Radishes

I don't care about the radishes, you are not going to work

Feed Address Change

This is a special post just for those who subscribe to Irish KC by feed. Atom has been dropped, and there is a new RSS feed address in its place. Sorry about this different servers have refused to be civil to each other so I've had to implement some serious changes.

If you're already subscribed to the Feedburner RSS feed I'll keep that going as well as the one above, so you should be grand enough, but there will in time be a range of other feeds available - for comments and specific categories, like cartoons etc.

I am nearing the end of this current upgrade, and nearing the end of my tether. This special post will be deleted shortly once the relevant servers have been pinged.

See what you might have missed:
     • Hairdressers Guide to Information #6
     • Movements
     • Kansas City Wizards Celebrate the World Cup
 

Nelly Don: More Showings

Speaking of movies, Terence O'Malley's movie Nelly Don: A Stitch in Time about the Kansas City's legendary Irish-American business woman, continues to have more screenings added at the Screenland in downtown Kansas City:

  • Jun 2 Friday - 4:00pm
  • Jun 3 Saturday - 1:00pm, 3:00pm, & 5:00pm
  • Jun 4 Sunday - 1:00pm, 3:00pm, 5:00pm

See earlier posts for the background story on the movie, and companion Nelly Don book

See Other Movie News:
  • Uncensored Cinema
  • The Irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
  • All Movie News on Irish KC

Free Movie: Millions

The Kansas City Star describes a movie called Millions as:

Irish siblings find a bag of cash; will they spend it on themselves or on good deeds?

6:30 p.m. Sunday, Westport Presbyterian Church

While the boys' father is played by Irish actor James Nesbitt, the brothers, like the movie and its setting, are British. Northern English, yes, the northwest even, possibly somewhere between Liverpool - the capital of Ireland - and Manchester - which gave us The Smiths and Oasis, but English nonetheless.

That said, Danny Boyle is a fabulous director, and you should absolutely see this tremendous family film. Fantastical, funny, touching, stylish, warm, and original without being sentimental or stupid. I couldn't recommend it highly enough.

See other Irish movie stuff:
     • Uncensored Cinema
     • Ken Loach: Movie-Making Hero
     • Movie News on Irish KC
 

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

The Wyandotte Players, who present their shows at Kansas City Kansas Community College, are offering the Irish play, Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane from June 16-25.

It is a blend of black comedy, melodrama, horror and my favourite, bleak tragedy. The play is set in Leenane, a small town in Connemara, County Galway, and along with A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West formed The Leenane Trilogy.

The original production programme and promotional flyer describes The Beauty Queen of Leenane as:

the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag, her manipulative ageing mother. Mag's interference in her daughter's first and possibly final chance of a loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that lead inexorably towards the play's inevitable dénouement

That reminds me of the time I had a shedload of pints that led inexorably towards an inevitable dénouement one Thursday. The Beauty Queen of Leenane opened in 1996 in Galway and went on to win four Tony Awards in New York.

See also:
     • McDonagh Play for Unicorn Theatre
     • Bloomsday 2006 in Kansas City
     • All Irish Literature news on Irish KC
 

Ireland: High Tech & Low Corporate Tax

If you missed it, yesterday's Kansas City Star carried an AP article on Ireland supposedly, but really on Dublin specifically - and even more specifically, on the rapidly expanding European headquarters of Internet search-engine giant Google, which it calls a symbol for the new, immigrant-rich Ireland.

The EU's highest per capita GDP, unemployment at an EU-low 4.4 percent, top of the EU's 15 original members in having enterprises with innovation activity, 12.5 percent tax rate on corporate profits being the lowest in Europe, and all the usual stuff.

It also includes figures on new immigrants, most especially the Polish, and on Irish emigrants returning from the US.

Oh yeah, and Henry Street is now a boulevard apparently, despite it being no broader than it was before - which wasn't broad - and not exactly what you'd call landscaped, any more than say, Kansas City's 12th street.


See also:
     • Cardinal Gets Christian on Immigration
     • Too Much Prosperity?
     • Irish Pay Deal and Migrants
 

ETH in Kansas City

If I say Neil Dorfsman to you, what Irish music do you think of? Paul Brady, Solas? Okay very good, but as it happens I don't actually go around casually spitting out names as challenges to people.

