10 days in Dublin

Dublin's latest independent arts festival 10 days in Dublin gets underway on July 7th, and runs for, you guessed it, ten days. It's a not-for-profit festival and as a result shows are really cheap, they want to encourage people to see as many as they can. There's some really interesting and unusual sounding things going on.

Here are five festival picks...

7th July - The Buzz Aldrin Allstars vs Super Mario Brothers. Play classic computer games to live music! The craic! The Workman's Club at 7pm €10

8th July - Master and Margarita. Stage adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's classic Soviet satire. Said to be the inspiration for The Rolling Stones' Sympathy for the Devil. Features a giant walking, talking cat - what more could you want. Samuel Beckett Theatre at 7.30pm €12

12th July - Little Green Cars. Band of rather talented 18 year olds who are hot stuff apparently (...not as in they're hot but as in they're on the up. I don't know what they look like...). The Workman's Club at 8.30pm €5

13th July - The Maids. Jean Genet's disturbing tale of two bored housemaids who plot to murder their mistress via lesbianism, incest and ritualized ceremonial role play. Nothing like a bit of sinister theatre. St. Mary's Abbey at 8pm €10

14th July - The Arrow of Time. Scarily good sounding magic/mind-reading magician Shane Gillen aims to 'delve into the depths of theatre of the mind'. He's already tried it on Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson and come away unscathed...go see! The Players Theatre at 8pm €10


For more, and to book tickets to any show see http://10daysindublin.ie

A bar of lemon soap

A friend presented me with this bar of lemon soap the other day. He bought it on Bloomsday while attending a reading of Ulysses in Sweny's Pharmacy, the very place where Joyce's Bloom bought his famous lemon soap. Sweny's is a curious little place. Preserved in something close to it's original state, they sell, in addition to copious amounts of lemon soap, second hand books and vintage jewellery and hats, as well as a random assortment of pharmacy type wares. One of the most interesting things is their collection of old photos. There are drawers full of packets of photos from the fifties and sixties that were left there apparently forgotten about and uncollected after development. You can view some of them here to see if you recognise anyone, or just look at the strange foreign land that is Ireland fifty years ago.

For more on Sweny's Pharmacy see http://sweny.ie/

They're at 1 Lincoln Place and are closed of a Sunday. Ulysses readings are weekly on Thursdays at 7.

Controversial Club Orange Ad

Hi, god we are bad at this recently!! I can't really make excuses. Anyway, we're gonna try post something everyday even if it's just small. So I haven't been able to turn on the radio without hearing something being said about the new Club orange campaign. I am not going to say anything and let you all judge for yourselves. Needles to say whether or not you agree you will see where the controversy arises.

Third Man Records and their magic vinyl.

Just a quick post about Third Man Records. Jack White's new label is making music that counts and giving listeners a product that you'll want to buy in the way of limited edition vinyl. For those who still want hard copies, vinyl is the way to go, it means you get something special for your buck. At Third Man Records they appear to understand that and have taken that something special to a whole new level. I can't really explain so watch this video. Also enjoy Jack White as the music buyer's Willy Wonka.

Songs that feel like Summer

It's bucketing down today, you can't see the hand in front of your face for the sheets of rain falling in front of it. So I thought I'd post some songs that feel like summertime.

Midnight In Paris.

Just a quick post about Woody Allen's new film Midnight In Paris. Most of the hype about this film so far is centered around Carla Bruni's cameo. The plot revolves around a young couple who go to Paris (Owen Wilson and Rachel Mcadams), however Wilson's character finds the company they are forced to keep too much and starts taking midnight walks. During these walks he finds that he travels back in time. His time travels take in characters who peopled Paris through it's history from Versailles' creators to Salvador Dali. I am personally most excited to see the scenes which include Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. These parts appear to be excellently cast as far as likeness is concerned, so here's some images and the trailer. Hopefully it's as good as it seems.

