Caoineadh.

My rider of the bright eyes,
What happened to you yesterday?
I thought you in my heart,
When I bought your fine clothes,
A man the world could not say...

if this chicken proves false-hearted.

Project squared.

A photograph I took is being used for the promo section of Dublin's Project Arts Centre's show featuring dear ol' Caoimhín.  Have a look-see, and come to the performance if you can!

Ones with curious minds click here...

I could try to map the ocean.

Funny. I found something I wrote when I was fifteen, five years ago.

"i think someday i will move far to a remote part of ireland. in ireland there are seasons unlike how los angeles is. los angeles fluctuates between either too hot or nonsense. in ireland for winter i can build a fire. there will be a sea that i can walk down to, that i can read books by. who knows. maybe, someday."

I still would like to live in a remote part of Ireland one day, which by now I know is Kerry, but it's funny to read something like this and think about how life progresses, and how we as people either follow through with those little passing thoughts, or how we just let them, well, pass. Who knows where things go when they pass into oblivion, even if they're just thoughts.

The prospect of going home is looking more and more attractive, anyway.

i think i'll go home and mull this over
before i cram it down my throat
at long last it's crashed, the colossal mass
has broken up into bits in my moat.

"the mind is so shaky and agitates so violently—you may as well ask me to control the wind."..."ain't it a shame, how a thought can catch the breeze and blow away?"

"Even after all this time,
the sun never says to the earth,
'You owe me.'
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights the whole sky." --Hafiz

the ballad of big nothing.

EXULTATION is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,—
Past the houses, past the headlands,
Into deep eternity.
Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land? e.d.

the gorgeous reel.

Saro.

New content up at the old Flickr page! Click here.

Muchly liking this:



Good night, one and all!

Odessa gets fed.

Odessa gig on Saturday! Happening in a forest (by the sea?) in a fort. More information at:
http://www.myspace.com/odessaandthewheelwright

Tell me.

What will you do with your one wild and precious life?

I just keep wondering why I just keep wondering why.

O, sweet clarity, won't you come my way?

I wish, wish, wish.

Wish I was a mole in the ground,
Wish I was a mole in the ground,
If I was a mole in the ground, I'd root that mountain down,
I wish I was a mole in the ground.

plink plank

or

plank plink

A Thimble's-worth of Milky Moon.

And as I said,

I slept as though dead,

dreaming seamless dreams of lead.

Moderation In All Things Except Moderation. Mmm!

Sitting here now in the college library, just after having had my box lesson (in which I learned a new polka and a little Charlie Harris-derived jig), fishing through the ethnomusicology sound recording archive and fetching up the trad stuff, as well as some of the old timey bits and bobs they have lying around.

Confusing times, I'm having here. Questioning whether to stay or go. Ireland stole my heart, and I wish to stay here, but I'd also like a good education. Limerick is proving to not be the place to get it.

Hmmm.

Anyway, on a less depressing note, here is that jig. I find this video kind of hilarious in a good sort of way -- not because of Charlie, but because of what else is going on around him. Eh?



P.S. A bit of new content up at over at the ol' Flickr, though most of it ends up here anyway.

Odessa gets fed.

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;"


Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
- T.S. Eliot

Eiskrem.

My Mama says, "When the going gets tough, the tough eat ice cream".
Let me just say that I have been eating a lot of ice cream. The sale on Haagen Dasz at Superquinn doesn't help.

Picking.

Some nights these thoughts, separated by miles and time zones, occur at the same objective moment... and we are connected, without ever knowing it.

... and I'm going to travel the world.

6:38

Sasha Hsuczyk is experiencing the most mind-blowingly beautiful Irish sunrise at the moment. Purples, pinks, oranges, and blues of all description are strewn across the sky while what she thinks is Venus glows brightly, watching streaks and puffs of cloud slowly and sleepily amble away into the distance. What a gorgeous gift.

Trying not to pay attention to the mess.

Warbling.

Haven't had much access to the internet, therefore there has been a lack of posts.  Soon I'll have access to the internet in the college, seeing as school starts up again on Monday, and then I will attempt to begin composing the Great Summer Update of 2009. (A la the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906!)

At the moment I am on a bus traveling from Dublin to Galway, using the free on-board WiFi service that they have.  The modern world is silly!  But who am I to talk if I avail of the conveniences of such a world?  Contrary Sasha.

Once in Galway, I'm hoping to take a ferry to the Aran islands to camp there for a few days in the hopes of clearing my head a bit and detoxing before college starts.  Running away from civilization and fiddling a good few slow airs to the sea and the wind will hopefully detangle my very-much-tangled brain.  I hope the air there makes me have wild dreams in the night...

