Like, literally!

Michael West still dominates my life.

I'm just saying.

Here is his latest interview, describing his play Freefall from Edinburgh ... by far one of the best professors that I've ever had.

-E

Baby Got Back!

After a month of internet silence ... I'M BACK! So much has happened, and I'm just that awesome that I'm going to list it all for you to out there on the internet to read. Because I know you're there. Somewhere, you are.

July 4th
Oh the lovely day of Independence! I kept up my tradition of heading to the West Side and hanging out in Hudson River Park. Must say, the fireworks this year completely trumped last years. By a long shot. But then again, having the majority of the fireworks actually be red, white, and blue does tend to actually help. Just a thought.

The World Cup
Spain won and I wanted to punch someone in the throat. This is not an exaggeration. I was going through security at JFK when time was up, and all I heard was this loud rumble of cheer from down below.

Las Vegas
In turn with the above, I was at JFK because I traveled to the fabulous city of sin for my friend Todd's 21st birthday. We sent the week gambling and living in luxury. That is all I'll say, because, well ... it was Vegas. I'm not even going to bother reciting the expected.

Rhode Island
I took another road trip to the lovely New England state of Rhode Island with my friends Abby, Cayla, Lauren, and Elizabeth. After a total of 14 hours in the car, we kayaked, lounged on the beach, swam in a river, drove through Providence, and ended up in good 'old Beantown. All in all it was an amazing weekend, complete with a souvenir sunburn :)

Internship
I got one! Simple enough! I applied to work for MTV Networks a few months back, scored 2 interviews, and was then offered a position with Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. Development and Production team! Literally, the only negative is that my office is in the heart of Time Square, aka Dante's 8th ring of hell. BUT, there is redemption! The studio is amazing AND there is a Starbucks right across the road!

Good Craic
And last, but never least, I spent some amazing quality time with some of my friends from Ireland! We went to this pub down on 1st and 1st called One and One, had a couple of pints, and mused over the dream that was our Irish experience. Conclusion? We all want to go back right now. And see Michael West's play at the Abbey Theatre!

Now, I promise I'll be around more to give my little quips and opinions on random miscellany. Just you wait!

-E

Someone passed Pratt and wanted to make a blog about it...

Look At This Fucking Hipster >> enough said.

I have never recognized people on a blog until now. This is just pathetic.

But, on an even sadder note, I actually really like this graphic:

-E

The Basketball Diaries

Jason Bateman. Dustin Hoffman. What more could you ask for?

Check It Out!

-E

Sunburns are masochism at it's finest.

I don't think anyone can deny that. How can a human love doing something they know will cause them pain? Like hula hooping on the black tar roof of their building during peak sun hours for an entire afternoon. Needless to say, the hours I then continued to spend out on the Hudson did not help the situation. On the plus side: I am somewhat close to my natural, olive based complexion, something I've missed since my little trip to the dreary Eire.

On another fun note, I got called a Rua by some random guy on the street. Weird part: I had never heard that until I was in Galway. After Maire Rua. An Irish woman. From the west coast, not the west side. It was strange. I like it, but it felt weird.

-E

So THATS why!

Check out Jezebel's commentary on things that have made my generation less empathetic ...

-E

http://jezebel.com/5550200/10-things-that-are-ruining-kids-today

10 Things That Are Ruining Kids Today

A new study purports to find that college kids "are about 40 percent lower in empathy" than students 20-30 years ago. The study press release blames all the usual suspects (technology, "information"), but what'sreally destroying the youth?

— Facebook. Study co-author Edward O'Brien says, "The ease of having 'friends' online might make people more likely to just tune out when they don't feel like responding to others' problems, a behavior that could carry over offline." See, kids today are idiots, and they can't tell the difference between that guy in student government who friends everyone, and an actual close relationship they care about. Why are they so stupid? From drinking too much ...

— Soda. Sure, kids drank soda in the sensitive seventies and empathetic eighties. But that ambrosia was sweetened with real sugar, which has been shown to improve teens' moral fiber by 20%. Now soda has high fructose corn syrup, which turns kids into cretins — if it doesn't give them autism.

— "Extended Adolescence." In the good old days, kids went down to the mines at seven and were raising families of their own by nine. This gave them the sense of responsibility necessary to face their likely death or maiming in industrial accidents. The advent of child labor laws, banning of corporal punishment, and popularity of "college" has made kids soft. Put yours to work on the threshing machine before puberty, and they won't try to move back in with you in their twenties.

