Newgrange

At 5,500 years of age Newgrange is 500 years older than the Great Pyramids of Egypt and even predates Stonehenge. One of the most famous prehistoric sites in all the world and it's only a little over an hour away from us.

Full of megalithic art, this structure was created long ago to pay respect to the rising sun on one very specific day of the year -- which also happens to be the shortest day of the year -- the winter Solstice in late December. For approximately seventeen minutes on this one day the sun shines through a carefully constructed passageway to illuminate the floor deep inside the chamber.

5,500 years! Can you imagine?

The sun's relationship with the earth hasn't really changed that much in all this time.

Has man really?

August: Osage County

What a treat this was!

Probably the best modern play I've seen in... well, I don't know how long... maybe ever...

Winner of last year's Pulitzer and Tony awards and both were well deserved. Even at 3 hours and 20 minutes (with 2 intermissions) -- time flies.

One of the best characters I've ever seen on stage as written for that of this family matriarch -- Violet Weston. Estelle Parsons was absolutely fantastic in this role. A brilliant and energetic performance.

This play opened a year ago on Broadway and has been sold out ever since... and for good reason. With thirteen characters on stage, there's not a person in the audience that can't relate to at least one person in this particular dysfunctional family.

As my wife is fond of saying... "the opposite of dysfunction is dysfunction." And this family is functional dysfunction personified.

If you can't make it to the Big Apple anytime soon, then check it out as it will soon go on tour at a theater near you.

This is true art... go see it.

New York

That other Steve McQueen

Hard to believe that there are two Steve McQueen's in the film industry. But it got me thinking about this one...

A few years ago I viewed the original version of “The Thomas Crown Affair” with Steve McQueen. I immediately followed this with Pierce Brosnan’s remake of the same film. This was a great exercise for me because what became clear to me was that Steve McQueen had that thing referred to in Hollywood as “it.” He had the “it factor.” I hadn’t really thought about it before (or since) but it was very apparent to me at the time and made me think about some of the other McQueen films that I’d seen and enjoyed over the years (The Great Escape, Papillon, Bullitt, The Cincinnati Kid…) and I realized how much I’d underestimated him as an actor with true screen presence.

Steve McQueen was cool. Plain and simple. He was just being himself onscreen. You can’t teach that to young actors if they don’t have it already. Even though he trained with Lee Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio in the 1950’s, he was very aware of his own limitations as an actor, and admitted that he only took on roles where he could basically play a variation of himself.

One Island. Not one Ireland.

I ask again... why, in this 21st century, is this island not a united country?

Bobby Sands

Bobby Sands kept a secret diary during the first 17 days of his hunger strike.  I've provided some excerpts here:

Day 1

“I am standing on the threshold of another trembling world. May God have mercy on my soul. My heart is very sore because I know that I have broken my poor mother’s heart… I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien oppressive unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land… I believe and stand by the God given right of the Irish nation to sovereign independence and the right of any Irish man or woman to assert this right in armed revolution. That is why I am incarcerated, naked and tortured."

"Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought that there can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally, and economically. I believe I am but another of those wretched Irishmen born of a risen generation with a deeply rooted and unquenchable desire for freedom. I am dying not just to attempt the barbarity of H-block or to gain the rightful recognition of a political prisoner but primarily because what is lost in here is lost for the Republic and those wretched oppressed who I deeply proud to know as the risen people.”

Day 10

"I may be a sinner but I stand and if it so be will die happy knowing that I do not have to answer for what these people have done to our ancient nation."  

"We wish to be treated not as ordinary prisoners for we are not criminals. We admit no crime unless that is the love of one’s people and country is a crime."

"Would Englishmen allow Germans to occupy their nation or Frenchmen to allow Dutchmen to do likewise?"

Day 17 

(St. Patrick’s Day) 

in Gaelic (last entry)

"If they aren’t able to destroy the desire for freedom they won’t break you. They won’t break me because the desire for freedom and the freedom of the Irish people is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then we will see the rising of the moon."

Hunger

Hunger is in general release here and we were finally able to see it this weekend.

Let me first say this is not a film for the weak or the timid. A brutally honest depiction of life inside of Long Kesh prison reflects with horror the violence ravished on the IRA prisoners by the British loyalist prison staff. I noticed that more than just a few members of the audience had to leave this particular screening. I’m not sure if it was because of the violence or because of the emotional memories raised by the film.

Directed by Steve McQueen (not that Steve McQueen but the British artist Steve McQueen) in his feature film directorial debut, it focuses on the 1981 IRA prisoner hunger strike, specifically highlighting the plight of Bobby Sands, who was the first of the ten to die.

I’m thankful that we were able to spend the time in Derry a few weeks ago and to have gained a much better understanding of the events that occurred which led up to the horrific experiences that take place in the film. I mention this because the film’s story construction, though powerful, is not a comprehensive retelling of the IRA hunger strike saga but a selective entry into these specific moments.

The emotional core of this film takes place in a scene between Bobby Sands and his visiting Catholic priest. Lasting fifteen minutes, shot in one take, it begins with rapid-fire Irish banter full of wit and false bravado then climbs the emotional mountain of the ethics of suicide and finishes powerfully with the beautiful story from Bobby’s childhood which forms his ultimate decision and comforts him long into his final moments. The tough exterior of the Irish priest cracks slightly as he realizes the true strength and deep desire of Bobby’s will. It’s a nice scene that might have been even more emotional had the director chosen to film this in traditional over the shoulder form.

There’s more than enough that is non-traditional in this story that makes it refreshing. In other words, it’s not a typical Hollywood retelling of the Bobby Sands story.

I urge you to experience this film. You won’t be disappointed. It’s brutal to watch at times and painful but it’s also very human. It begs an answer to a question that simply will not go away:

Why, in this 21st century, is this island not a united country?