Check out this new line of denim selling at posh Neiman Marcus department stores in the U.S.:

Not Your Daughter's Jeans.

So what the hell, I hit the link they sent and take a look at the petite line for us shorties.

Gah!

The line should be honestly dubbed "Mom Jeans" instead.

Not only is the zipper ten inches long with a waistline above the base of the ribs, they make the models look hippy as hell, and I mean that in the boxed midsection sense rather than in terms of the privileged white subculture that has haunted the west for the last forty years.

Women over thirty do have trouble finding the right pair of jeans, it's true.

This ain't the answer folks.

When Patrick McCabe finds his form, there are few writers who can match his gift for characterisation and ability to reflect a generation or temper within a national figuration.

Raphael Bell ranks as the most dynamic and haunting personage in McCabe's creative collection.

Bell could have been realized as a bloodless stooge from the era of de Valera's "comely maidens dancing at the crossroads" sentimental yet iron-fisted rule. He's more complex than that. Bell's a champion footballer, hardworking, morally standup guy who wants to bring the children forward in an independent nation. He puts his students through their paces to acclaim on Raidio Eireann. Over time, his demand for control and obedience gets the best of him. His poor wife gets frozen out, he takes to flashes of anger and violence in the classroom, then along comes a feminist who presages the end to his vision of Ireland as based on the holy family patriarchal design.

There's a great deal of humanity in the narrative.

If you can manage to lay hold of tickets to the staged version of McCabe's novel "The Dead School," do yourself the favour. It's running at the Pavillion until October 3rd and then continues at the Civic Theatre for another five performances. Sean Campion is gut-wrenching as Bell. Eamonn Owens plays Malachy Dudgeon, the young teacher who cares more for smoking dope than teaching his pupils. Carrie Crowley fully inhabits the stage in a variety of roles, including the feminist Ms. Evans. Peter Daly was delightful as Fr. Stokes. Gemma Reeves as Marion and the schoolboys was surefooted and funny. Crowley and Reeves in particular were superior as the local boys hanging above the set functioning as a chorus of sorts. Campion hung there as the statues of O'Connell and Gladstone to welcome Malachy into Dublin and London to strong effect.

The opening chord to Van Morrison's "Baby, Please Don't Go" was employed to signal a mental collapse or break with reality for both the teacher-men. It was still in my head this morning.

Modernity's inevitability and legitimacy aside, it's always crushing to see idealism fade.

Powerful stuff.

Bette Davis Bloopers!
Lurve her.

We stopped going to your average Chinese restaurant years ago, probably after the trip to a place in San Francisco's China Town where the prawn in ginger sauce arrived in the guise of shrunken, long-frozen crustaceans in a clogged sauce that resembled hair gel with a greyish tint. These places are everywhere; none of the food's fresh and all the sauces are industrial strength.

You bloat after two bites from all the MSG.

Zen on Upper Rathmines, however, was a revelation.

The veggie spring rolls weren't all that interesting, since it was stuffed with the bean sprout salad they give you when seated, although their take on a plum sauce was citrus-infused and tangy.

It was the ginger sauce for the monkfish that drew my envy. That's the mark of a good meal for me, when I know I couldn't produce the same without their recipe. The sauce was more light and flavourful than any other version I've tried.

The chilly waiter relaxed and warmed to us when I told her.

My fish tasted fresh and the broccoli had a crunchy life left.

Mr. M's dish didn't feature the king prawn the menu boasted, but again, the red chile sauce amounted to a gossamer zing on the plate.

The modern decor reflects the restaurant's revitalisation of the cuisine.

Highly recommended.

"If you have to put in all that stuff to cover them up, what's the pointing of eating them?"

He says "covering up," while I say "seasoning."

Like many kids, Mr. M experienced brussel sprouts as a trauma-punishment food that had to be swallowed whole as fast as possible. The mistake is treating these much maligned tender greens as mini-cabbages and boiling the fuck out of them. The only vegetable that should ever be boiled is potatoes for shit's sake.

You can serve yummy brussel sprouts by slicing them thin then sauteeing them in olive oil with finely chopped shallots, ginger, red chiles, lemon zest, lemon juice until tender, when they are still a bright lovely green.