— Video games. Says study coauthor Sara Konrath, "a growing body of research, including work done by my colleagues at Michigan, is establishing that exposure to violent media numbs people to the pain of others." Especially the pain of zombies, aliens, and King Koopa.

— Vaccines. Childhood diseases used to weed out the weak, leaving only those with strong constitutions and, therefore, characters. Also, watching friends and siblings die built empathy. Luckily, Jenny McCarthy is working on a solution to this one.

— Difficulty of pronouncing years after 2000. Today's youth have been disproportionately exposed to years with ambiguous names ('aughts,' 'naughties,' 'twenty-ten' versus 'two thousand ten'). Their lack of a foundation in good old-fashioned pre-2000 nomenclature impairs their morality — after all, if you're not sure what year it is, it's okay to kick a baby in the face.

— Google. It used to be that when you didn't know something, you had to saddle up your horse, ride all the way to Washington, DC, wait eight days in the snow to get into the Library of Congress, then put on your monocle and read a whole bunch of documents with f's instead of s's in order to get your answer. All the research for the space program was actually done this way. That's why astronauts are heroes, while kids today are just lazy sacks of shit who only take ten seconds to tell you how much rocket fuel you need to get to the moon. Losers.

— Self-esteem. Somehow, despite countless studies purporting to show how cruel, narcissistic, empty-headed, and downright evil kids today are, they continue to think they are worthwhile human beings. Solution: more studies.

— Lady Gaga. She's probably involved somehow.

— Reality TV. Actually, this one might be true.

Carrie Fisher Roasts George Lucas at AFI Life Achievement Award

This is just amazing.

-E

"You've Got Mail"

Of course I would become pen pals with an Irish guy AFTER I've left the country.

Of course that would happen to me.

Of Course.

I met him at Doyle's, my pub du jour, and he's incredibly smart. As in he's a Trinity Scholar. It's pretty entertaining. We e-mail. I'm loving it.

-E

The Secret of Kells

Oh, and go watch this movie... NOW.

The Secret of Kells. It's amazing. I'm sort of in love. It hasn't left my DVD player in over a week. Legit, it's Irish Animation at it's best. It should have kicked Up's arse at the Oscars, hands down. There seriously isn't any competition, in my opinion. And my Irish Cinema professor was an animator for the freaking Ninja Turtles, so that's saying a lot ...

-E



Aisling’s Song
You must go where I can not,
Pangur Ban Pangur Ban,
Nil sa saol seo ach ceo,
Is ni bheimid beo,
ach seal beag gearr.
Pangur Ban Pangur Ban,
Nil sa saol seo ach ceo,
Is ni bheimid beo,
ach seal beag gearr


You must go where I cannot
Pangur Ban, Pangur Ban
It’s a misty old world
and we are only in it for
a short, sharp while

Krapp's Last Tape, Gate Theatre

Tonight was the opening preview of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape at the Gate Theatre here in Dublin, and I have to say that I still don't quite know what to say aside from the obvious: spectacular.

I do have to preface this by saying that I have never seen a Beckett play live, so this was an overall first. The feeling you get is strange, surreal even. I found myself becoming hyper-sensitive to my surroundings. Every sound mattered. Every feeling meant something. During the performance, I found myself thinking about the time and how long the performance was, and then the overhead went out and, like a fleeting moment, it was over all too soon.

Michael Gambon owned the stage as Krapp, a 69 year old curmudgeon in the process of recording the final tape of his life. The lighting, wardrobe, and set were absolutely wonderful. The desk, specifically, lived up to my expectations.

As far as Gambon's performance was concerned: Nearly flawless. The way his tone shifted between recordings and reality was right on cue. His shuffling was appropriate and consistent; his facial expressions were priceless.

Something towards the end did specifically catch my attention, though. Krapp croaked, "begin again, begin again."

Now, if I am remembering the text correctly, the line should have been "be again, be again," so I am torn between two worlds: understanding and confusion. I have to believe that everything that happens on a stage is intentional (and I have the faith in Gambon to up hold that standard) but I also know that the Beckett Estate is not the friendliest of establishments. Adjusting Beckett simply isn't done.

After only an hour of sitting in the Gate, I found myself wanting more, needing more. I wanted to know what further pain Krapp could suffer and how his life would go on, another day without his wife.

AND WE SAW MICHAEL GAMBON AFTER THE SHOW AND IT WAS AMAZING.
THE END.

