Philosopher Kings

Last Tuesday, I finally got around to attending a lecture with the Metaphysical Society (The Metafizz).  I don’t know quite what I was expecting, having been in Dublin too long to expect anything stodgy, but it turned out to be quite the drunken socratic dialogue.

The professor giving the talk is the newly appointed head of the School of Philosophy and Sociology at University College Cork.  He had just moved back to Europe after 40 years teaching in the US, and was more than excited to tell us what he experienced. Actually, I think the verb he used was “weathered”.  I believe that was the first time in my stay in Ireland that I was actually slightly offended by somebody’s views of America. Almost everyone else I have talked to about the US has been quick to seperate their views of our government and their views of Americans, or at least emphasize how much they love Chicago. But this man was relentless in his generalizations of the American public.  Apparently we are ignorant by choice because we can’t handle reality. And I get it. 60% of the American public still believe that Sadaam Hussein was linked to the Taliban. But, sweeping generalizations about millons peoples motivations for being undereducated is just slightly offensive to me. Breathe!

So, the great thing about the Metafizz is, usually the person presenting is using the Society as a means for a dry-run of some material they plan to use elsewhere, be it in their thesis, or in this case the inaugural lecture of his post in Cork - So, he read from some notes, paused to ask us whether this bit or that bit would be better here or there.  And the topic was interesting enough - “How Philosophy Can Save the Earth”.  It was not so much a lecture for us as a workshop for him.

So, to get on with it, the moment this professor walked into the room, he was offered a glass of wine, which he gladly accepted. I characterized this later as a sort of “verbal handshake” in Ireland - the offering and accepting of a drink. The drinking did not let up for a good five and half hours later when we were all at the pub down the street having a laugh about tonic wine made by Benedictine Monks (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/europe/04scotland.html).  

The scene in that pub was probably what many people fantasize about when they come to study at Trinity, or really any big University in Europe - sitting around with a group of classmates and professors, letting your true opinions about democracy come to the fore after your third pint of Guinness (let it be noted that the Professor in question was pacing us kids).  It reminded me of Sarah Lawrence, in that your professors don’t treat you so much as a student, but rather a kind of co-pilot on this academic adventure.  There is a real joy when a professor forty years your senior gets into an argument with you about the nature of democracy, and he actually puts an effort into the discussion.  It's a sign that they believe you to be a worthy adversary.

Now that we were at the pub, as the professor noted, he could reveal his true opinions in this more congenial setting (I think what he meant was if it backfired or offended, he could maintain it was all for a laugh). In lieu of democracy, he advocates the crowning of a Philosopher King, and by the way he nominates himself. Now, it could be assumed (although riskily) that he was joking about the second part, but let it be know that this well-respected Professor of Philsophy advocates a mandatory test for all people who wish to vote.

This is a prime example of the ego of academia, and one of the main reasons, besides not having the brain for it, that I will, at some point, jump the ship from this philosophical undergraduate journey and get a real job.

Galway ( Or In Favor of Slow Travel)

Yesterday, I got home from a four day leg in Galway and the Connemara Mountains. Exhausted from sensory overload and living out of my backpack, I put off any writing or processing of the experience.  Today, as I was feigning alertness in my Ancient Philosophy lecture (who has time to read the Theatetus when there are still pubs to check off the list?), I started to experience a quite distinct feeling of panicky nervousness, seemingly without cause. I soon realized that this didn't have anything to do with the course work I had yet to complete, but rather was solely caused by a fear of losing the experience I had just had if I didn't write it down, if I didn't transfer it somehow into something tangible, pocketable. It was almost as if I felt if I didn't somehow capture the experience in a reliable medium, it would somehow become diluted over time.

