Friday, May 13, 2005
They're here.
Dozens of black generators squat unblinking on the grass. Mic stands and klieg lights stand like glittering Giacomettis, surveying front square. Like blocky soldiers, row upon row of watery-green porta-potties march up the cobblestone paths of the campus. Great white tents went up all over a week ago; now, under the Campanile, the main stage is set up, draped in blue tarp, the mother ship. College is not transforming--it's been invaded.
Tonight is the Trinity Ball, the biggest private party in Europe. In its most massive incarnation, in 1992, 10,000 people attended. This year, expectations are lower--6,000. Somehow, every year, the Trinity Ball committee entreat ostensibly big names to Dublin for this one-night extravaganza. This year it's Pete Doherty with Babyshambles (the enfant terrible du jour, also dating Kate Moss, who is rumored to be attending), Ian Brown, Jacques Lu Cont, Lemon Jelly (staying at the Morrison), half of Groove Armada (who are responsible for the obnoxious "I See You Baby (Shakin' That Ass)," a song, that after hearing it a gajillion times at work, I hate to the point that I can feel it way deep down in my colon), and what, like ten other smaller acts. Tickets run at €70 per person. Sadie and I, naturally, are staying away; I'm at work, and she's at Herodotus. We blew it off last year, too. They've gotten acts as big as Public Enemy and the Prodigy in years past, and I suppose bagging Pete Doherty (formerly of the Libertines, until he got to be too much of a mess for even libertines to handle) is a coup, but I'm not really going to dump €70, plus €40 tux rental, to stand around in churning boils of drunken groping student bodies--wait, rewind, that part sounds awesome--and freeze my kishkas off listening to bands I've never heard. I'm in at work from five tonight, and supposed to leave at midnight, but I might just let someone else go home early and pick up residents' bar. Try to pull a 12-hour shift; figuring there are enough Morrison people going to the ball (I know my DJ, for instance, lined up guest passes, dirty bastard) to warrant another serious late night. Last week's paycheck was great, and I'd like to see if I can crack the €300 mark this week--though goddammit, I should be making that nightly. Bah. No sense getting bitter about that now.
The entire crew at the Morrison is jumping ship, though. I've never seen anything like it (yeah, I know, in my numberless aeons of working in the service industry). It's bizarre. Lobo shut down and suddenly we're like rats from a flame: beloved assistant manager Stephane's last shift was Wednesday (were I here another month, I would have been like, "Take me with you!"), equally beloved manager Antonio is off to Australia on May 20, and Petra, the halo restaurant manager, has left, too, and taken with her Gail, pleasant waitress and Stephanie, sous-chef. Jean-Michel, the ooh-la-la executive chef of the entire Thomas Read group, of which the Morrison is one enterprise of about six, just got shitcanned because his salary was absurdly high (something like €90K). Then there's the bar staff: Fiachra, Cathal, Dan, Lu, Luke, Kelly and Nui are all off for exams, and then most are going back to China for the summer. Anna's gone, and I haven't heard from Agnes (far and away the hottest on staff, and that's saying something) in ages. Head barista Nico has left after four years (to go to the same place as Stephane, a place in Ballsbridge that seems to want to be a gastropub). Flavio is also fucking off, thank the Lord. Back to Italy with him. There's me, of course, but I may hang on through the end of May, I haven't decided yet. Rob left right after lobo shut down. Elaine is also making noise about leaving to work in a Clarion joint closer to home in Ballyfermot. This is, like, literally half the bar staff at once. It's just weird. Lobo goes, and so does the whole damn staff. I wouldn't want to be here over the summer; after the mishegas at Monaco last August, I never again want to work in an establishment in transition. Certainly not for any trainee, first-time managers. They're so touchy.
