square, where I hoped to take in some of the "World Street Performance Championship". The place was chock-a-block full of pushy Americans, and I soon saw (or rather, smelled, why) - carnival food. There was a strip of food stalls doing a vigorous business by purveying grease festooned liberally about various previously wholesome foods. Americans will come for miles around for a good bag of grease, and it seems as if the majority of us in the County had convened in a relatively small area for the purpose of engaging in some of our national pastimes: eating greasy foods, yelling at our children, bumping into each other, and generally making a loud spectacle of ourselves while watching an even louder spectacle.
I put forth my best effort to stay and watch some of the performances: one fellow was engaging in feats on a unicycle that made my testicles twinge in sympathetic pain. Another pair were juggling while serving tea - a neat trick, but I wouldn't want to risk the tea like that. I was eventually washed around to a pare of spandex-clad women who announced (as if their accents and the loud volume of their sound system had not immediately proclaimed it) that they were from America. They engaged in some interesting feats with a bull whip and an aerial hoop (not simultaneously, you understand, but still) but, when they started making jokes about American politics and how THEY didn't vote for George Bush, I got too embarrassed for them and had to leave.
I resolved to return to Merrion Square when it was less clogged with my countrymen, and walked back to the Liffey, proceeding west down the Quays to the legal quarter. I had a mind to see the Building in which Ireland's Supreme, High, Exchequer, King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Chancery Courts are jointly housed. I stopped every three yards to take photos and spent much of the next 45 minutes wandering around pursuing photos from different angles. I can't load the pictures at the moment because the internet is so slow, but it's a grand old building that is so self-aware it's almost absurd.The front is a 150 m Cornithian-columned, classically styled facade but it seems that the architect, James Gannon, wasn't satisfied with that level of grandeur alone: so on top of the building he placed a large circular temple that somewhat resembles a somewhat shrunken Jefferson Memorial. It's a very impressive building, but one that leaves you with the sensation that what you are beholding is, in fact, two separate buildings piled atop each other. I was going to have a look inside - since my trusty guidebook says it was free, and I love free things - but I remembered, as I was walking towards an imposing looking security checkpoint, that I had my pocketknife with me. I decided to save the four courts for another day when I could come unarmed.
I walked across the river to Merchant's Quay and began heading back to O'Connell street, deciding rather at the last moment to veer off onto Winetavern St into the heart of the Medieval part of Dublin, the original walled city. I climbed the hill to find the exceedingly magnificent Christ Church Cathedral. Seeing it come into sight, I turned my iPod to Gabrieli's Brass Canons and, thus accompanied, gained a most pleasing first impression of Dublin's oldest building. Walking around to the front, I was disappointed to find that the cost of entry was high and the visiting hours concluded for the day (it was about 6 PM). The same bulletin board, however, also informed me of a most happy coincidence: I had arrived on the evening of a one-night only musical performance by the Dublin Symphony in the Cathedral of Vaughn Williams' "English Folk Song Suite", Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, and Dvorak's Ninth, the "New World" Symphony. I was elated by this news, as I very much fancy each of these pieces and the opportunity to hear them ringing from the (apparently magnificent) rafters of Christ Church was quite intoxicating. The concert was just two hours hence, so I walked down the other side of the hill to St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was also closed for the evening but is surrounded by a large park in which I sat reading and watching small children playing soccer poorly but with great gusto. The garden is a large, elliptical expanse of tan gravel paths, immaculately trimmed grass, benches, fountains, and flowers. It was draped with families, couples, and weary solitary travelers like myself. It was such a joyful melange of humanity that I spent more time watching it than minding my book. It began to rain and the air suddenly picked up quite a chill so, deploying my new umbrella, I went in search of roof under which to wait the remaining hour before the performance. I wandered into Fallon's Pub, a charmingly miniscule establishment with lanterns hanging on the walls, dingy couches of dull red in the corner, and loud men yelling at a rugby match on a TV. I found what appeared to be the quietest corner in the place, ordered a pint, and read for much of the next hour. I discovered the time with only three minutes to spare and ran back up the hill into the Cathedral. I shelled out my money and took my seat right as the Concert Master was giving the tuning note. I had to catch my breath a bit, so it was some time before I had the opportunity to actually look around...and up. Christ Church is a magnificent and imposing monument of gothic spirituality. A church has stood hear for nearly a thousand years, and I felt the antiquity everywhere. It was a very impressive place, quite ornate in its massive darkness.
The orchestra itself was mediocre and, from time to time, was guilty of truly horrible crimes of gratingly bad intonation that one expects to find in a high school group, not this one. But the fact that I held the particular songs so dearly and that they were being performed in such a singular place combined to erase any displeasure. I encountered difficulty describing the combined power of music and place before, when attempting to describe the haunting beauty of the boychoir ringing through St. Mary's Cathedral. Now, as then, my words utterly fail to convey the majesty of those ringing chords in that tremendous palace of stone. Whatever else the faults of the string and woodwind sections, the Dublin Symphony was equipped with a powerful brass section whose effects were magnified by the great barrel vault ceiling and expansive apses of the cathedral. They brought the New World Symphony to a rousing, clamorous, and triumphant close, the kind that makes your spine tingle and the sound hang in the room for a few seconds after the actual playing has ceased. I walked out the concert and back through Temple Bar to O'Connell Street quite pleased and satisfied. I thought as I rode home that it was a bit ironic, hearing one of the most American of Pieces in one of the most Irish of buildings. It was a pleasing confluence of my musical and ethnic heritage that appealed tremendously to my aesthetic sensibilities.
Neil Diamond, the bugger, was having a concert that evening. I can't tell weather it was because all of the cars were rushing towards the concert or away from him (anyone want to hear "Sweet Caroline" just ONE more time? Anyone? No One? Really, guys?) but, regardless, the result was a very spectacular traffic jam that didn't thin until well through Phibsboro (mostly I just wanted to say that name again). It's a good thing that I was feeling so magnanimous after the evening's Aural Oasis, or I would have been less eager to ride for 45 minutes standing on the bus.
I arrived home, happy but weary with the day's adventures. My feet and Sacro Iliac were feeling the weight of my wanderings, so I elected to have an easy Sunday, as I have previously relayed.
As I conclude this note, I find that it is half past midnight on the just-arrived June 16th. It is, of course Bloomsday, the 104th anniversary of Leo Bloom's (fictional, I sometimes forget) grand adventure through Dublin in Joyce's Ulysses. We shall see what the day brings.
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