 

However, I soon realized, like I always do when I get this feeling about travel experiences, that one of the main reasons the past weekend had been so full an experience was my complete lack of motivation to document it. My camera wasn't charged when I left fo the bus, so I left it behind. Without a camera, I was free to absorb the city and mountains at my own pace, without being able to hide behind the security of a camera. When I have had a camera on trips, I feel it has almost acted as a security blanket of sorts. I have found myself thinking, I have taken a photograph of it, I have processed it, I have captured this experience, now I am free to move on to the next sight. Its sort of an automatic way to say you have experienced something. But if you are without camera, as I was, it is much more of a process to experience a sight.  A much more rewarding one, too. 

 

For the leg of the trip that we spent in the Connemara mountains, we traveled with the Galway Tour Company out to our hostel on one of their tours of the Connemara mountains, and then they picked us up the next day and we got to see the rest of the tour. It was a great deal, and also let us see some of the sights, while getting in our hiking time. However, it is tours like these that make the camera-experienced-travel so necessary. In one day, this company shuttles you to maybe ten or twelve various sights of interest, with maybe a ten minute stop at most, and because you dont' want to run around the whole place for ten minutes and attempt to panickily process it, one falls back on their camera to experience the Abbey or old Fairy Fort, and can go back on the bus and look at their pictures while the Connemara Mountains pass by on all sides.

 

This isn't some sort of unforgiving commentary on the modern tourist. If I were on one of those day-tours I would be inclined to do the exact same thing, because it would be impossible to process all that beauty and history in such a short period of time. When we went on a hike through the hills, I found myself tripping every few minutes because I wouldn't let myself look at the path as I walked because I was so eager to absorb the scenery. It truly was so beautiful that I could not look away without feeling like a wastrel.  Needless to say my boots were covered in their fair share of sheep shit by the time we got back to our hostel.

 

Galway City in itself also really caters to this kind of slow-fermenting travel. The Galway city "sights" themselves only take up maybe half a day or less, while the real magic of that city is the streetlife. The buskers, trad music, pubs and walking to be done - those are the real attractions of the city. 

 

A more specific run-down of my trip will come later, as I steal pictures from friends to supplement the various scrapes we entered into over the four days. Just had to rant a bit.

 

So, Post-Grad plans are:  I'm really going to learn to play the banjo, just so I can go back to Galway and busk with the best of 'em.

My roommate is snoring and doesn't know I'm here yet. Precipice!

My flight arrived in Dublin at 4:35 this morning, an hour early than I had thought it would.  Five thirty is a decent time for a human to be awake. Awaking at five thirty when you are twenty-one means you are productive, albeit freakishly so. Being awake at four-thirty at any age just means you have insomnia.
Dublin is raining, of course. But I love it. This place makes me feel more observant than is natural. In the past five minutes I have noticed the drapes, a fox and some poor soul leaving the apartment above mine (where I am convinced about twelve different people live) for work.
I was supposed to miss snow, but truth be told, I could seriously give a flying fart. I try to rep the midwest and all that goodness, but let’s get serious, shall we? Chicago is like a girl with no self-esteem, except replace jerkfaces with epic low-pressure systems. What a lame metaphor, but I’m pretty sure my loyal fan base will forgive me. Hi, Mom.
I may have a limited social life, a sick addiction to phenomenology and no umbrella, but I just love the observant calm here. It sets me straight. Nothin’ beats raindrops on your head and foxes in your parking lot.

New Year, New You!