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Read The Crying of Lot 49 last night. Virtuosic writing, and compositionally a treat for the English major, but Jesus, give me DeLillo's twining of fond humanity with mysterious, phosphorescent narrative idiosyncrasy over the unravelling rhizome of Pynchon's pinched, frayed nervous system any day. There is something tattered and tentacular about this fiction. Instead of moving towards resolution, that is, the validation and excusal of the narrative, Pynchon's thrust is towards greater disorder--entropy. Big surprise there; that's what the man is known for. Crypto-cyberpunk anarchodeconstructivist bricoleur banditry. I want to see, to live through DeLillo's eyes, like in the red Viewfinder I had when I was little; I've no interest in organizing the world the way Pynchon does. Sterile, brutal, pitiless, it reads like Hobbes and Mamet ambushed DeLillo in a dark alley and beat the hell out of him. His veins are plastic tubing, pumping harsh fluorescence, and he poops neon.
I didn't hate the book, it's just the more I think about it (especially the infuriating ending, where the crying of lot 49 is your own cry of rage and frustration at his refusal to resolve the plot--he does the opposite, reaching, in the final words, a state of maximum entropy. Motherfucker), the more I object to seeing the world that way. After finishing, I went back to my scarce notes from PoMoFo first term, and found that I'd forgotten most of what I knew. It was the winter's snowing me under with alchemy (which is awesome) and the romance mode. I understood what he was trying to do, that is, cast a cold eye on the dying symbolic order, revel in polysemousness, etc., but after I finished, as I read through the critical windbaggery, most especially and nauseously Deleuze and Guattari's unreadably smarmy wankfest on the rhizome, it occurred to me that the problem with the way postmodernism wants us to read the world, that is, atomizingly, is that we simply aren't intelligent enough to do it. And even if we were, why would we want to? We can't see that many meanings at once. We can't abandon entirely our faith in the system of use-value, because the system, being useful, does have value. This is not me recanting the perorations of yesteryear, but more moving on from them. Not past them, necessarily--not that chuzpahdic--just onward. Postmodern theory's value also lies in its usefulness, and it is useful. But when it becomes the governing aesthetic for a writer, to the point where the self, the I, is abolished, that's where I draw the line. Deconstruction is fine so long as it doesn't become destructive. Deconstruction is an art, construction in reverse. Destruction is just haphazard elision of structural supports, the cheerful whacking down of buttresses and pillars, to the end of collapsing the temple. Take apart the human condition, fine, but don't just smite it into dust and leave it there for the wind to bear. In the end, I think postmodern theory comes off as Wile E. Coyote to art's Roadrunner. It's an uneven binary, not entirely subject to deconstruction's insistence equivocating: Wile E. Coyote is nothing without the Roadrunner, but the Roadrunner doesn't really have much need for his persecutor, a glutton for punishment if there ever was one. Half the time he doesn't even notice the trap he's just skirted; the other half, he's just toying with the Coyote (this is also dialectical materialism fallen wrack). Art sails on past, unperturbed, with a mocking Meep Meep! and Theory ends up holding the business end of the bomb.
Tonight is the Trinity Ball, the biggest private party in Europe. In its most massive incarnation, in 1992, 10,000 people attended. This year, expectations are lower--6,000. Somehow, every year, the Trinity Ball committee entreat ostensibly big names to Dublin for this one-night extravaganza. This year it's Pete Doherty with Babyshambles (the enfant terrible du jour, also dating Kate Moss, who is rumored to be attending), Ian Brown, Jacques Lu Cont, Lemon Jelly (staying at the Morrison), half of Groove Armada (who are responsible for the obnoxious "I See You Baby (Shakin' That Ass)," a song, that after hearing it a gajillion times at work, I hate to the point that I can feel it way deep down in my colon), and what, like ten other smaller acts. Tickets run at €70 per person. Sadie and I, naturally, are staying away; I'm at work, and she's at Herodotus. We blew it off last year, too. They've gotten acts as big as Public Enemy and the Prodigy in years past, and I suppose bagging Pete Doherty (formerly of the Libertines, until he got to be too much of a mess for even libertines to handle) is a coup, but I'm not really going to dump €70, plus €40 tux rental, to stand around in churning boils of drunken groping student bodies--wait, rewind, that part sounds awesome--and freeze my kishkas off listening to bands I've never heard. I'm in at work from five tonight, and supposed to leave at midnight, but I might just let someone else go home early and pick up residents' bar. Try to pull a 12-hour shift; figuring there are enough Morrison people going to the ball (I know my DJ, for instance, lined up guest passes, dirty bastard) to warrant another serious late night. Last week's paycheck was great, and I'd like to see if I can crack the €300 mark this week--though goddammit, I should be making that nightly. Bah. No sense getting bitter about that now.
