My hometown's public art

Dubliners have a lovely irreverent attitude to the public works of art dotted around their city: they come up with some great nicknames for them. Lots of the pieces are pretty controversial and each one has a bit of a story behind it. I give you:

The Stiletto in the Ghetto

The real name for this one is the Spire of Dublin. It is probably the most criticised of all the public works. It was a millennium project that ran ages over time and about a gajillion euro over budget. The nickname comes from the fact that it rises out a fairly dangerous area of the city – albeit on the city’s main thoroughfare. It actually doesn’t look that bad in the photo that I’ve taken here: when they sky is blue and the sun is shining (about three days a year) it can be a little bit ‘beam-of-light-ish’. But on a grey, rainy day (the majority of the year), it pretty much resembles a dirty syringe jutting out of the city’s addled arm.

The Hags with the Bags

I think this one is actually fairly well liked. It seems to hark back to a pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland when the people were a bit frumpier and didn’t have expensive cafe terraces to sit at when they wanted to have a chat.

The Tart with the Cart

I think this is the oldest of public artworks. It’s a statue of Molly Malone, she of Dublin’s most famous song. The story goes that she walked the streets of the city selling cockles and mussels. But, as you can imagine from the depiction above, historians tell us that she was probably selling more than just what was on her cart, if you know what I mean.

The Floosie in the Jacuzzi

First, a little FYI: in Dublin slang, floosie refers to a woman of questionable or low moral standards. In fact, the statue is supposed to be of Annalivia, the spirit of the River Liffey that runs through the centre of Dublin. Notice that this is the only picture I wasn’t able to get by myself. This is because it was removed from its location on O’Connell Street (the main street in the centre of the city) a few years ago. Now, some will say this was to make room for the Spire mentioned above; more likely, it was costing too much in maintenance. Honestly, poor Annalivia was the most abused work of art ever to have the misfortune to be displayed in my home town: people peed on her, threw rubbish at her, wrote on her, and regularly filled her little waterfalls with laundry detergent so that she’d drown in an overflowing sea of foam. Only in a city as dangerous as Dublin would inanimate objects have to be put in some sort of art-lovers witness protection program.

Hunter's Moon (October 2008)

The first full moon after September's Harvest Moon.
So named because it provides enough late light for hunters to track their pray well into the evening.

Sunset from the Millennium Bridge

We've been getting some really dramatic evening skies of late; I guess it's the season for it.
Family, friends, and long-time readers will know of my obsession with sky-watching... to the point of being told to shut up about it because I'm boring everyone to tears.
Hahaha, well sucked in - here I can waffle on about whatever I like.
The other day I was walking into town to meet friends for dinner when we had the most amazing sunset. I usually carry my camera with me wherever I go, but I was rolling light that night, so I had to make do with my camera phone.
The limited pixels don't do the sky justice: it really was stunning. Even Dublin city manages to look good in this sort of light.
I also want to post a picture of the Hunter's Moon that I captured earlier on this month. I'm usagi-doshi remember (born in the year of the rabbit), and so I feel a special affinity with the moon, too.

I wanna meet the person that drew this

I'm looking for ways to fill my days at the moment. I've gotten used to being so busy that I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.
I headed into the National Modern Art Museum. They are running an exhibition called Exquisite Corpse. This is the term for a technique invented by the Surrealists int he 1920s: words or images are assembled in sequence by letting one person see what the previous person contributed, and so on.
Some of the stuff done by the professional artists was interesting enough, but I was really taken by the mural that visitors to the gallery produced by themselves. I especially want to meet the person that created the image above: out of a whole wall of some 150 cards, they were the ONLY person to subvert the image.
I'm sure Freud would have a field day, too, with the fact that the artist shows the schoolboy being eaten by the woman. I spent ages trying to imagine what sort of person the artist that drew this was.
Maybe my brother - who is doing a PhD in the philosophy of art - could explain what it means when you move from thinking about the work to thinking about the artist; does it mean the ultimate dialogue between sender and receiver; or does it mean the message has gotten lost in transmission.
Enquiring minds want to know...

Best coffee in Dublin

I love me some caffeine. It's hard to find a good coffee here in Dublin. Even the smallest shop has a proper Italian coffee machine, but the staff generally don't know how to use them. The most disappointing thing is that you'll find a good place, come back to give it another try, discover the barista's changed, and realise that you're now drinking groundsy suds. I have to say, though, that Cafe Java at the Charlotte Quay docks has not yet let me down. And the view isn't half bad either.

Green Tunnels

I'm trying to think of the things I'll miss about Dublin now that I'm nearly ready to go back to Tokyo. Aside from all the obvious family and friends stuff, I'm going to miss the leafy suburbs. I love walking under these green tunnels.