Happy Holidays

Men, Women and Children

Don't mind Donald Clarke's silly review of Jason Reitman's  Men, Women and Children in The Oirish Tomes. It's a well worth seeing treatment of the impact of contemporary tech on contemporary lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS7uc8OF6Rs&spfreload=10

Susan Sontag: A Biography by Daniel Schreiber

My review of Daniel Schreiber's 'Susan Sontag: A Biography' was in The Sunday Independent, last Sunday. Longer essay style review to follow in next month's Dublin Review of Books.

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/book-review-susan-sontags-cultural-missions-30726273.html

Popular Problems by Leonard Cohen

The new Leonard Cohen album, Popular Problems, now that I like. It ain't available free on iTunes, but still worth getting your hands on. Thanks to my man at Sony, Darren Reinhardt, for sending it on, along with the two new Hendrix legacy reissues, The Cry Of Love and Rainbow Bridge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTEkhoYMjZg

Songs Of Innocence

So I finally worked up the courage to listen to that new album 

U2 so kindly gave me for free. It's not very good, is it? I mean, 

some bits of some songs are ok, but there aren't any actual 

songs on it as such. And that took five years? Over produced 

to hell as well, as far as i can tell from the shitty digital sound. 

I thought of Neil Young's lines, from 'Crime In The City':

The artist looked at the producer

The producer sat back

He said, What we have got here

Is a perfect track

But we don't have a vocal

And we don't have a song

If we could get these things accomplished

Nothin' else could go wrong.

So he balanced the ashtray

As he picked up the phone

And said, Send me a songwriter

Who's drifted far from home

And make sure that he's hungry

Make sure he's alone

Send me a cheeseburger

And a new Rolling Stone.

Yeah



Good non-review in The Quietus:

http://thequietus.com/articles/16217-bono-u2-songs-of-

experience

Human Capital

"You gambled on the downfall of this country. You won."

I caught this morning at a press show a new Italian film, 'Human Capital'. A nice slice of contemporary Italian life, with a multiple p.o.v. structure. Apart from anything else, so good to hear the language spoken again, starved of it as I am when I'm not there.

http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/tribeca-film-review-human-capital-1201157301/

Dublin AfroBeat Ensemble - The Sugar Club, Saturday, September 6th, 2014

Dublin AfroBeat Ensemble performing at The Sugar Club last Saturday, September 6th, after a showing of the excellent new documentary on Fela Kuti, Finding Fela. With Gary McMahon...