Philosophical Question Tuesday

Can't believe it has the nerve to show it's face around here after standing us up yesterday, but here's tuesday now, and the question today is "What if the world stopped turning?"
First of all, would everyone, apart from those in padded cells die? Since we're moving fairly fast through space, when we'd shudder to a halt, I guess things would go flying and there'd be a huge breath taking wind. So maybe just people in airtight padded cells and deep sea divers would survive the slow up. Then what?
If you happen to be in one of those two categories, what would be your next step? Where would you live? Bearing in mind that the world would be frozen in place, you have a choice of season, and time of day to live at, and access to the world's best cars as well, but the roads would be probably full of debris so travelling regularly between day and night, or different temperatures wouldn't be an option. So, plan ahead, what would you do?

Weekly Wednesday

This week it's a day early, yes after three weeks of faithful service, this week's Weekly Wednesday has taken us all by surprise, arriving immediately after monday instead of patiently awaiting it's turn, elbowing timid tuesday out of the way. In this uncertain world let this be a lesson to us all, we can't assume or count on anything. Go ahead, enjoy tomorrow today, say to people "Thank god we're half way through the week" show up for any wednesday meetings or appointments and call people up who should be there, it is Wednesday after all - you can refer them here for confirmation if they complain. (Of course you should ignore any Tuesday obligations you have as well, such as making up philosophical tuesday questions for your blog etc etc). Ring up RTE tonight demanding the midweek movie if they don't run it. I suspect they will though, it's well known that all RTE bosses read this blog and obey its suggestions religiously. Happy Weekly Wednesday everyone!!

Monday poem

Keeping the poetry Bus-ness goin here's this week's effort...

Outrage

Dear Sir, My daughter hates you
Wishes you were dead, or at least that
we had never met.
She tapes your image to the dart board
writes bad, untrue things on wikipedia,
hasn't stopped hating you, and yet -
I have somehow found it in my heart
to forgive the thoughtless callous acts
since they were performed on others.
My daughter is not so kind,
she hasn't the patience or the mind
to ignore the atrocities, the blood, the pain,
she hates all dentistkind.

Eileen Casey on the Radio

The next in the long line of talented writers to take to the airwaves with me is Eileen Casey, originally from the Midlands, she is based now in South Dublin. She is a poet, fiction writer, journalist and Creative Writing Facilitator. She has shown three poetry installations, ‘Seagulls’ , ‘Reading Fire, Writing Flame’ , and ‘The Jane Austen Sewing Kit’ . Her great debut collection ‘Drinking the Colour Blue’ (New Island) was published in 2008.
Eileen is responsible for inspiring many of my previous guests in her workshops, and was a big part of the founding of the Lucan Writer's group, so we have alot to thank her for. Her theme is "The Art of the Idea" a fantastic and interesting subject, and she'll be reading some of her gorgeous poems. Should be inspirational.

Usual time 11 am this Sunday morning, on Liffey Sound - link there on the right.

See ye then then - Eileen's show is up on the radio blog now - here

Back to the Future

I am living precisely 1 hour in the future. Ok - it's just that I didn't change the clock last week. What's the point of changing something that's going to just change back? As EW's character in her Trib story said "What's the point of ironing?" Anyway, there are extreme advantages to this new way of life - not only have I saved the precious 30 - 40 seconds that this work would have taken, but I also have a far more positive approach to getting up in the morning, now that I feel like everything is happening an hour later. I've even half managed to take back up my old habit of getting up early to write and/or do practical writing related things, which is fantastic actually. This morning I made out a mini writing plan - goals I want to reach, how I plan to reach em etc, and feeling more energetic in general.
The drawback is that I am working a full hour later in the evening, altho the local pub is running great bar extensions every night, so plenty of time to catch up. I can highly recommend it anyway - as a way of life - c'mon everyone now and live in the future with me!! Change your clocks now early for next year, and laugh as you arrive into work at 9.30 in the morning, instead of the usual 8.30 etc etc

Weekly Wednesday

Can you believe 7 days have passed? A whole 168 hours since last we celebrated weekly Wednesday? The second ever weekly Wednesday starts right here!
YAY - HAPPY WEDNESDAY EVERYONE!!!!!
(I think this is a bit silly. I think in fact I will stop after this one, after I tell you my theory about Weekly Wednesday, how it comes from an ill-fated Wedding weakly planned to take place at Loch Ness one day. Maybe I'll stop even before that in fact, maybe I'll stop right...now)

Philosophical Question Tuesday - Research or Gut?

