Famine Fairy

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So… yesterday I volunteered to be an extra in a film / television show / who knows what, I just thought it would be fun. They told me to come dressed as if for a job interview; that I would be filming a comedy club scene. Easy peasy. I’ve been an extra before, and it’s a lot of standing around and pretending to watch the central action. An hour of my life, no big deal.

When I got there, they said they had finished filming the comedy club scene that morning and were moving on to the next scene. Not only were my uncomfortable heels unnecessary, but I was going to be made-up as a modern day famine victim and have a camera shoved in my face while I – gasp – delivered actual lines.

I don’t think my 30-second fake commentary on the Irish political situation will make it to the final cut (American accent and all), but the make-up was pretty awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I didn’t bother to wash it off, and went to my 6pm class looking like a zombie.

The terrible thing is that no one noticed. I was on campus for four hours last night, and nobody said a word. Apparently, I just look that haggard all the time.

So with Halloween coming up, I’ve got to start working on my fairy costume. I tried on my wings with the make-up yesterday, just to see what Famine Fairy would look like.

Tá Muid…

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I have got to spend more time on Irish for Beginners. I am learning a lot and really enjoying the class, but my pronunciation sucks.

We’ve started conjugating verbs, though not in any formal sense; just learning to say things like Tá muid inár gcónaí faoin tuath (We live in the countryside).

When I got home after class and sat down to read a chapter of Who Needs Irish, the first page I turned featured a poem in which every line began Tá muid….

And since it was a poem about hybrid culture, many of the words were in English or even Spanglish (rock ‘n roll walkmanach, piña colada cheesecakeach).

With the repetition of Tá muid and the heavy use of English, I can officially state that I understood roughly half of that poem. Progress!

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Sweet Little Angel Babies

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Last week was the Baboró International Arts Festival for Children here in Galway.

I got to volunteer for a couple of events over the weekend, including two Visible Fictions performances of Jason and the Argonauts and the Baboró: Environment, Arts, Science and Technology (BEAST) exhibit of projects crafted by local school children.

On Saturday, a tragic accident in Tuam took the lives of two little girls: Kate, who was 2 years old, and Grace, who was just 12 weeks. My heart is breaking for everyone involved.

Tonight, I turned on TG4 and there was a programme called Cogar: Oileán na Marbh (Island of the Dead) about the cillins where unbaptised babies were buried.

A brief portion in English had Christy Kenneally reciting his poem “Dear Parents,” which includes the lines …If you would honour me / Then strive to live in love / For, in that love, I live…

I’m going to Skype my mom now.

Internet Research and Author Services

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I have been writing a paper for the last five hours, so my brain is mush and this probably won’t be a very good post.

I’m writing about Kirkus Reviews for my Contemporary Publishing class. This is the first paper I’ve written as a graduate student, and I’m a little nervous.

The essay is supposed to be between 2,000 and 2,500 words, and at last count, I had amassed just over 3,000. Now I just have to edit it down into a coherent argument…

Internets!

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Yesterday was like Christmas morning. The courier called at 11am and I met the van outside.

I even hooked it up by myself. (It wasn’t hard – I had to plug in precisely two cables.)

Now I am free to read the entire world wide web… just in time to finish my first essay. I love you, UPC!

Print Museum

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Today I went in to see the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt office in Dublin. I did some contract work for HMH in Austin over the past year, and I would definitely like to maintain a relationship with the company while I’m here in Ireland. I went in to ask a few questions and to make sure they know I’m available for any internships or volunteering projects they have going on over the next year.

Then I went to the National Print Museum.

The National Print Museum is located in Beggar’s Bush, which turned out to be a very nice area of Dublin, just past the canal and within sight of Aviva Stadium. The old barracks set-up means the traffic noise is deafened by the buildings that surround the museum. It’s a quiet little spot with its own cafe and a tiny gift shop.

Dermot McGuinne, who spoke to our Book History class last week, is a [the] renowned Irish type design expert. In passing, he mentioned the exhibit he was curating, From Colum Cille to Colmcille: The development of the Monotype irish printing type series 121, which opened at the Print Museum last night. Since I’m interested in the relationship between the Irish language and the printing press, and I was planning to be in Dublin anyway, I made it a priority to see the exhibit.

I took some time to look at the equipment on the ground floor before going upstairs to the exhibit. A woman I sat next to on the bus yesterday told me there was a printing press that had been featured in a TV show, though she couldn’t remember the name. It turned out to be a press built specifically for the set of The Tudors.

There was also a video demonstration of how all the different machines worked. I thought it was kind of funny that I was watching a video of old men operating the machines in the museum while in real time the cleaning staff – all young and female – were wiping the dust off the displays.

I went upstairs, but before I reached the exhibit, I was sidetracked by the children’s section with its own little library. The first book I picked off the shelf was called Johann Gutenberg and the Amazing Printing Press by Bruce Koscielniak… and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

With my morning nicely bookended by HMH, I made my way over to the exhibit, which was fascinating. A few minutes later, an older gentleman came up the stairs, sat down at the kids’ table with Johann Gutenberg and the Amazing Printing Press by Bruce Koscielniak, and started taking notes as he read.

Busy Day

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Woke up at 5am. Rode across the width of a small European country in a bus. Visited a book publisher, a music magazine, and a print shop. Handled a 300 euro book; bought a different book for 10 euro minus a 25 percent discount. Saw the Yeats exhibit at the National Library. Chatted with my professor on a city bus. Mailed my absentee ballot request from the infamous General Post Office. Finally tracked down the collection a fashion designer from Northern Ireland did for a high street retailer. Ate dinner in a crowded restaurant alone. Attended a theatre performance that involved lots of full-frontal male nudity and a famous actor in a fat suit. Now enjoying the comforts a hotel room can provide – a bathtub, central heating, and WiFi.

More tomorrow.

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Leisurely Arts

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It occurred to me, as I was walking home from the library in the rain, that my time in Galway is going to be spent learning how to do the things I love faster. Specifically, walking – because I’ve got places I need to be going – and reading. If I’m going to work in this business, I have got to read faster.