The entire crew at the Morrison is jumping ship, though. I've never seen anything like it (yeah, I know, in my numberless aeons of working in the service industry). It's bizarre. Lobo shut down and suddenly we're like rats from a flame: beloved assistant manager Stephane's last shift was Wednesday (were I here another month, I would have been like, "Take me with you!"), equally beloved manager Antonio is off to Australia on May 20, and Petra, the halo restaurant manager, has left, too, and taken with her Gail, pleasant waitress and Stephanie, sous-chef. Jean-Michel, the ooh-la-la executive chef of the entire Thomas Read group, of which the Morrison is one enterprise of about six, just got shitcanned because his salary was absurdly high (something like €90K). Then there's the bar staff: Fiachra, Cathal, Dan, Lu, Luke, Kelly and Nui are all off for exams, and then most are going back to China for the summer. Anna's gone, and I haven't heard from Agnes (far and away the hottest on staff, and that's saying something) in ages. Head barista Nico has left after four years (to go to the same place as Stephane, a place in Ballsbridge that seems to want to be a gastropub). Flavio is also fucking off, thank the Lord. Back to Italy with him. There's me, of course, but I may hang on through the end of May, I haven't decided yet. Rob left right after lobo shut down. Elaine is also making noise about leaving to work in a Clarion joint closer to home in Ballyfermot. This is, like, literally half the bar staff at once. It's just weird. Lobo goes, and so does the whole damn staff. I wouldn't want to be here over the summer; after the mishegas at Monaco last August, I never again want to work in an establishment in transition. Certainly not for any trainee, first-time managers. They're so touchy.
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>
Read The Crying of Lot 49 last night. Virtuosic writing, and compositionally a treat for the English major, but Jesus, give me DeLillo's twining of fond humanity with mysterious, phosphorescent narrative idiosyncrasy over the unravelling rhizome of Pynchon's pinched, frayed nervous system any day. There is something tattered and tentacular about this fiction. Instead of moving towards resolution, that is, the validation and excusal of the narrative, Pynchon's thrust is towards greater disorder--entropy. Big surprise there; that's what the man is known for. Crypto-cyberpunk anarchodeconstructivist bricoleur banditry. I want to see, to live through DeLillo's eyes, like in the red Viewfinder I had when I was little; I've no interest in organizing the world the way Pynchon does. Sterile, brutal, pitiless, it reads like Hobbes and Mamet ambushed DeLillo in a dark alley and beat the hell out of him. His veins are plastic tubing, pumping harsh fluorescence, and he poops neon.
I didn't hate the book, it's just the more I think about it (especially the infuriating ending, where the crying of lot 49 is your own cry of rage and frustration at his refusal to resolve the plot--he does the opposite, reaching, in the final words, a state of maximum entropy. Motherfucker), the more I object to seeing the world that way. After finishing, I went back to my scarce notes from PoMoFo first term, and found that I'd forgotten most of what I knew. It was the winter's snowing me under with alchemy (which is awesome) and the romance mode. I understood what he was trying to do, that is, cast a cold eye on the dying symbolic order, revel in polysemousness, etc., but after I finished, as I read through the critical windbaggery, most especially and nauseously Deleuze and Guattari's unreadably smarmy wankfest on the rhizome, it occurred to me that the problem with the way postmodernism wants us to read the world, that is, atomizingly, is that we simply aren't intelligent enough to do it. And even if we were, why would we want to? We can't see that many meanings at once. We can't abandon entirely our faith in the system of use-value, because the system, being useful, does have value. This is not me recanting the perorations of yesteryear, but more moving on from them. Not past them, necessarily--not that chuzpahdic--just onward. Postmodern theory's value also lies in its usefulness, and it is useful. But when it becomes the governing aesthetic for a writer, to the point where the self, the I, is abolished, that's where I draw the line. Deconstruction is fine so long as it doesn't become destructive. Deconstruction is an art, construction in reverse. Destruction is just haphazard elision of structural supports, the cheerful whacking down of buttresses and pillars, to the end of collapsing the temple. Take apart the human condition, fine, but don't just smite it into dust and leave it there for the wind to bear. In the end, I think postmodern theory comes off as Wile E. Coyote to art's Roadrunner. It's an uneven binary, not entirely subject to deconstruction's insistence equivocating: Wile E. Coyote is nothing without the Roadrunner, but the Roadrunner doesn't really have much need for his persecutor, a glutton for punishment if there ever was one. Half the time he doesn't even notice the trap he's just skirted; the other half, he's just toying with the Coyote (this is also dialectical materialism fallen wrack). Art sails on past, unperturbed, with a mocking Meep Meep! and Theory ends up holding the business end of the bomb.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Blahg
Okay, first things first: a dozen penguins developed chlamydia and died. Yes, died. Penguins. Chlamydia. (courtesy of Sploid)
I am having trouble coping with this.