Growing up in Philadelphia during production of the Rocky franchise meant that you could cringe at the tourists running up the steps to the Art Museum (but not going in, heaven forbid they go in and see my favourite painting as a youngster which probably prompted my avid interest in mythology) and yet still enjoy the movie. Philadelphia has a tendency to savage its own except for Stallone, who was given a pass at least until the Reagan-era jingoism of the fourth installment.

In Rocky 2, it goes like this: Adrian minces Rocky's balls, letting everyone in the 'hood call him a pussy because he won't do the re-match. His old lady won't let him fight, and since we all know that any man who does what his wife wants simply needs to grow a pair. Despite the troglodytic commentary about gender here and in the post-wedding scene where he carries her around like a cave man, there's a surprising development at the end of the second act. When Adrian falls into an unlikely coma (plot device so we can see the hero suffer) Rocky tells the nurse that he doesn't want to see his son until she wakes up and they can see him together. Wait!
Is this movie saying that a woman is more important than a baby?
A baby with a penis?
Dear me, this is more radically feminist than you'd get today.
Try to imagine that in the "Junebug" climate where women are mere incubators who should expect to die giving birth.

This was the winner for worst case of over-acting ever by ladies who lunch.

Sufferin' succotash!

This gigantic spider was the first thing I saw this morning.

I didn't know tarantulas were common in Ireland.

My policy on spiders has always been hands off--they generally don't frighten me--but come the fuck on.

You could leash this one up for a trot with the dogs.

Eeeeeeep!

If pressed to single out my favourite decade for modern fashion, it would be the 1940s.

There was such a variety among the collections for women that were smart and stylish when worn with a swagger by Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth, Rosalind Russell, Jane Greer, Gene Tierney, Gloria Grahame and Ava Gardner.

But this billboard for Littlewoods featuring models in the era's look seems a bit cartoonish.

Particularly the rolled hair worn by the model on the left.

It almost defies gravity if you study it.

Her locks have been combed drastically forward from the nape of the neck and then rolled up on her forehead.

It strikes me as a Trump coiffure for women.

Maybe that's unfair and I should relish its aesthetic appeal.

2,000th post!

Look at this fucking douche bag who spins a lame justification for male privilege or "right" to view women enrolled in university as "perks" for professors:

"The fault lies with the females. The myth is that an affair between a student and her academic lover represents an abuse of his power. What power? Thanks to the accountability imposed by the Quality Assurance Agency and other intrusive bodies, the days are gone when a scholar could trade sex for upgrades. I know of two girls who, in 1982, got firsts in biochemistry from a south-coast university in exchange for favours to a professor, but I know of no later scandals.

But girls fantasise. This was encapsulated by Beverly in Tom Wolfe's novel I Am Charlotte Simmons, who forces herself on to JoJo, the campus sports star, with the explanation that 'all girls want sex with heroes'. On an English campus, academics can be heroes."

Judy Friedberg highlighted this piece of shit's article over at the Guardian.
Even though universities acknowledge the power imbalance and shaky ethics surrounding sexual relationships between faculty and students, this Vice-Chancellor at Buckingham University wants to retain the dudely prerogative to poach from the lecture hall to service his peen.
And it's the womenz fault!
He thinks he's authorized just because a mediocre novelist created a female character who served as a conduit for his pornified fantasies about "what women want."
It's beyond creepy.
Women in the classroom are just a collection of orifices designed for his pleasure, a bonus to his position as dude-in-power.
He's such an obvious case of an aging dude stuck in the Playboy era saddled with a heavy dose of narcissism who thinks women should worship him as hero.
Fat chance, fuckface.

Mr. M's been having a rough time of it.
First, the frame on the bike he had built split down the centre.
The shit's made from titanium for fuck's sake.
It doesn't sound reasonable that it can just crack open when they use it to build airplanes.
He has to send it back to Canada and wait for the repair.
Then Omar went on walkabout one morning at the beach, leading him through a channel that on the way out was knee deep. On the way back, the dogs had to swim while the sea was above Mr. M's waist.
The mobile in his pocket was a goner.
Hang in there, I tell him.
Happy Birthday to my handsome husband.

"Persepolis" was on television the other night.
I know we're late in getting to see it.
Love this scene where she rocks out with the tennis racquet.
Films so rarely depict women who rage against the machine through music.
Fab.

