Monthly Archives: March 2020

A strange and arresting release of a 17min song from Bob Dylan. It’s Dylan as Walt Whitman crashing into American Pie. An oddly right and mournful anthem for the lost Spring of 2020

Pennys, like most other shops in Dublin, is shuttered. There is a plaque on the wall marking the spot as the site of James Joyce’s Volta Cinema. It hangs next to a printed store closure notice. Pennys (aka Primark) has been in business on this site in Mary Street since 1969. The Volta only lastedContinue reading “Passing Pennys”

A few years ago I placed this print on a wall close to my desk. Vermeer’s The Geographer. Taking a break from mapping the world to look out at it. He is looking at the world through a window in the Netherlands in 1669. My window next to his looks out on Smithfield in 2020.Continue reading “The Geographer”

“Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.” ― Frank O’Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

I went for a walk in Croppies Acre memorial park. A beautiful Sunday with the promise of fine Spring weather. Daffodils and Cherry Blossoms in bloom. Not many people about. I usually wear my airpods and listen to a podcast. For some reason I didn’t today. Instead, I shared the look of guilt on someContinue reading “In the Park”