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Hell of a weekend. Friday night was boring. Came home at three. Next day trundled into college, banged out a big ol' hairy blog, mostly about nothing, and hit publish. Whereupon Blogger promptly gobbled it right up, then farted its memory into deepest, coldest cyberspace. An hour's work turned to vapor. I hate it when the stupid program eats my blogs. Came home, don't remember what I did. In at work for eight. Looked slow. After a while, was surprised to see Steve MacDevitt (guy I play ultimate with) walk in. He was with a white-wine swilling engagement party. Don't usually have people I know walk in--if ever. Abnormality a small sign of what was to come. Night rolled along. I was taking residents' bar. By the time I finished the stock take, about 3am, there were about 20 people at residents' bar. A half hour later that number had doubled. Biggest residents' bar anyone had ever seen, a madhouse. Antonio was in with his friends, boozing away on the management account (meaning Joe and Elaine and I were as well--though they'd finished at three). Drinking out of sight of the customers is never done; pouring drinks with your own pint in your hand is flat-out inconceivable. But there I was, drinking away, thinking, I have the world's greatest manager. Jacob told me to cut them off at 4am. I told him, You cut them off, I'm not tangling with that zoo out there. Antonio, who was not on duty, not even remotely, said, no, sure, go till five.
I went till 6:30. We saw the sun rise out the window. I think that's a residents' bar record. At least, a tie. Jacob wasn't thrilled, but whatever. The irony was that it was also the lowest-tipping residents' bar ever. But good old Antonio had the solution to that. They can't pay cash at RB. We write down their orders on an individual docket, write down their name and room number, and then have them sign it. It's then charged to their room. So Antonio and I went back to the dockets and selected everyone who offered to buy me a drink, and who I turned down, and wrote in "+ €4 TIP!" Then some who hadn't offered at all, but who I felt owed me money. Did I hold for the slightest instant any reservations about this? Not in the least. I kill myself for these people who are happily spending €190 on two bottles of champagne; the least they can do is to kick a little of that cheddar my way.
Got home at 7am, crashed. Woke up miserably at noon. Said, oh, well, what the hell, and went to 2pm pickup. It was lovely and sunny when I left the house. The bus, of course, drove north, into the hailstorm. This passed, though, and the blustery gray raincloud moved on. Sun returned, but the wind stayed. I got to Albert College Park, expecting regular pickup, only to find it a practice for Throwin' Shapes, the local club team (composed entirely of people I play with on a regular basis, yes, but they actually practice and train). Dismayed, I hid behind a tree. Decided to leave, but as I was going, Yiv, bless her, spotted me and called me back. They were only too happy to have me, it turned out, as I evened the teams. It's not like I'm not of their caliber, either; I just never tried out for them. Lots of drills (busted my watch, and am now walking around timeless, and not enjoying it), then a game. 6-on-6, ironman. For about an hour. By the time we'd finished, I could barely move, gasping for air. Hung around a while longer, with beer and frisbee. Came home and Sadie and I caved in to laziness: both independently had bought frozen pizzas. Went out and rented Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure (the most excellent sequel), the Fifth Element and Troy. I wonder how normal is it to watch three movies in a night, at least twice a week? Troy was, of course, a travesty in more ways than I care to into now, because all I want to do now is do my grocery shopping and go home and eat. We went to bed at 4am yesterday, after deciding to watch the Fifth Element at 2am, after Troy, because, you know, we might as well. At least this time the exhaustion (I've been running on six hours of sleep a night for months now) kicked in, and I didn't wake up till almost 3pm. Awesome. Which explains the lazy, lazy blog. This weekend warranted more, but right now, my eyes are shutting again.