Jason Stackhouse's choicest malapropism of the season occured during his definition of evil:
"Evil is deciding to be a premedicated dick."
The dumb blonde offers a wise observation underscoring the nature of malevolence as located in the quotidian rather than the supernatural. Evil is just so everyday.
What is evil? In the immortal words of Blanche DuBois, we can recognize it as "deliberate cruelty."

I've posted about traits I admire or look for in others and wish to cultivate in my own muliebrity, so it's worth writing about the characteristic that when I realize it in another (like the freaky facial distortions Charlize Theron's Maryanne glimpses among the demonic cult members in the crappy "Rosemary's Baby" rip-off starring Pacino/Reeves), I tread carefully. Nothing puts me off quicker than identifying a deeply embedded mean streak. Those fitted firmly with one take an inordinate amount of pleasure from schadenfreude, the grim glee we take in other folk's misery or misfortune. Those with a truly developed mean streak will not only gloat when others get a karmic kick in the ass, they will actively seek a target through some sort of misguided moral compass which considers their own personal mission in life to take the piss or knock others down to size.

A mean streak is steeped in cruelty and in cultivating pleasure from rancor; its quintessence resides in the sneer, the derisive guffaw. Mean streaks exist in a reflexive loop where an individual learns to glean his or her own self esteem and worth from tearing folks apart. It's petty and puerile personified, residing in a grasping, feeble heart starved of empathy and compassion. It's the stuff of anger and resentment.

Three of my siblings have award-winning mean streaks, which was of benefit only in giving me the ability to distinguish the spiteful impulse early on.

Off to see "Fish Tank" and find a birthday present for the husband.

He's impossible to shop for with the response always being "don't buy me anything--I don't need anything." We're planning on a long weekend in Paris or Rome in a few weeks to celebrate his 43rd, yet I'd still like to hand him something on Thursday.

Consignment shops are a key wardrobe resource especially during an unstable economic climate.
My all-time favourite pair of jeans cost $15 from a thrift shop.
In grad school, I collected a sizeable fraction of the apparel I wore for teaching from a flashy used clothing store featuring such gently used garments and shoes that it took a few trips before I even realized everything was second hand. You could find a pair of tailored wool trousers for $25. It makes sense when you consider how many of us have a closet full of shit that doesn't fit or stuff that you can't bear to look at anymore.
There are at least 4 dresses unlikely to ever again make it out of the dry cleaning bags upstairs.

A visit to Swopshop on Crow Street in Temple Bar will be happening in the near future.
Look at how many cute dresses they have.
Everything looks nearly new.
Their system calls for you to bring in laundered clothes to trade on a points system which you can apply to selected purchases.
Can't wait.

Disaster!

If last night were an episode of "Come Dine with Me" and I had been a guest, I would have given my dinner a generous 5 out of 10.
For reals. I can't recall so much shit going fuckways-wrong during a dinner.

I should have known that the day started out far too flawlessly for the momentum to continue.
Up with a smile at 6:30; out of the house equipt with my shopping trolley at 8:30.
The food at Morton's was pristine.
There was no trace of a fishy smell at the seafood counter and the beef was exactly marbled.

It started when I took the vodka from the freezer to make bloody marys for guests and jack shit came from the bottle.
It was frozen!
Have you ever heard of vodka freezing?
Didn't think it was possible.
I banged and shook it until an oily looking sludge crawled from the bottle resembling polar bear poo.
How do you measure a pour when it's fucking slush?

Then my timing was off for the rest of the night because I opted for those pre-packaged mini charcoal camping grills. It's been more than ten years since I've used the briquettes and flat out forgot that it's a painfully sloooooow and unreliable method. And it was dark in the garden, so I was going by a flex method for the steaks and scallops in order to determine when they were ready.
I burned the quesadillas. The tortillas looked dry and cardboardy from the beginnning.
The scallops were rubbery and undercooked.
Dinner was supposed to be on the table by 8:30 at the latest, yet didn't come off until 9-fucking-30.
Cue the self-disgust.

The guests were naturally a lovely group and perfectly mannered.
I have killer pics of everyone wearing the plastic vampire fangs I picked up on a lark.