So, it should be quite obvious what one of my New Year’s Resolutions is - to be consistent with this whole blogging thing! I wish I could say that I just was too busy living to blog about it, but in truth, the last couple of months in Ireland were filled with a lot of work, and very little play.
Therefore, with the handy freshness our society has afforded the people at this time of year, I declare myself without fears. I am going back to Dublin, and I’m going to jump into life, instead of trying to understand it, or keep it in check.
I spent New Years 2010 with a hoard of buddies from Door County, WI, one of my favorite places on Earth. When I arrived we realized that we were going to make Camp David (http://www.fishstockmusic.com) our home for another summer. That news made me so excited that I couldn’t stop smiling the entire night. I realized that, in some ways, I was more excited for my summer at Camp D than I was for another semester in Dublin. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my life in Dublin is ruled by my fears, not by my goals or my passions. I’m too shy to audition for a play and get involved in the theatre. I’m too insecure about my writing to submit a piece to the paper. Meanwhile, I read the paper every week and fiercely critique everything about it!
Although we will always find it impossible to describe that amazing quality that makes us come back to DC year after year, I think part of it resides in the fearless nature of its residents. Living at Camp D, and calling DC home, has taught me that being an active individual is the road to a fulfilled life, or at least a fulfilled day. And I don’t mean active in merely the sense of getting off your butt and biking to work instead of driving (although I did learn that lesson, too), but active in the sense of choosing to do the things you know you want to do, in spite of fears and insecurities holding you back. And that’s another thing. Never, not once, did I feel judged by the people I met there. And that is a fierce feeling. I suspect that that is the heaviest thing most of us carry around with us - our judgements of our selves.
So, in 2010, I’m going to be, I am, done with all that nonsense of self-doubt and anxiety. I mean, I think I’m really awesome - I’m just too freaked out to do anything about it!
Here I go. Resolutions, baby. Yes, everyone does it, and nobody keeps them. But   I’m too young to be that jaded, so here’s to false hope!

Take that writing class at the Irish Writer’s Centre.
Go to Yoga and Boxing (or just sweat at least once a week).
Submit an article to Trinity Publications.
Do something new in Dublin every week! Every day.
Go on trips to the country to hike (Erin Tiernen, are you reading this?!)
Follow through with Dispatches From the Folk (Patsy, are you reading this?!)
No judgments.

New Year’s is also a great time to take a pause, and think of all the people that helped you get through the last year. Here’s a big jug o’ champagne to my Chi-Town Gang, my SLC Lovers, and my Camp D Loves. Sometimes I wonder how its possible that one person is allowed to have this many beautiful people in their lives.

Okay, enough of the sap! I rang in New Year’s with the Blues: http://www.cashboxkings.com/

Dublin Flea Market Yummy Baubles and Waffles

Just got back to my flat from visiting the Dublin Flea Market.  The scene in the market proves that the co-op is an excuse to bring all brands of hipster together on a monthly basis, although a quite great excuse if you ask me.  There were about thirty or forty stalls crammed into the Hall that usually holds the Dublin Food Co-op, which offers falafel, waffles and mulled wine for about the same price as a vintage skirt at the Flea.  

The Flea is one of those experiences that is exactly what you expect - knickknacks and cheap riffraff galore, in all a manner of colors and mostly too-small sizes (those fifties girls were masochistic most definitely).  I don’t usually fare so well at these types of shopping venues because I tend to come home with tons of cheap, well, crap.  But this time proved different - when I say the Flea is cheap, I mean dirt cheap.  I bought a fifties vintage skirt, a necklace, a poster and a sweater-shirt, none of which cost me upwards of five dollars.  Like all vintage shopping experiences, quality suffered a bit, but that’s the fun of it.  You’ve got to have your vintage shopping wits about you, or you’ll come home and realize you have bought a skirt that doesn’t have a zipper where one is supposed to be (oops).  

The rest of the Flea was your typical cluster**** of hipster goodness.  Read: Organic, sustainable, veggie-heavy food, ridiculous clothing choices and a steady stream of skinny, dirty boys playing their guitars on a makeshift stage.  

Although I recognize the shear self-indulgence of such a gathering, I can’t help but love it.  I like the veggie-heavy fare, I bought just enough useless items of clothing and goddamnit those boys are a-dorable.  

And there if just something ridiculously victorious about being able to say, “Yes, those are Mayan dolls on my skirt, and it was only three Euros”.  

Domestic Bliss - Read: Existential Crisis

I feel so peacefully domestic.  Almost uncomfortably so.  Surrounded by the stuff of a day well spent without traveling more than three blocks from home.

There are those days that I wake up and am a domestic goddess, or rather a domestic squirrel - darting here and there doing all those little household tasks we all put off for weeks.  This is all supremely out of character.  Emptied recycling, also emptied incredibly small bathroom wastebasket that is always more of a goal than an actual destination for various debris.