-E

Uimh Gaeilge

Oh lawdy, I've decided to bite the bullet and make an attempt at teaching myself Irish. Maybe this is an intellectual's way of pulling a Britney, I don't know, but I'm enjoying myself so far... well, sort of. Once I get beyond the memories of Sra. Hink drilling subjunctive tenses into my brain, it all seems to be a lot of fun. Maybe it's that whole "willful over mandatory" thing?

OH.

And when I went to the bookshop to buy said handy-dandy book, the teller (after examining my theatre culture and Beckett anthologies) LAUGHED at the grammar book! He said, and I quote, "Good luck with that one! That's the first copy I've sold in months."
After hours of reading up on my new handy-dandy Irish Grammar book, this is all I've got ...

Tá mé ag foghlaim na Gaeilge. Uimh Gaeilge. - I am learning Irish. No Irish.
Tá mé Meiriceánach. - I am American.
labhairt liom Béarla. - I speak English
beoir - beer

And that their language is more intense than English (Béarla) by half.
oíche mhaith
-E

Pitch 'n' Putt with Joyce 'n' Beckett

because this makes the literary nut in me squeal...

This Week In Review

So, the week is almost at an end so I thought I’d do my best to fill the void with an update.

Sunday:
We made friends with random people in our hostel -- aka 3 guys from Sri Lanka, a guy from Namibia, and then a Parisian from Gambon who confessed his love for me after about 10 minutes. His name was Barton and he looked like Djimon Hounsou.

Monday:

The Huntarian Museum at the University of Glasgow was closed for the 3rd day in a row, so Jaime and I wandered around the city for the entire day. Found these really awesome bridges and ended up wandering through the equivalent of Scottish New Jersey on the North Side of the city. It was pretty epic. There is photo documentation. Then we saw A Single Man and I fell in love. It was wonderful.

Tuesday:

We took a cab to Glasgow airport at 0500, only to arrive at 5:30 and learn that we were in fact at the wrong airport (no one bothered to correct us). So we ended up taking a £100 cab ride to the correct airport an hour away and luckily got there just before the gate closed. Then after security they weighed our bags (which has never happened before) and we ended up having to pay £35 each for carry-ons that the flight crew didn’t even check. We finally got back to our flat in Dublin around 0900, just in time for Jaime to get to class. Thus ... the actual day began.

Went to lunch at Chorus, where we ran out of time so Sirus let us take our plates and silverware to class and then bring it back. It was pretty great. Kerry and I just walked in to Susanne’s class with these massive plates of omelets and chips ... people were jealous and we were full. In class I had to suffer the torment that was the movie Adam and Paul, and I’m pretty sure I am the only person that hated it with a burning passion. In a word: boring. I just wrote a review on it, so I might share my thoughts in a little bit, have no fear.

Then around 0930 Steven and Kristen finally got here (apparently the immigration guys looked me up in the computer to varify that they were staying with me and that I was a valid temporary citizen -- WEIRD) and we went to grab a pint over at Farrington’s. The music was great, but not gonna lie, we were dead. The day felt like a week.

Wednesday:

Fintan O’Toole came and spoke to us. It was pretty epic. I’ll be honest though, since he’s a theatre critic and all I definitely thought he was going to be talking to us about, you know, Irish theatre, but the entire thing ended up being about post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. It was incredibly interesting, actually, and I really want to read his new book now. After class Steven and I skyped into our first Orientation Meeting back at Pratt and were pretty amused. It was a fun time, seeing people and thinking about all the stress that awaits us back in the states. Joy.

Thursday:
Oh, today. Did I mention that the first draft of my full length play is due in less than 24 hours? Fun, right? Not. Lies. All lies. I’ve been teetering page 56 for the past week and can’t seem to stretch things out any further so far. It’s awesome. So, instead, I am watching Eraser with Kristen and Steven, drinking my third cappuccino of the day, and eagerly awaiting my take-away from Queen of Tarts.

Tonight is going to be a looooooong night.

-E

It's St. Patty's, everyone's Irish tonight!

So, interwebs ... yesterday was the infamous, the notorious, the ever-joyful event that is St. Patrick’s Day! And where better to be than Dublin, the legitimate home of the international alcoholic tourist?

No lie interwebs, this city -- Temple Bar to be specific -- became a complete mad house, with people wearing completely atrocious hats and garb, glitter and stockings.

Best part: the Irish are least likely to dress that way.

We spent the morning at our professor’s house over on the North End because the parade starts off of his block (it’s comforting to find graffiti reading “No Loyalists! CIRA March!” on a building). Pretty epic. None of the floats actually made sense. We ate American style BBQ. There were Irish children.