I'll diagnose the root of the problem residing in my wish to produce perfection.

The Sookie-yellow dress will stay in the closet for tomorrow.

Instead, I'm dressing up as the fabulous Pam.

Should have gotten the bumpits when I had the chance.

Can't wait to see some more of Eric in that grey suit in the final episode. *drool*

I'm serving a bunch of my normal starters along with crab quesadillas w/salsa and a round of bloody marys. Bloody beef tenderloin in a red wine reduction and scallops and shrimp for the mains alongside roasted veg, salad and spicy sesame noodles (the last dish to satisfy a craving I've been having for them).

Looks like I can get all that and dessert at Morton's in Ranelagh.

Hopefully I don't fuck it up and spoil the preparation.

Models on the runway for Prada and other designers this season were sporting some serious frizzy hair. I took the cue and left the house with my hair in its natural state for the first time in ages today. Let's say it'll be several more years until it turns up in popular fashion--if ever.

Holy shit!
Yesterday I didn't know why the #13 bus on the return trip from Ikea made a detour and was caught in traffic for so long.
Hope everyone's okay.

A quick post on food before I make my third pilgrimage to fucking Ikea:

Kraft dominates the packaged cheese market in North America while it's the most depressing foodstuff you can put in your basket or belly. Either shredded or in singles, it resembles plastic in taste and texture more than dairy product. I doubt that there's any actual milk in the recipe. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese or, in Canada, the boxed sludge goes by the moniker Kraft Dinner is a culinary aberration. Just the thought of powdered cheese makes me shudder. It's the fare of bomb shelters and abject poverty, not a product that human beings should place into steady rotation in their diet.

Have I made it clear how much I loathe Kraft products?

Irish packaged cheeses, on the other hand, are rich in milky creamy goodness. Superquinn's white cheddar slices are absolute perfection. Michelstown shredded cheddar hugs the beans on a burrito like nobody's business.

Glenisk organic raspberry yogurt is velvety smooth.

Superquinn's caesar salad dressing is one of the best I've ever had with a nice light and lemony finish.

In North America, I never bought bagged salad greens because they were dessicated, lifeless and often gritty. Here, every single bag I've had is filled with fresh, juicy-crispy leaves washed clean.

Kerrygold runs xenophobic advertising without question, but they make some lovely rich and creamy butter. When we lived in Oregon and it was available, I bought it regularly.

The organic, free-range eggs I bought yesterday were arguably the best I've ever had. I fried up half a dozen for all of us after gasping at the magnificent orange yolks.

My only complaint about Irish food would be that the beef doesn't look right by either colour or texture. It keeps turning a sickly grey instead of deep brown and the tenderloin seems to be undermarbled. I'm hoping that the bbq grill will help solve the presentation issue.

Gyles Brandreth's "Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile" cast a bellows of breath into the flamboyant writer and champion of style and aestheticism within a rousing murder mystery set in the Parisian theatre. That is until Brandreth commits a glaring flaw in Wilde's characterization on page 258:
"Oscar smiled. 'Bernard is right, Sarah. You should not read reviews. You are an artist. Why should an artist be troubled by the shrill clamour of criticism? Why should those who cannot create take it upon themselves to estimate the value of creative work? What can they know about art? I despise critics!'"
Wilde would never have made such a heated declaration.
I've had to direct many a snotty creative writing student who disparage the act of criticism to find Wilde's work on the topic.


Wilde's "The Critic as Artist" persuasively reasons that the artistic and critical faculties are interdependent and signal a joint role or function in the act of creation. Formatting his ideas in a dialogue set between friends Ernest and Gilbert, Wilde dimisses the idea that the artist creates without thought as though a mere medium for some ephemeral inspiration or source, producing work that far exceeds the critic's. Both the artist and the critic have to make a series of deliberate stylistic choices in their work. Wilde's Gilbert observes that writing a three-volume novel is no more of an imaginative task than talking/writing about the novel. Surely Wilde would concede that although there are legions of shitty critics, they are matched by the number of mediocre artists afoot.
Anyway, I cry foul on Brandreth overlooking Wilde's estimation of the critic's artistic composition and merit.