Today's question is as follows:
When making big decisions in your life - are you better off thinking about them carefully, weighing up all the pros and cons, or should you just go with your gut. Your gut as opposed to your heart should give you instantaneous instruction, and should be a bit more practically based than the heart, ie i'm not asking should you just do what you want, more should you do what your subconscious (or gut) tells you is the right decision.
And this is for big decisions I am asking - ie huge - life changing decisions - like deciding where to live, whether to leave your job, whether to have children. Should you agonise over all these things, spend weeks on end researching it, or just listen to your gut, and dive on in, whichever way it tells you to go?
The advantage I can see for this approach is the time saving, plus the fact that you won't feel bad about your research and analysis skills, if it turns out to be a bad choice, since you won't have actually researched it. On the downside - you might make stupid mistakes in your decisions, by not shopping around or really thinking about the implications, cos your stupid gut told you so.
Read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink - for a strong argument pro trusting your gut. Any recommendations for a strong argument anti?

Promptless, Titleless Poem - help needed

Altho the TFE bus is out of order, I've gotten into the habit of putting up a new poem here every Monday, and good habits are hard to shake. This week it's a poem written in a coffee shop on saturday while waiting for the brake light on my car to be fixed (apparently they're important to have in running order when driving to Letterkenny in October).
Anyway - without further ado -

If the Electric Chair was run by Ryanair,
you'd have to die standing,
having queued for hours -
with jingly music roaring in your ears
and leery hen/stag parties drinking 6am beers
and trumpets if you die on time
before other trumpets sound.
You'd be strapped in tight,
(with no leg room)
- there'd be ads for Sprite
on the inside of your death hood
- harsh cheery announcements dispelling any chance of sleep,
and I fear your last meal wouldn't be that good
and it wouldn't be that cheap.

Any help with naming this one would be appreciated.

Oireachtas Report

Took myself up to Letterkenny last night, to rendezvous with Mr VC at the Oireachtas - a big annual festival of all things Irish - Sean Nós singing and dancing - such as like can be seen on the following two clips....
Singing
Dancing
I only got to see the singing competition. Each competitor sang two songs - one slow and one fast. The slow ones were between 10 and 15 minutes long, and most of the singers kept their eyes closed for the duration, which I found a bit alienating, especially since my Irish isn't good enough to fully follow what was going on. They had amazing voices though.
The dancing would have been the highlight, if I'd got up earlier, luckily - most of the dancers were still in dancing form later that night in the Errigal hotel, where tables were overturned in the lobby for people to strut their stuff in this great free style dance that basically involves letting the feet do the talking. Everyone got a go afterwards in the function room with a talented live band providing amazing rocking tunes. (I'm a natural mover - a bit like the bollywood really)
It was a pretty crazy environment, people dancing on tables - using chairs as stepping stones around the hall, you couldn't help but get sucked into it. Another highlight was a giant singalong led by the King of the Tory Islands - Patsy Dan - who sang "Báidín Fheilimi" - which is all about a ship wreck on the way to Tory. Fantastic weekend, will definitely be back to it next year.

Brian Kirk on the Radio - and last night at the Olympia

My lovely guest this week on the radio is the brilliant Brian Kirk, Clondalkin poet, and writer. He was shortlisted for a Hennessy Award in 2007, placed third in the Peoples College short story Competition 2009 and shortlisted for the Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Award in 2008 and 2009. His work has appeared in the Sunday Tribune, Crannog and various anthologies, and apart from all that he's a very nice man.

The theme he has picked is

"Elegy, Lament, and sadness at the passing of time"

most definitely our longest theme title yet. The show should be fascinating, scary, and surprisingly upbeat - but I'll let you be the judges of that.

In other news, I was OUT last night, at the Olympia Theatre, seeing Biffy Clyro in action, they're a Scots band who say their influences are the pixies and nirvana. I liked them. Their die hard fans worship them, and it was a fun gig, like a humongous singalong with a superbright light show, crowd surfing (the surfers quickly being turfed out, it should be mentioned) and very very loud beats (I could feel the inside of my cheeks vibrating). The band were very theatrical with microphones all over the stage, great variation in their songs and a topless encore, lovely.

I really liked their support too, a troupe called Manchester Orchestra, who had some really amazing tunes, and two sets of drums - one facing front and one facing to the back, I don't know why - but it was really exhilerating to behold the two going at one time (I'm a sucker for a gimmick, any gimmick). Biffy's drummer appeared at one stage in one of the theatre boxes to watch their set as well - distracting the entire audience. The lead singer handled it well - informing the drummer this was Manchester's part of the show - and the audience better look to the front.

The band on before Manchester Orchestra were a gang of real young fellas, whose name I didn't catch, but whatever they lacked in musical inspiration they made up for in enthusiasm and death (or at least sore knee) defying jumps onto their knees on the stage - the bassist was cartoonishly thin and flexible with Moppy hair, and he clambered for all he was worth over the amps at front of the stage, that unfortunately weren't that big, making him look a bit like he was playing with overgrown lego. Fun night tho - thanks to my sponsor, who never reads this, because she claims I'd have no news for her if she did...