What was the topping on the cake you ask, dear interwebs? I would have to say that it was a combination of hanging out at Doyle’s with three guys named Rownan, Declan, and Eogen + Jaime being convinced that one of them [coughEogenthebarristercough] was a serial killer.

Until the next fake Irish holiday, or something more interesting pops along ...

-E

No Parlo Italiano!

It’s official -- I’m back in Dubsville, aka Dublin!!

If you didn’t know, interwebs, I’ve just spent the past week in the loverly city that is Roma, Italia and it was basically amazing. I think I’m officially obsessed with the Bernini Bridge (no, I don’t actually know the real name) and Santa Maria dia lo Muerto (once again, I don’t actually know the real name, soOo I made one up that sounds about right)

In a brief (very brief) nutshell, Santa Maria’s was absolutely incredible, and I could have spent hours in the very tiny room that is the crypt. Lots and lots of bones. Enough said.

Fabulosity? I think so.

Right up my alley? I think so.

Unfortunately, you’re going to get short changed here, interwebs, because I am knackered and just finally got home from a 3 hour flight filled with CRAZY Italian teenagers getting ready for St. Patrick’s Day. They were rude, they didn’t even try to speak English, and they had green hair. That is not a good/pleasant/fun/relaxing combination.

-E

Lies Susanne Told Me Number 317: “Students always come back from holiday with lovely tans.”

Sing Your Song

I have to admit that I hate karaoke.

I don’t sing in public, I don’t dance in public, you get the picture, interwebs. But recently I’ve taken to going to Kelly’s, this pub on my block, on Friday nights to see my friends (and drunken strangers and tourists) belt their hearts out on a mic ... and it is amazing! That it some seriously good craic. No lies.

We’ve come up with a sudo-system for nicknaming all of the people, usually based on their clothing/demeanor (Leggings, Argyll, Red Tee, Bouncer, etc.) and it is hysterical. Best part? Elizabeth, Jaime and I ran into Leggings while walking up the River Liffey last Saturday night ... it was pretty amazeballs, interwebs.

-E

Happy V D :)

Oh yeah ...

Happy Valentine's Day interwebs :)

Alas, my heart belongs to my one and only: Santiago.

(After some peer pressure and a threat of fighting) Santiago made me what was probably the best Valentine of my life -- absolutely adorable! At first he rejected my request to be valentines, but I always get what I want :)

Another bonus of the day? Elizabeth and I went out to brunch this morning and this guy totally thought we were on a date. It was pretty great, I'll admit.

-E

Loves it!

ELIZABETH CAME TO DUBLIN!

I had been waiting and waiting for this weekend to come, and needless to say, I was not let down!

It was so great getting to hang out with not only one of my best friends from home, but a sorority sister as well. She is so much fun to hang out with, and I absolutely love that she has no shame in looking like a tourist. We went into kitchy stores, took cliche pictures, and laughed the entire way through.

We spent Friday walking around Kilmainham Gaol, which is basically my favorite place in this city so far, regardless of the fact that one of my favorite movies was filmed there. Can we talk about In the Name of the Father?! The entire time we were in there I couldn’t help but have a conniption over how amazing Daniel Day-Lewis was in every scene filmed there. we spent that night at the local karaoke hunt up the block, where Jaime sang under the name of Euphegenia Doubtfire and I got the number of the Bouncer. Needless to say: good craic!

Saturday the three of us went up north to what is basically the most picturesque town of all time: Howth (like both). Walking around there felt like we were in Greece or the Italian coast. Also, apparently they had the best fish n’ chips on the planet (I stuck with my chicken, thank you very much). We followed up the night with another eventful evening at the favorite, Farrington’s, where we proceeded to meet the closest thing thus far to a leprechaun (his name was Noel) and a music guru (William) trying to explain the relevance of the Cork-Kerry football win from that afternoon.

All in all, it was by far the best weekend thus far and I CANNOT WAIT to go to London sometime soon!

-E

A storehouse full of beer!

I think that I’ve come to the conclusion that the Guinness Storehouse is God’s gift to Ireland. That place is freaking amazing! For the low price of E11 you get into the entire museum AND you can have one of their bartenders teach you how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness. Highly suggest it.

AND I found a little piece of Brooklyn while en route -- the back roads there basically look like Taffee with better sounding accents. Not gonna lie, I kinda loved it.

-E