Jim Carroll's dead.
He was a shitty musician, but man I loved his books when I was a teenager.
The "Downtown Diaries" has some great scenes: the performance art with the cockroach and can of raid; the seeping boil on his injection site which explodes when he pulls up his sweater; Allen Ginsberg's mishap with the vibrator are all iconic pop culture stories of their moment for me. He seemed like a good man in interviews.

One of the signature hallmarks of adulthood is the rite of the dinner party.
Whether it's cheese,wine and fruit or an elaborate series of dishes, part of how we connect to other folks is by inviting them to our table. There's so much uncertainty on both sides of the cutting board because you never quite know what will happen when company assemble. Folks can be delightful or rude in equal measure. We've hosted so many in the course of moving seven times as a means to ease our way socially. One woman smiled over the forkful of my dish to quip that I was going to hell because I didn't accept jeebus as my personal saviour (a phrase which always reminds me of a personal shopper and makes me wonder if jeebus will remind me never to purchase red or orange garments). An angry macho dude physically threatened Mr. M as the moon rose during one 4 course Japanese dinner until I intervened as a bouncer and convinced him I'd mince his ass into the lawn if he didn't check himself. Another dude wrapped his mitts around my waist and pinned me against the counter in a horribly uncomfortable gesture on another occasion. How many dudes have taken issue with the fact that I'm a feminist and a decent cook, as if the two were mutually exclusive? Yeah, feminists hate men and food! Fellas, you need to cut that tiresome commentary out. And how many women at my table have told me I need to eat more or gain weight? You simply cannot talk about losing/gaining weight at a dinner party. It's like saying you should really get an AIDS test in the middle of reverse cowgirl. It just fucking ruins the moment. Then there was the wealthy couple who loved to boast of the $4 bottle of wine they handed over. You can bet I poured it for them instantly. Or how about the vegan dude who stood sentry over me as I prepared his cheeseless quesadilla in order to patrol that I didn't pollute his food?

I've also had fun as a guest of hosts who were barkers and tried to get us recruited to their church while we ate microwaved corn-on-the-cob with margarine. Or those hosts who sat me next to screaming infants, told me my skirt was too short, my womb too empty, or my wine glass to be granted only a splish-splash, because I don't have a peen and ladies shouldn't have hooch. We've been to far too many "dessert parties" than seem normal. The last thing I want to do at the weekend (or ever) is consume ten types of sweet. There was even a soup party once. Whereas I connote soup with convalescence or cold wintry fare, our host thought it shouted "party." Half the guests had mud butt before the night was over.
It's a pity that the awful shit lingers over the lovely.

Truly, I love planning and hosting dinners, especially when it's not a case requiring me to play the wife role in apron. (I'm planning one for the weekend as we speak to celebrate the second season finale of True Blood. I'm trying to scheme how I can construct a meat bonfire in the garden Mary Anne-style). So it was a real treat when Fat Mammy Cat clued me in to "Come Dine with Me," the reality show where 5 strangers compete by hosting the best dinner for the others. Guests rate the host; the contestant with the highest score wins a thousand pounds. I was glued to the television yesterday for the nearly three hour episode. Everyone was just horrible except for Stephen, the one who really should have won and had the best manners and approach to the whole thing. Nina and Ross were two of the nastiest cunts taking breath, both of them just looking to snipe and snarl and knock someone down at the knees. Danny was a prime woman-hater with some major aggression issues, and Catherine couldn't be arsed to even cook herself. She had a "helper" who worked as a chef, proving that even if you cook for a living you can be crap in the kitchen. When Ross demanded to see Stephen's garbage to check for vegetable peelings because she didn't believe he cooked the meal himself, my chin was hanging open. Danny was also operating under the mars and venus bullshit and also thought Stephen had to be cheating. Un-fucking-real.

An American televsion producer needs to jump on this and make a version like yesterday.
It's an instant addiction.

The inspired stage adaptation of Flann O'Brien's classic "The Poor Mouth" was an utter delight last night and deserves a longer run than two nights at the Mill Theatre. The short puppet scene used to depict the children being beaten on the first day of school for not saying their names in English ("Jams O'Donnell!") worked well, as did the scene on the ladder when Bonaparte climbs HungerStack and had all manner of rain, rocks and snouty hedgehogs thrown at him in the process. Confusion over "Ink Lynch" was a tickle. We also really enjoyed "The Rivals" at the Abbey not long ago. Brought back memories of reading it for the GRE Subject-from-hell test I took to get into a doctoral program (I know a dude who switched departments and applied for a Ph.D. in American Studies so he could avoid the English subject test altogether).

