Archive for July, 2008

“I’m a doddle for interviewing…”

Published
by
Colm
on 31 July, 2008
in Books (and the like) and Writing
. 0 Comments

Neil Gaiman links to a long, long interview with Alan Moore in which Das Beard talks about the craft of writing. It’s pure gold – he’s not at all shy about going into detail. Plus he comes across as a charmingly down-to-earth sort:

DW: I feel quite awkward doing this ‘cos I’ve never really interviewed anyone before…

AM: Well I’m a doddle for interviewing ‘cos I’m completely infatuated with the sound of me own voice…you just have to say a few basic words and I’ll talk for the next hour or two.

I especially love his description of how the plot and premise for Lost Girls came together. I don’t know how any writer could read that and not want to run off and start maniacally filling notebooks.

Speaking of which…

Starting tonight, people will die

Published
by
Colm
on 25 July, 2008
in Films & TV
. 4 Comments

This week I have been not so much burning the candle at both ends as chucking the candle into a bonfire. One might think a nice relaxing weekend would be in order… but no.

The plan tonight is to break open a few bottles and watch Batman Begins and Gotham Knight. There are a few reasons for this – firstly, any excuse to watch Batman Begins, secondly none of us have seen Gotham Knight. Thirdly, and most importantly, we’re preparing for tomorrow afternoon, when 12 of us will be toddling along to Cineworld to see The Dark Knight.

I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time. I can safely say I’ve never been so excited about a film in my life. I’ve always loved Batman, been properly fascinated with the character and the world, and the first time I saw the ending of Batman Begins (“Take this guy…”) I broke into a cold sweat. This is a big, big deal for me.

The reason I didn’t go see it on Wednesday (and again on Thursday, and again at lunchtime today) is because we decided we should make an event of it. This entailed getting the old crew together, from various parts of the country, and the only way that was going to happen is if we waited til the weekend*. It is nice to go on a Saturday, though, because that means we have an entire night to drink and analyse and recover, and in some perverse way the extra few days of self-imposed waiting is adding to the whole experience.

I was going to write a bit more about the hot tub/pool table/Mario Kart/barbecue party on Sunday, but can it really compete with Batman? Nothing can compete with Batman. So I shall leave it there. Have a good weekend everybody.

*Has anyone ever noticed how badly tenses get mangled in Hiberno-English?

Ice creeeeeeam

Published
by
Colm
on 23 July, 2008
in Misc.
. 4 Comments

So I’m sitting at my desk in work and a woman comes along holding a bulging plastic bag.

“Would you like an ice cream?”

Hell yes I would like an ice cream. Rather a selection, but I didn’t want to spend ages picking through them while she was standing there like a chump, so I grabbed a strawberry Cornetto. Delicious. (Although I don’t remember the ice cream-sorbet ratio being so skewed towards the latter.)

This seems to be a Thing they Do where I work, because it happened a few months ago as well. Who pays for it, I wonder? Is there some maverick group of morale-raisers lurking in the wings or does it go all the way to the top? Is this coming out of my PRSI?

Whatever. I just had a Cornetto. All I need is to build a sandcastle and chase a dog and my day will be complete.

I love statistics

Published
by
Colm
on 16 July, 2008
in Links and Misc.
. 14 Comments

I installed StatCounter a few weeks ago and it really is the business. The install was painless and the level of detail is fantastic. For instance: I have learned that I have a reader in Surprise, Arizona. This please me no end.

(And while I’m here… I don’t know what air freshener they use in the jacks at work, but good golly it smells like cola bottles. Delicious!)

A festival in miniature

Published
by
Colm
on 15 July, 2008
in Music
. 5 Comments

Following much humming, hawing and lurking around toutless.com, myself and the lady headed to Oxegen on Sunday. It’s the first time I’ve been at a festival and not camped, and it was pleasingly hassle-free. For one thing, not carrying a weekend’s worth of luggage meant I was able to get further than three feet from the bus without wanting to kill myself.

Of course, the flip side of that particular coin was that I went in boozeless and had to rely on the on-site bars. I was expecting to be fleeced, but a fiver got you a half-litre of decent enough beer in a big shturdy cup. Eh? Drinking at a festival is cheaper than drinking in a Dublin pub?

(Yeah, I know you can easily get a pint for under a fiver. Last time I was out, though, I ordered two pints of Paulaner and was charged €12.60 for my trouble, so it still averages out to everyone being a bunch of manky grabarses.)