I am having trouble coping with this.
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>
Hell of a weekend. Friday night was boring. Came home at three. Next day trundled into college, banged out a big ol' hairy blog, mostly about nothing, and hit publish. Whereupon Blogger promptly gobbled it right up, then farted its memory into deepest, coldest cyberspace. An hour's work turned to vapor. I hate it when the stupid program eats my blogs. Came home, don't remember what I did. In at work for eight. Looked slow. After a while, was surprised to see Steve MacDevitt (guy I play ultimate with) walk in. He was with a white-wine swilling engagement party. Don't usually have people I know walk in--if ever. Abnormality a small sign of what was to come. Night rolled along. I was taking residents' bar. By the time I finished the stock take, about 3am, there were about 20 people at residents' bar. A half hour later that number had doubled. Biggest residents' bar anyone had ever seen, a madhouse. Antonio was in with his friends, boozing away on the management account (meaning Joe and Elaine and I were as well--though they'd finished at three). Drinking out of sight of the customers is never done; pouring drinks with your own pint in your hand is flat-out inconceivable. But there I was, drinking away, thinking, I have the world's greatest manager. Jacob told me to cut them off at 4am. I told him, You cut them off, I'm not tangling with that zoo out there. Antonio, who was not on duty, not even remotely, said, no, sure, go till five.
I went till 6:30. We saw the sun rise out the window. I think that's a residents' bar record. At least, a tie. Jacob wasn't thrilled, but whatever. The irony was that it was also the lowest-tipping residents' bar ever. But good old Antonio had the solution to that. They can't pay cash at RB. We write down their orders on an individual docket, write down their name and room number, and then have them sign it. It's then charged to their room. So Antonio and I went back to the dockets and selected everyone who offered to buy me a drink, and who I turned down, and wrote in "+ €4 TIP!" Then some who hadn't offered at all, but who I felt owed me money. Did I hold for the slightest instant any reservations about this? Not in the least. I kill myself for these people who are happily spending €190 on two bottles of champagne; the least they can do is to kick a little of that cheddar my way.
Got home at 7am, crashed. Woke up miserably at noon. Said, oh, well, what the hell, and went to 2pm pickup. It was lovely and sunny when I left the house. The bus, of course, drove north, into the hailstorm. This passed, though, and the blustery gray raincloud moved on. Sun returned, but the wind stayed. I got to Albert College Park, expecting regular pickup, only to find it a practice for Throwin' Shapes, the local club team (composed entirely of people I play with on a regular basis, yes, but they actually practice and train). Dismayed, I hid behind a tree. Decided to leave, but as I was going, Yiv, bless her, spotted me and called me back. They were only too happy to have me, it turned out, as I evened the teams. It's not like I'm not of their caliber, either; I just never tried out for them. Lots of drills (busted my watch, and am now walking around timeless, and not enjoying it), then a game. 6-on-6, ironman. For about an hour. By the time we'd finished, I could barely move, gasping for air. Hung around a while longer, with beer and frisbee. Came home and Sadie and I caved in to laziness: both independently had bought frozen pizzas. Went out and rented Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure (the most excellent sequel), the Fifth Element and Troy. I wonder how normal is it to watch three movies in a night, at least twice a week? Troy was, of course, a travesty in more ways than I care to into now, because all I want to do now is do my grocery shopping and go home and eat. We went to bed at 4am yesterday, after deciding to watch the Fifth Element at 2am, after Troy, because, you know, we might as well. At least this time the exhaustion (I've been running on six hours of sleep a night for months now) kicked in, and I didn't wake up till almost 3pm. Awesome. Which explains the lazy, lazy blog. This weekend warranted more, but right now, my eyes are shutting again.
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