Corey Stoll as Hemingway

Alison Pill and Tom Hiddelston as the Fitzgeralds

The reports of my death are greatly...oh wait, no, maybe not.

Will books go the way of the dodo

Terrible news from Amazon today as they glowingly report that sales of the Kindle will account for 10 per cent of its business next year. Extremely speedy, when you consider how new the Kindle product is. In May, Amazon announced that in the US Kindle ebook sales had outstripped print book sales after only four years. Waterstones, an established bookshop into which you can walk and leaf through and choose to buy a physical book with your own bare hands and even with coins if you choose, confirmed this dismaying trend. "For every hardback we sell online, we sell four ebooks online," said a spokesman. Four. FOUR! That is a scary statistic, scary, at least, if you're an advocate of the book in it's corporeal form. And I am. I really am. I am not a luddite - in fact, I have read books on my iPhone. I know it's smaller than the Kindle, but it's basically the same principle. I was reading The Count of Monte Cristo recently, quite a tome, and annoying to carry about in a bag if you're just going to read it on the train or the bus. So I downloaded the free copy of it from iTunes, and read the digital copy when going about the place, and the physical copy when at home. But it just wasn't the same.

I think that's where the difference will always lie - there will be a (hopefully not too small) group of people who will just feel that there is something different or special or satisfying about reading a book, with pages and a cover and a spine, rather than reading an ebook. Something inexplicable, something psychological, an emotional attachment, just wanting to rub the pages or write on them, appreciating it more for it's cover. Something that the hard glossy shell of a Kindle or an iPad* won't be able to convey. The iPhone has a page turning sound effect. That's just stupid. Read a book if you want the aural pleasure of a page turning. I really do hope that as ebooks sell more and more, real books are going to increase in price, the way it is with vinyls. But it probably will. Progress. Onwards and upwards.


*By the way iPad, comeback please? If this must happen don't let the Kindle win!

Stay away from The Three Musketeers.

It seems that one of my favourite childhood books, Alexander Dumas' The Three Musketeers is to see itself brought to the big screen with a glossy Hollywood makeover. The book has had several movie incarnations yet never a definitive one. The most recent incarnation was in 1993 with no other than Charlie Sheen leading the famous trio as Athos and Tim Curry as a "can you believe I can be so bad?!" Cardinal Richelieu. It barely resembled the book in any way. The most faithful adaptation of the book is still the 1973 version starring Oliver Reed and Christopher Lee, this stuck completely to the book and is a classic in it's own right.

The latest adaptation appears to be a Pirates of the Caribbean style action film. It is to be released in 3D and looks to follow in the footsteps of the 1993 version. One look at the trailer and you see this is director Paul W.S. Anderson looking for the next summer blockbuster regardless of the book. With a trailer that includes what appears to be a flying ship and a ninja we have yet to see a true adaptation of Dumas' book for the 21st century.

Lightbulb moment

Anyone caught short with a broken string and no spares at any venue across Dublin can just zoom over to The Grand Social's super-duper musical vending machine.

Looks like an ordinary vending machine....but...LOOK AGAIN! And you see that it's filled with guitar, violin and banjo strings, boxes of plectrums, amp and guitar batteries and even kazoos. We came upon this absolute wonder of a thing in The Grand Social in town last night, neither of us having been there since it was Pravda. (Behind the times, we know.) As the dj standing beside it said 'best piece of linear thinking I've seen in ages.' Too right.

Duets

We saw The Tallest Man on Earth play last night in Vicar Street. We like him, but we felt a bit fraudulent at the gig among a seriously hyped and adoring crowd. He played a good set, full of everyones favourite songs and was in high spirits as it was the last in a year and a half of touring. The best bit of the gig, I thought, was his duet toward the end with his 'future wife', so I decided I'd put up a video of it, along with some others I thought of.

Anyone got any favourites?

(Listen for hilarious heckler at 2:36)