I don’t know if MCD pulled the thumb out or what but the organisation seemed top notch. Queueing throughout the day, including the bus home, was at a minimum and the layout didn’t cause any of the usual headaches. There was of course talk of alleged rapes, alleged beatings and general alleged thievery but shur and it wouldn’t allegedly be Oxegen otherwise.

Bands: We Are Scientists were entertaining as always (creeping towards number one on the would-have-a-pint-with list… Guy Garvey will take some shifting though). Random techno was random techno. MGMT were probably ok, I survived the cattle pen for all of 30 seconds before I decided a pint was more in order. The Raconteurs put on a good show although I did kind of fall asleep for part of their set (rock n’ roll). Everything else was a general haze until Rage came on – cracking stuff, and the main reason I was there. A great set list and the encore was only mighty.

Overall, very glad I went. I kind of wish we’d stuck with our original plan and camped, but what can you do. Roll on Electric Picnic.

[More elsewhere: B'dum B'dum is a year late but still jolly entertaining, UnaRocks is as always on the case, and Jazz Biscuit has aggregated the shit out of the bad boy. Rosie may or may not recover enough to write it up at some point too... the scamp.]

SoundCheck @ Spy

Published
by
Colm
on 4 July, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 9 Comments

Always the hipster bridesmaid, I made it to the second SoundCheck on South William Street last night. Good times… the genius of it is that it starts at seven, so if you’re working in the morning you can drink cheap cocktails for four hours and still get the last bus home. (Also, one of said cocktails essentially amounts to Tequila Yop, which you will agree is an intriguing prospect.)

I was fully prepared for the music to go completely over my head, so much so that when the deliciously pneumatic opening beat of Closer kicked in it didn’t occur to me that it might actually be Nine Inch Nails. Kudos to the man who threw that on, you made my night. The guy I was with functions better than I as a musical barometer and the sets seemed to pass muster, though for my money they could do with a bit more liveliness if they want to hit proper funsies.

They were projecting An American Werewolf in London on the wall, and while there was no sound I did get to see it three times so I can confidently say it’s the best film ever made. Highlights include a progressively decaying best friend, dream sequences involving what appear to be zomb-Nazis and a puzzling scene wherein some Americans piss off an entire pub full of Welsh people by pointing at something out of shot.

Anyway, to summarise: B+, would attend again. And next time I’m going to take some French fancies instead of just staring at them all night.

We are dodgy music venues.

Published
by
Colm
on 3 July, 2008
in Stupidity
. 5 Comments

From rte.ie:

Dublin’s Point Theatre is to re-open as a 13,000 capacity venue with a new name this December.

Mobile phone company O2 today announced Ireland’s first ever music venue naming rights deal, which will see the Dublin docklands venue renamed The O2.

O2’s branding exercises tend to be on the flailing gimpology end of the spectrum. The place is opening in December, so I imagine at this stage they’re down to fine-tuning things to produce just the right amount of boiling, impotent rage in anyone who passes within a hundred metres of it. It remains to be seen just how badly they’re going to out-stupid themselves (assumably they will want to ramp it up, like) but I can’t imagine them coming up with something that isn’t a blatant invitation to arson.

There’s also this:

The phone company will also be offering ticket incentives to its customers, saying that they will have the chance to buy tickets 48 hours before they go on general release and can receive fast track entry to the venue.

Good news for touts then. At least someone’s happy.

Things Blade Runner does that newer films don’t

Published
by
Colm
on 2 July, 2008
in Films & TV
. 8 Comments

One of them anyway: restraint.

In particular, and by way of neatly segueing away from the film this post is supposedly about halfway through my first sentence, I was reminded of a great scene in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in which the inmates are seated at a discussion group and talking amongst themselves while the camera remains focussed on McMurphy. There’s some great acting from Nicholson as he watches each person talk and reacts to what they’re saying – you can see the cogs turning in his head as he figures out the dynamics of the relationships and as the reality of the situation becomes clear to him. It’s brilliantly done.

Of course it would be wrong to say that there’s no restraint in modern filmmaking, but this particular technique – closely following a character’s expression even while there are other, more conventionally interesting things going on – is not something you see often. The temptation, overtly or otherwise, is to pander to the audience, so it’s always nice to see someone really take hold of a narrative and do their own thing.