In Russia, We Play Chess. In Ireland, We Dance.
The pub is called Pravda. It’s made to look Russian, of course, dressed head to toe in red paint, posters of revolutionaries, and words scrawled in bold, distinguished Russian lettering. It’s Saturday night, one in the morning, and the space is packed to the gills. Rock music is thumping, pulsating throughout, drowning whatever conversation people situated on the countless stools and at the many candlelit tables are trying to have. Once you get past the front room and its coffee shop arrangement, though, conversation seems to be a moot point, as hundreds of thrashing and swaying and shaking bodies envelop what appears to be the real deal: a multi-level room with a raised stage, colorful slide projections, a labyrinth of staircases, and a full, back-lit bar. After wandering through the crowd, elbowing my way past twenty-something’s in ripped jeans and band tees, sequined tunics and teased hair, I make it to the stage, where all the girls I came with are dancing to catchy songs that make up the mix-tapes of our lives. And then I’m there, dancing alongside them, even though I’ve refused to do so in the past—I’m quite shy about these things, really—and it is so, so good. This goes on and on, and just when I think the night has peaked, that the moment has reached its greatest height, it happens.
I don’t know what it is about Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” but the moment that song comes on the radio, or pops up on a shuffled iPod or, as indicated by the atmosphere at Pravda, filters through a bar’s speakers, time seems to stop. Everything freezes, and, as though control is something to be laughed at, the song’s nuances grab you by the limbs, and the lyrics grab you by the throat, and all you can do is put your fist to the air and pump. You pump and you sing, not because it’s inevitable (it is), and not because everyone else is doing it (they are), but because it is all part of attaining that perfect high. When the first notes blare, I ready myself, find my internal balance, because I know what’s coming. I can feel it in the pit of my stomach, the happy, about to flow upward and over and fill every nook and cranny of my being. To describe this is to describe a cliché. It’s to describe the moment in the movie where everything is suddenly in slow motion, and the main character has the grand epiphany that all is well, that everything is okay. The world, in essence, is just right. This is what happens. I am dancing on a stage in a bar overseas, and I am singing the song, and I am pumping my fist at all the right times, and I am watching all the people, and making eye contact with the girls from my program, and then my eyes are closed and I am listening, listening, and feeling all the cliché rage of being very much alive. And it’s there, the happy, telling me that this is right, that this will be another memory to associate with the song, living this experience among a crowd of hundreds, and it’s telling me, against beautiful, deafening sound, that this is why I came here, that this is why being in Dublin is nothing but wonderful.
Despite the fact that the sun only seems to come out in ten-minute intervals, twice or three times a day if luck will have it, and despite the fact that our flat went without heat for five days, and despite the fact that the water in our building is often shut off without warning, I could not have asked for a better first week in Dublin. So much has happened, that to write about it all would take much thought, maybe almost too much. I crawled through pubs with names like The Turk’s Head, The Mezz, and The Temple Bar (located, aptly, in said neighborhood). I found myself downing a banana smoothie and mozzarella and pesto panini at the environmentally-conscious Nude, taking in an Irish breakfast and crème caramel tea at the quaint Joy of Chá, and indulging in an all-expenses-paid lunch of chicken, broccoli, and penne pasta drizzled with a tomato cream sauce and a slice of chocolate gateux at the Irish Film Institute’s café. I saw the conceptually interesting but uneven Vive La, a play told in the mummers’ style, through verse, music, and song, about an imprisoned acrobat who was coerced into spying on the United Irishmen in 1798. I celebrated the twentieth birthday of one of the girls in my program by going out for a pint, and delighted in the sight of the girl doing a jig with the percussionist of an Irish folk quartet performing that night (the band also sang “Happy Birthday” to her shortly after). I went to class, where I learned we’ll be reading and analyzing plenty of exciting playwrights (McDonagh, Beckett, Friel, McPherson, and Enda Walsh among them) and writing theatre critiques; watching tons of Irish films I’ve been meaning to see for years; and writing full-length plays while having weekly one-on-one intensive meetings with Michael West, the playwriting professor. I finally dealt with my film violence anxiety and saw No Country For Old Men, which was audacious and beautiful, especially when projected onto a screen large enough to rival the IMAX…
(A brief digression: while there were many shots in No Country For Old Men I marveled at, I think the one that took away the most breath was the shot that focuses on Chigurh’s boot and the blood that slowly creeps towards it, entering the frame in an almost-but-not-quite-unexpected way. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If not, you’ll recognize it when it happens. Anyway, I love stuff like that. It’s like the shot in Lost in Translation where Bob and Charlotte are lying on the bed together, and he’s on his back and she’s turned away from him, and everything is silent; in a very subtle way, he rubs her foot, which, incidentally, is the foot she bruised in her hotel room. That shot, to me, says everything I need to know about the film. It is also one of my favorite shots in a film, ever. But back to the topic at hand. The scene between Chigurh and Carla Jean is, I’d also argue, nearly perfect. It takes all the tension that has been building—and that the audience has been riding on—throughout the entire film, and channels it, adding new stakes in the process. Unlike Juno, another Oscar season critical dandy, the more I think about No Country, the more I like it. It is so contained and so level, and harkens so much back to the Coens’ roots, it’s admirable. I have so much love for films that speak to their contemporaries. Like There Will Be Blood, which echoes Citizen Kane in a very clear way. Dare I make the assertion, though, that Paul Thomas Anderson’s is the better film? Does that make me blasphemous? I’ve always felt Kane was overrated, but explaining why I’m so enamored of Blood will take paragraphs I’m not willing to write just yet. Plus, this blog entry about Dublin needs to continue in that vein at some point.)
…Last Tuesday, before we were all treated to a fine dining experience at the IFI, everyone in our program (which is part of NYU’s Tisch School of The Arts) participated in a walking tour of Dublin, led by the program’s Irish history professor, Tommy Graham. Unfortunately, too much time has passed since the tour, and since I didn’t take notes, I can’t remember most of what was said. I did, however, take some pictures:
(that looks unlike a castle)
(right next door...the bells at all hours are such a comfort)
And, not part of the walking tour, but important nonetheless:
(the girl on the far left is my roommate)
(breaded mushrooms, sausages, chicken nibbles, and chips)
We were happy.
Yesterday, nearly everyone in my program went to the Guinness Storehouse. I couldn’t make it, but since it’s only a ten to fifteen-minute walk from my flat, I suspect I’ll be making the trip soon. Perhaps even tomorrow. I’ve drunk enough Guinness already to warrant a quest for learning how it’s brewed, and besides, I need to do something touristy. Going to the Office of Immigration (or, as I'd prefer to call it, the Overseas D.M.V.) doesn't count.
Coming soon: tales from The Mezz, encounters with attractive Irish rockers, cool slang, and more pictures.
1 comment:
I so wish I were there.
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