Pue’s Recommendations for July

Juliana Adelman: As it is the 4th of July while I’m writing this I figured I could give my home country and town a bit of a plug.  Concord (Massachussetts) is associated with the start, rather than the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.  (See this somewhat bizarrely relaxed reenactment of the first battle.  What’s with the cows?).  If you happen to be heading to Boston over the summer then Concord is a worthwhile day trip.  It is very scenic in ways that teenagers do not appreciate.  Among the sights are: Thoreau’s cabin in Walden Woods, the Orchard House (former home of Louisa May Alcott), the Old North Bridge and Minuteman National Park and the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson.  In Boston you can follow the Freedom Trail past most of the city’s historic buildings including Paul Revere’s house.  If you fancy a bit of armchair travel to one of New York City’s best cultural attractions, you can now have an audio tour of some of MOMA’s most significant art works online.  They are each very short and relatively free of jargon.  In continuing with the American theme I am reading Katherine C. Grier’s excellent Pets in America which has explained, among other things, the 19th C connotations of the phrase ‘dog days of summer’ (when there was a high rabies risk and stray dogs were hunted down and killed).  Finally, the 4th of July brings on an unseemly urge to listen to classic rock: Born in the USA and American Girl are ones I can willingly admit to.

Lisa-Marie Griffith: Festival season is upon us (see Kevin’s recommendations below) and while Festivals are a great way of jamming in a years worth of gig going, book buying and film watching, increasingly I find it difficult to keep up with them all. At the Dublin Writer’s festival last month I was introduced to the Life Is A Festival! blog. Gisela volunteers for each festival, attends as many of the events as possible and then reviews and discusses the event. This is an excellent way of catching up on festivals you haven’t manage to get to. If you are curious about why people volunteer their weekends for these events Gisela is very encouraging about what you can get out of sacrificing your time. The Chester Beatty Library‘s summer exhibition lives up to their fantastic reputation and ‘Muraqqa; Imperial Mughal Albums from the Chester Beatty Library’ is also well worth a look.

Tina Morin: Last weekend’s Irish Times review of Greg Baxter’s memoir, A Preparation for Death, reminded me to pick it up and start reading. Greg spoke about his experiences with Some Blind Alleys at our Blogging the Humanities symposium last month, when he was in the midst of promoting his book. He wouldn’t say much about it to us then, but I was definitely intrigued and promise to report back when I’ve finished reading. And, in keeping with Baxter’s death-related title, I’m hoping to attend some of the screenings of the Queen’s Film Theatre‘s upcoming film series: Natural Born Killers – Serial Killers on the Big Screen. Running from 16-22 July and showcasing undeniable classics such as Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs, it sounds like great, gorey fun!

Kevin O’Sullivan: I’m off on my holidays around Ireland for a week this month, so I’ve been looking through the handy Discover Ireland calendar that hangs on the fridge to find out what’s on in July. Turns out there’s loads: the Galway Film Fleadh, the Galway Arts Festival, the Clonmel Junction Festival (intriguingly described as a ‘guaranteed assault on the senses’), the Earagail Arts Festival in Donegal and the Willie Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay. And it seems like only yesterday that I took a mental note from one of those ‘what’s on in 2010’ lists that an exhibition of John Lavery’s works was to arrive in Dublin this summer: Sir John Lavery: Passion and Politics opens at the Hugh Lane on 15 July. To quote a (Sandy Denny) phrase, who knows where the time goes?

Pue’s Recommendations for April

Juliana Adelman I first encountered Hitchcock when I started babysitting: I watched Dial M for Murder in terror on the couch after the children went to sleep.  During April, the IFI are showing a selection of Hitchcock’s best including Psycho, North by Northwest and Notorious.  RTE recently aired the first of a new series of documentaries called Arts Lives.  Their first subject was the crime writer, John Connolly.  If this is anything to go by, the series will be better than any similar style programme I have ever seen on RTE.  You can still watch the first episode on the RTE Player until April 13th.

Lisa-Marie Griffith The most important event for the history community, and one which will determine research for future generations of historians, takes places this month and requires the attendance of as many people as possible. The Archives in Crisis: a symposium to Debate the Future of Archives in Irish Society will take place Saturday 10 April in Trinity College Dublin’s Robert Emmett Theatre between 3 and 5. In an effort to draw attention to the plans to merge the National Archives of Ireland and the National Library of Ireland, this is the community’s attempt to debate the effect this will have on history writing and humanities in Ireland. Speakers include Fintan O’Toole, Catriona Crowe and Eunan O’Halpin and will be followed by an open forum moderated by Professor Diarmaid Ferriter. Those who can’t attend the event or who would like to show their support for the symposium can join the Facebook group ‘Action on archives’. On a totally different note, I have been reading a little about world mythology so I really enjoyed visiting ‘Telling Images of China, Narrative and Figure Paintings, 15th-20th Century, from the Shanghai Museum’ the exhibition currently running at the Chester Beatty Library and which features images from Chinese folklore, religion, history and culture. This exhibition runs until 2 May 2010.

Christina Morin Easter is upon us, and with it, some much needed time off, which, for me, often means reading some of the many books on my ever-growing list of must-reads. Quite a few of these are actually relevant to my research but manage to get shelved for months, even years, at a time, while I concentrate on other things. This constant deferral of reading is a frustrating experience, especially when it involves novels I know I’m going to love but which I just don’t have time to read. That’s why I’m so excited about reading two new editions of all too frequently overlooked Irish fiction: Vertue Rewarded ; or, the Irish Princess (anon.; 1693) and Sarah Butler’s, Irish Tales (1716). Not only have they just been published (Four Courts Press), but the attractive new volumes offer a perfect excuse to drop everything and read fiction that I’ve been meaning to read or re-read for ages right away! They’re part of the Early Irish Fiction project directed by Ian Campbell Ross, Aileen Douglas, and Moyra Haslett, and should be one of the more erudite endeavours of my Easter week (the other main one being to eat my body weight in Mini Eggs). As soon as I’ve read the editions, I’ll be sure to review them here at Pue’s! To recover from my chocolate overload, I might hop on my bike for a cycle along the Lagan Towpath and on down to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter to take in the Titanic: Made in Belfast Festival running from April 3^rd to 11^th. And then, perhaps, I’ll head over to the Queen’s Film Theatre for one of the films in the 10^th Annual Belfast Film Festival, which runs from 15^th-30^th April and has a great programme of films, workshops, and events planned. Roll on, Easter!

Kevin O’Sullivan At a party in a friend’s house a few years ago, I overheard a group of three well-travelled twenty-something Dubliners in conversation about Paris’s Musée d’Orsay and its collection of the great impressionist works. (I know – what a party). ‘They’re like art’s greatest hits’, said one. ‘Even if people know nothing about painting, they all come out to see.’ The words returned to me while browsing the National Gallery’s new exhibition in Dublin a few weeks ago. If Monet, Manet, Degas et al are Abba, do we have a U2, a Thin Lizzy or even a Joe Dolan? The best of the gallery’s acquisitions of the last ten years, there’s some great art and great history here – see, from just one era, O’Kelly’s Dublin, Osborne’s Brittany, Lavery’s wherever, and Orpen’s portrait of McCormack. Free and well worth a look if you’re at a loose end in the big smoke before 25 July. Oh, and in case anyone’s wondering, I am still listening to San Patricio, the new Ry Cooder record with the Chieftains and it’s still as interesting as it was when I gushed about it here a few weeks ago; Irish history by mariachi, with added uileann pipes.