Might I be bold enough to suggest that we do away with the tradition of intermission for most theatre productions? Unless the play runs three hours or more, there's really no need to halt the momentum by drawing the curtain for 15 minutes. Why bother when a show is less than two hours? Can you not wait for a pee or a pint until then? At both recent productions I was just so annoyed to have the interruption, especially when most of our time hinges on getting home in time to walk or feed the pooches.

Intermission cramps my pleasure in the performance, for sure.

Dogs=Dirt.

Sand all over the fucking place.

Mr. M can't remember if it was in a Jack London or Jim Harrison novel, but one of the dudes wrote about a city dog who was let loose in the horizon and subsequently ran himself to death.

Omar's aiming for that fate when he clips 5K on the beach in twenty minutes.

Both my boys are skin and bone at this point from all the activity.

One of my favorite characterizations of the difference between literary modernism and postmodernism rests with the onion and apple metaphor. Postmodernism can be regarded as an onion, with layers upon layers which peel away, but with nothing at the centre. While modernism, on the other hand, resembles an apple because when you get down to it, there's a core, a centre as a means for holding everything together. Call the core what you may, for me it's always been humanism and the ideals of the Enlightenment.

Paul Auster's keynote address on Beckett at the Mountains to Sea book festival in Dun Laoghaire tonight is sold out. I put off trying to secure tickets to the last minute because I've never read Auster, a writer I've always categorized with all the pomo dudes who write terse novels about the alienation of privileged white dudes. Now I'm wishing we had tickets anyway.
Bummer.

"Still looks red, you know. Maybe you are a natural red head after all" says the husband.

Two bottles of Garnier Nutrisse Macadamia Golden Brown later and the ginger persists.
Seems like I need three fucking bottles to do this follicular pile.
Yeesh.

Cindy Adams, veteran gossip maven, closes many of her juicy bits with the tagline "only in New York, kids." In a similar vein, I have an "only in Dublin" story to share.

The husband and I were out with Fat Mammy Cat, her Paramour and Gimme having pints during my last week as a ginger after more than twenty years (lest I be charged with performing greenface during residence). At one point, I looked down for my handbag and it was gone, baby gone. Paramour and Gimme had noticed a woman slinking around the vicinity. (I couldn't recall her until the next day when the woman's grim countenance popped into memory). The pub was empty so I carelessly left it where the thieving bitch could get it. Quickly, I went over what had been stolen in my black Furla bag: wallet with a TD Visa, Irish and Canadian bank cards, a few more than ten Euro, a phone with 30 Euro credit, notebook, makeup, Kate Spade sunglasses and a hairbrush.

Fuck-fuck-fuck.

Mr. M used the Paramour's phone to cancel the credit card, which took most of an hour since it was a bank holiday in Canada. FMC scouted the trash bins nearby for the bag or contents. Gimme called my phone, in hopes that the bitch might return some of my stuff. And then, out of the blue, Gimme's phone rang with dudes from Apache Pizza calling to say they found my bag in the shop and his number in my notebook. He dashed out to retrieve it.

I'm convinced that my purse could have been stolen in any city in the world, but only in Dublin would I have it back an hour later with all the contents in tact except for the cash and phone.

Only in Dublin, kids.

Last time I went cycling was eight years ago when we were in Inishmaan, but that doesn't really count because the bike had no brakes so I wound up pushing the thing up and down the hills all day like a jackass because I was afraid of smashing my unhelmeted head into a wall. In Phoenix Park a few days ago, it started out predictably with me being a mewling complaining cunt for at least fifteen minutes. Then I relaxed and enjoyed the gorgeous park and the mild day. We watched a group of deer standing on hind legs to eat from the trees. Mr. M came upon this lone buck which was awfully close, so much so that I was hissing at him to move away.

The dude in charge of the bikes for hire told me he gave me the one Beyonce rode when she was there. Guess the diva vibe evaporated before I climbed on.

Eircom tells me we won't have broadband until the end of the month so posts will be sporadic until then.