The most reliable symptom of this mood is the rearranging of the living space.  When I still lived at home, I would rearrange my room into bizarre layouts maybe three, four times a year.  Always bizarre, because there is only so much you can do with a tenxten room with one window.

And let's face it; when you are in the midst of the somehow simultaneously monotonous and terrifying days of high school, moving your twin to the exact center of the room can give you a new lease on life.

I always tend to exaggerate the horrifying experience that was high school to a stereotypical degree.  I actually had quite a good time, despite the inevitable heartbreak and embarrassment. I think I just don't want to admit that I still like moving furniture around for no good reason. It has nothing to do with feng shui - although my boy Guo Pu might disagree -  It makes me feel like I have something new to look forward to - a new spot.

And what is a new spot really but a new perspective on life? No - literally - you see things from new angles.  Seriously! You are seeing sides of things you've never seen before!

No, but for real - just keeps things fresh.  And it makes you question your daily routine.  If you have to plunk your butt down in a new corner of the room to watch those five episodes of Glee in a row, you might think twice and pick up a book.

My new spot is much more conducive to reading.  Without no effort, I read for close to three hours instead of using the internet - something I've found difficult to do once I discovered how to use Megavideo. 

This move I cultivated the perfect spot for me and my butt.  With two roommates, there seems to be a natural claiming of spots.  I put my computer on the seat.  Primal, maybe, but come on - who's going to sit on a computer?

That kind of thinking has lost me about four to five expensive pieces of electronics in the past two years. 

So, for now I'm camping out.  Window sill to my left, fireplace to my right.  Book on chest. 

Jesus, I even bought flowers!

It's me, God. Marga-- FUCK.  Who am I?!



Next stop: candles and a throw rug (vintage?)


Ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- check it out: Dublin Flea Market

The Felice Brothers

This past Sunday, my friend Chris used a family connection to score a spot for himself +1 on the guest list of the Felice Brothers show in Dublin.  The venue was a club called Whelans that has no real philosophy in terms of booking bands as far as I can tell, seeing that the last time we went there we danced to an electro-pop DJ.  I had never heard of the band before Chris started insisting that these dudes were the next Dylan, and had been for months.  From my observation, it seems that the person or persons Chris deems as the "Next Dylan" seem to fluctuate rather frequently.  Therefore it seemed it meant something that he had been holding this conviction for a couple of months.

I started by listening just to their recently released album "Yonder is the Clock", and to be honest, I wasn't bowled over in excitement.  It was great music to be sure, but it didn't hit me in the aural sweet spot.

Their gig at Whelans this past Sunday is ranked in my top three favorite concerts I've ever been to in my life.  The community that the Felice Brothers managed to create in that venue within two hours was awesome.  The main singer (although most "brothers" had one song that they sang) Ian Felice is almost painfully serious about the lyrics he sings - this is a band meant to be seen live.

Maybe it was the spirit of Dublin that was permeating the air and making everyone giddy, but I for one couldn't keep the smile off my face.  I even stood in five-inch-heels for the whole concert and followed when Farley Felice (the washboard and fiddle player) pulled some people up on the stage.  This is from someone who pooped out half-way through Lollapalooza last year, and went home with a friend to take a nap and watch television.

There is something extremely adorable about the group that the Felice Brothers have created.  Although only two of them are actually brothers (there used to be three, but the drummer brother moved on to other projects), each band member has adopted the stage name of his own last name plus the surname Felice.  I just can't get over how adorable it was to watch a group of brothers getting silly and playing music together with such fierce energy and love.

In conclusion, I wish I could play the Harmonica.

http://www.myspace.com/thefelicebrothers

P.S. Check out Farley Felice on the far left.  The night we saw them at Whelans he was wearing a New York Yankees fitted, a bandana and a white tee.  His favorite artist is Jay-Z, and he is the Felice Brothers resident rapper and hype man.  But most of the time he plays the fiddle and washboard.  Uh. Swoon much?