View from my window, much greener to my eye than to the built in camera of the dear ol' Mac:

At Long Last (words).

...


I've been horrible at keeping up with this. Mostly it's because I've not touched the internet much. However, a huge, all-inclusive summer post should be soon forthcoming. For now, all I wanted to say is how excited I am for the Ukulele Hooley in Dublin today. Maybe I will find my dream banjolele?

I'm also excited for my cousin Armand to come back to Ireland, so that we can start a-music makin'. I love life's exciting prospects.

Delicately/Delicatessan

July 18 - 22 = France

July 22 - 28 = Germany

July 29 - 31st = England

August 1 - 2 = Longford

So long for now!

Jónsing.

Currently sitting in the room where Heima was recorded by my dear Sigur Rós. Kind of nice to know they were here once too, feeling like maybe if I try hard enough I can catch a bit of their essence like I might catch a cold outside in the night!

I'm in England at the moment, but only until tomorrow evening. Was previously in Scotland for two days visiting my friend Andrew Fairweather: Smiths devotee&artist extraordinaire. We had a great blasty-blast romping around the streets of Glasgow, as well as drawing and writing silly things to our friends back at his grandparents' home in the little suburb of Busby, East Kilbride. Our good friends from home, Nat, Cameron, and Brian, went with us everywhere we would go...

Heading back to Dublin tomorrow night, with the hopes of catching Nicola before we swap countries (as she's coming here to England the day after I get back to Ireland).

Much to say as so much more has happened, but methinks I'll save it... Saving it. Saved.

P.S. Speaking of SR, I'm getting a tickle in my tummy thinking of Riceboy Sleeps coming in July.

we filled our pockets with dry leaves

made leafy pillows and lay down

beneath the cinnamon tree.

we stared up at the sun with our eyes closed

and saw the dust in the air turn into fireflies.

we lay with the day.

the wind snuck into the cracks of our sleeves,

and played songs in our ears.

i used to watch you sleeping...

Together in Electric Dreams.

Have rented a car and my sister is slipping and sliding through the roads here in Ireland, doing an amazingly, gorgeously impressive job of driving on the other side of the road, here on the other side of the world. Munching away on snacks she brought from Japan, waving at cows and lambs, basking in the glory of the clouds...
I love road trips.

Spending the night in Galway at the Kinlay House. Walked Ma and sis through Eyre Square to fetch an ice cream cone and Ms. Hannigan's little smile caught my eye on the cover of a magazine, so I said to the lady at the till, "Yes", "Please", and "Thank you", and away I walked with the magazine, two euro and fifty cents the poorer but about a million euro happier...
I love good articles.

Then inside the magazine I was greeted with the Eletric Picnic line-up. Excitement, go! Highlights for the Sash include: Flaming Lips, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Royksopp (Will! Will! Come to Ireland!), Lisa Hannigan, Echo & the Bunnymen, Bat for Lashes, Billy Brag (!), Okkervil River (throwback to Hank May crush and high school, how could I miss it?), Four Tet, The Walkmen, and, and, and, ohhhh, here it comes, Explosions in the Sky! A rumble in my tummy...
I love good festivals.




Shleep.

Orwell was a funny looking man, says the Sasha.

Hmm... Today was the day 1984 was published! That book makes more and more sense as the years pass, I say. Scary, scary.

Inclined to ramble.

We met as sparks -- diverging flints
sent various scattered ways
We parted as the central flint
were cloven with a daze
subsisting on the light We bore
before We felt the dark--
a flint unto this day, perhaps
but for that single spark.

The you that is in it.

"I think what Elephant 6 meant for us is very simple: there's something pure and infinite in you, that wants to come out of you, and can come out of no other person on the planet. That's what you've got to share, and that's as real and important as the fact that you're alive. We were able... to somehow protect each other so we could feel that. The world at large, careerism, money, magazines, your parents, other kids, nothing is going to give you that message, necessarily. In fact, most things are going to lead you away from it, sadly, because humanity is really confused at the moment. But you wouldn't exist if the universe didn't need you. And any time I encounter something beautiful that came out of a human somewhere, that's them, that's their own soul. That's just pure, whatever its physicality is, if the person can play piano, if they can't play piano, if they're tone deaf, whatever it is, if it's pure, it hits you like a sledge-hammer. It fills up your own soul, it makes you want to cry, it makes you glad you're alive, it lets you come out of you. And that's what we need: we desperately need you."

-Julian Koster of Neutral Milk Hotel

媽媽和姐妹

The weather here as turned again, but it's still sunny in my mind's eye because my Mama & sister have come to visit. More on everything another time. My focus is on two amazing people instead of the internet, y'know.