So today is the day Enter the Haggis enter the Record Bar. The brand new album, Soapbox Heroes, as I told you, is not available for regular retail until July 18, but is being sold at gigs.

Reading around the blogosphere I've read of people absolutely loving this ETH tour and of the tracks from the new CD the boys are playing in the set. I don't have any links for you because the relevant blogs had huge convoluted entries (yes, more than mine) with ETH reviews too far buried to explain - so just trust me. Actually one person likened a new track to Marillion - and there was me talking about Genesis

When I was talking with Kirk of Seven Nations recently, I forgot to ask him about ETH, probably because he had me distracted with sordid tales of the road, and he actually made me write them down. So I did.

Singer and Guitarist, Trevor Lewington talks of this fifth album by Enter the Haggis:

For the recording of Soapbox Heroes, we lived in a house that was attached to the studio so we were isolated from family and friends. The only people we interacted with were ourselves, Neil, the studio employees and guest musicians.

The seclusion helped us to focus on the record without any distractions. It also meant that we didn’t have any feedback from family and friends until it was too late

I like people that lock themselves away from the world.

The studio man behind Casualties of Retail, Joao Carvalho is also responsible for mastering Soapbox Heroes, but the producer, according to ETH's label, UFO music, is none other than 4-time grammy winner, with music credits longer than the face of a girl an Irish barman in Kansas City once went out with, Neil Dorfsman.

See also:
     • Listen to Soapbox Heroes Track
     • Enter The Haggis on Irish KC
     • Kansas City Scottish Festival
 

Roger Coleman and Joe Miquelon

The Kansas City Star today features an article on The Elders' keyboard player, Joe Miquelon, and Roger Coleman from midtown's Pilgrim Chapel. It's an interesting read, particularly on the evolution of Danny Cox’s Troost Avenue Blues.

See also:
     • The Elders at Children for Peace fundraiser
     • Joe Micquelon joins The Elders
     • All posts on The Elders
 

Encore: 50 More Conservative Songs

Speaking of the National Review list of Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs of All Time (or the last fifty years, if you prefer), John J. Miller has listed, though alas without numbers we could fight about, fifty more conservative rock songs.

What was surprising about the original article wasn't the list itself, but that people were surprised. Miller clearly stated the songs were chosen based on what listeners felt defined conservative values for them; he didn't say that driving German cars into American residential swimming pools makes you a conservative rock group - though obviously it does.

This time Mr Miller does what he tried to avoid last time, by including five songs by Rush and The Kinks combined. I suspect it's just laziness following the impact of the initial list that has the net not being cast so wide this time.

From the Irish perspective we again have a song by U2, The Playboy Mansion from the much mocked Pop album. Of course because we're Irish we know that anything early when the boys were simultaneously attending prayer meetings and being rock stars would qualify.

And so would anything later when they had established they weren't your average rock stars interested in getting their rocks off. Beyond U2 we're pushing it. But hey, Irish KC likes to push it, so let's claim a couple more.

Elvis Costello, born as Declan Patrick MacManus, and sometime champion of The Pogues to the extent that he married their bass player for a while, Cait Ni Riordain (surely that's conservative?), is on the list with The Other Side of Summer.

Oh and This Night Has Opened My Eyes by that Irish band, The Smiths.

And really we shouldn't, because the sweeping epic rock ballad called Red Army Blues by The Waterboys predates their conversion to Irishness, and is back from the days when everything they did was sweeping and epic. But with their recent second Irish coming, I think we can now claim everything Mike Scott ever did as being Irish.

And this second Irish coming also reinstates The Waterboys as the ultimate Irish Festival band in existence - I mean, for god's sake they have an unending stream of Dubliners on Grafton Street wishing they were Fishermen. So I imagine having the masses of middle America wishing they too were out on trawlers should be no problem. Reason enough for a festival, I'd say.

Truth be told, from an Irish perspective we could make these lists until the cows come home, because we have a Traditional music scene, and for good measure we fuse it into Rock, Pop, and although it's criminal, Country.

I mean Step it out Mary, my fine daughter, Show your legs to the country man embodies a world of conservative values you could write a thesis on. Or a Testament.

See also:
     • Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs
     • U2: Dublin 1979
     • The Easter Bunny in Ireland?
 

Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #11

-Where are you from
-Ireland. Dublin
-Ahh, Jimmy
-Jimmy?
-Yes. I have a friend called Jimmy. He is from Dublin
-I see
-Do you know him?
-Jimmy?
-Yes
-Jimmy from Dublin?
-Yes
-He lives in Dublin?
-Yes
-Just Jimmy? Like Elvis and Madonna, no last name necessary?
-Everyone just knows him as Jimmy
-Sorry, I don't know him
-You are from Dublin?
-Yes
-Everyone knows him. Jimmy

See other conversations:
     • Cats
     • The Driving Range
     • All Irish Conversations
 

Normal Service for Kansas City Irish

It's been a huge three days for Irish KC, with thousands of visitors due to the Celtic Block Party, the Ken Loach Cannes win, and especially the National Review article.

Throw in the fact that it was Memorial Day weekend here in the States, and even more important family commitments, and perhaps Irish KC has seemed a bit out of whack. Normal service should now resume. What normal service is, I have no idea.

If none of this means anything to you, ignore it and go phone somebody you haven't for over six months. Tell them you were thinking of them.

Related(ish):
     • About Eolaí gan Fhéile
     • Post #500 on Irish KC
     • First Ever Irish KC Post
 

Lunasa: Sean Smyth Interview

Although this interview with Lúnasa's Sean Smyth is in advance of a prestigious concert in Ireland, and not one in Kansas city or the Midwest, Lúnasa will be touring the US in September and October 2006, and including venues in Tulsa, OK and Boulder, CO.

Smyth is a native of Mayo and an All-Ireland champion on both fiddle and whistle, and in the interview talks a lot about what constitutes traditional Irish music from the Lúnasa perspective:

I came through Comhaltas myself, and it was a very fine organisation in the way that it introduced me to music in lots of respects. But I've never had anyone come up and say that we are destroying traditional music!

We are very true to the times and the music in that way that it was written. We don't do jazz improvisations within the form of the music, and we are playing on instruments that form part of that tradition.

The music is very much about melody and rhythm within the tune, and that's what Lunasa is trying to achieve. We try to focus on the melodies and on the harmonic variations and all that kind of stuff, but it is still the melody which is foremost, plus the rhythm which I would say is the soul of the music.

That gives it its attractive hypnotic feel. Even though we've been called very modern we're probably as traditional as you'll ever see

It's a great interview with distinctions between the kinds of audiences Lúnasa get on the Theatre circuit in the US contrasted with their Irish & Music Summer Festival audiences, and the story of being given a tune backstage at a gig in Portland, Oregon, which was to ultimately feature on the current album, Sé.

Lúnasa seem very much in the tradition of The Bothy Band, and Irish Traditional Music praise doesn't come much higher than that.

See also:
    • Irish Choral Music and Celtic Underpants
    • Song Sung Traditional: Hold On
    • Seachtain na Gaeilge : Ceol '06

Bubble Hits: Irish Music Channel

Bubble Hits is a new Irish-owned TV music channel that will broadcast to over 8 million homes in Ireland and the UK starting this summer.

Owned by two young Irish buckos in their early twenties, Bubble Hits is planned as a 24/7 music channel with no commercial breaks - such is the power of viewer interaction via SMS, MMS and the web.

There will of course be sponsorship and 'integrated advertising', nevertheless it is this commerical-free format that has attracted interest from cable stations worldwide.

So perhaps Bubble hits is bound for American air space some time soon then, and since the future of television is probably not television (if ya know what I mean), that's likely to speed when that date might occur. I mean if albums are now being released by mobile phones, should Irish TV stations not be viewable on your American cooler?

Can't help thinking about the name though, especially for a business embracing new technologies. Does anyone remember what happened the Dot Com Bubble, often referred to these days as Bubble 1.0?

See also:
    • Irish Radio: 1993
    • Paddy Rock Radio Top 25 CDs
    • U2, That's A Tribute 2U Fran

Feast or Famine: Emigration Assistance

Once upon an unemployed time, I ran out of Unemployment Benefit and was thus applying for means-based Unemployment Assistance. The Benefit that had run out was based on the social-welfare contributions you made while employed.

Or, you got a lot less on Assistance, and formulas applied to calculate your amount were secret (read: arbitrary). Luckily you could appeal if you disagreed with the amount. You just had to give a basis for appeal.

On this occasion it was determined my weekly amount received would be seven Irish pounds. My basis for appeal went something like this:

I wish to appeal the amount you have determined I am to receive as being sufficient to live on while seeking employment.

I cannot afford to live off the seven pounds you have given me, so I have decided to emigrate to seek work. The cheapest way to leave the country on a one-way ticket is by ferry and train. I should be able to get to England for forty-one pounds.

However because I have to get the bus to town (and back) each week to collect my seven pounds, the bus fare reduces my weekly amount to five-fifty. I could walk the four miles to Werburgh Street, but that would make me hungry and chips from Leo Burdock's are really good but not that cheap. And there'd still be the four miles walk back, so it wouldn't save much.

Anyway, eating anything during the week would only eat into savings for the ferry ticket, so it would likely take longer than eight weeks to save to emigrate. As such I'd like to appeal your determination of seven pounds, and ask that you increase the amount so I can buy a ticket to leave the country

Several weeks later I received the Appeal Officer's decision. My weekly Unemployment Assistance was increased from seven to forty-one pounds. Now why would anyone leave a country that great?

Speaking of emigrating rather than staying and suffering through it, the replica of the famine ship Dunbrody, sets sail today from New Ross for Dublin.

See also:
     • Seeking Employment in Dublin
     • Illegal Irish Immigrants in the USA
     • Interview with Failed Migrant Worker
 

English Conversations in the American Midwest

Speaking of things British, you know what I miss leads me to celebrate conversations, well Kansas City based documentary-maker Roldy has been having his own Conversations in the American Midwest. And not once, but twice. Everyone should do this.

See also some Irish Conversations:
     • Leaves Changing Colour
     • Don't Say You're Not American
     • Wind

Flannigin's it is, so

Speaking of women cavorting alone on beds - speaking to myself you understand - I was thinking of everyone's favourite woman of Joyce, Fionnuala Flanagan. And what was I thinking?

Her surname. That's the standard anglicized spelling of the name, and even in America, give or take doubling the 'n', it's the only spelling I've seen. So what?

Well Cameron Russell, guitarist and vocalist, has confirmed that the band you saw at Stumpy's before The Elders are called FLANNIGIN'S Right Hook:

Actually,it's Flanagan's Right Hook, but everyone on the message boards spells it Flannigin's Right Hook, so since that's what most people are going with we switched over too, so Flannigin's Right Hook it is. And I'm gonna give somebody a right hook if they misspell it again. P.S. might even throw in a left hook too

And why the confusion? Blame the masses, the people, and thank FRH (wish I'd thought of that before) for their expediency.

Bloomsday Under Threat

Bloomsday, June 16, 1904 - the date of the setting of Ulysses, and celebrated for about seventy years - might be getting a new holiday for a neighbour.

In Britain, Chancellor Gordon Brown recently called for a new day for their national identity, saying the UK needed a day to celebrate "who we are and what we stand for".

In a surprise result of a poll conducted by the BBC History magazine, the anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta has been chosen as the best date to celebrate Britishness.

Chosen by 27%, the anniversary of the Magna Carta proved more popular than the Second World War dates of VE Day or D-Day, or even anything to do with British military history. That constitutional rather than something jingoistic is preferred is as brilliant as it is startling

Magna Carta is a collection of papers which in theory limited the power of the monarch and gave ordinary people rights under common law. It doesn't matter any more that they were largely copied from a charter 100 years older, or how much has been repealed since.

What matters is the date - 15 June, 1215, because by some considerable time this predates the Union that is the United Kingdom, in all its forms. Is it possible when pushed on the question of UK-ness, that its citizens don't actually know who they are and what they stand for?

And because I live in a region of the world infected with a work ethic that causes most of its holidays to be celebrated on the nearest weekend rather than a school night, the date means before heading off to indulge in a keg of fine American beer, while I'm trying to visualize how many thousand miles it is to the nearest snot-green sea, I'll likely have to answer questions on why I am (or am not) celebrating the history of due process and the Bill of Rights.

It's enough to put you off your kidneys.

See also:
     • St George's Day
     • Kansas City's Bloomsday Books
     • Bloomsday in Kansas City