The University Times Magazine, Issue 4, Volume 3, December 13 2011

13.12.11

The University Times

Magazine

The University Times Magazine

FEATURES. 4

EDITORIAL.

FOR ME, FOR YOU, FORRÓ

SHAUNA WATSON INVESTIGATES THE BRAZILIAN DANCE BEING BROUGHT TO EUROPE.

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WHY DON’T GIRLS PLAY VIDEOGAMES?

AOIFE O’BRIEN IS BOTH A GAMER AND A FEMALE. SHE WANTS TO KNOW WHY SHE IS IN A MINORITY 6

WHERE IS THE MOSCOW OF A HUNDRED GOLDEN DOMES? MOSCOW IS SEEING THE BIGGEST PROTESTS SINCE PUTIN FIRST CAME TO POWER, LAURA GOZZI GIVES A VIEW FROM THE GROUND.

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THE FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE CONSUMPTION LUKE O’CONNELL, RELATES HIS EXPERIENCE OF DECEMBER 8TH’S NATIONAL KEBAB DAY, AND FINDS IT TO BE MESSY AND HARD TO DIGEST.

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THE ANTLERS

DAVID DOYLE, INTERVIEWS SOFT-SPOKEN, SANDWHICH EATING, DRUMMER FROM THE ACCLAIMED BAND, THE ANTLERS.

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ACHILLHENGE

OE MCNAMARA, AKA THE ANGLO AVENGER HAS BUILT A TOMB FOR THE CELTIC

REGULATION. 3

LOITERING WITH INTENT Woe betide the student caught amongst the thrall of Leaving Cert-ers on the annual Trinity Open Day. For Olen Bajarias, no alternative was too grim.

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IN FOCUS

CULTURE. 16

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[SIGH]

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‘Do they know it’s Cokemas time?’ Michelle Doyle seeks the true origins of Saint Nick.

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CSC Katie Abrahams takes a look at the activities of college societies over the year.

Cover Photo courtesy of: http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/ hundreds-of-russians-protest-against-putin-dont-expect-to-muchthough/

THE CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY: A CHRISTMAS NUISANCE

CONTRIBUTORS Editor: Tommy Gavin Deputy Editor: Luke O’Connell Creative Director: Dargan Crowley-Long

Culture Editor: David Doyle Photographers: Dargan

FILM David Cullinan reviews In Time.

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In that spirit of moderation then, we present issue four of the University Times Magazine: the “alright we’ll acknowledge that it’s Christmas but let’s not go overboard here” issue. Sure, we have Christmas related articles; James Hagan looked at what will inevitably be somebody’s lacklustre stocking filler i.e. the celebrity autobiography, Michelle Doyle charts the evolution of that fat jolly home invader as a folk character, and Eoin Hennessey even reviewed a Christmas album. But there is a lot of non-christmas goings on despite the holiday season. Russia is facing the biggest protests it has seen in years, and we’re incredibly lucky to have an on-the-ground report from Laura Gozzi, as you may have guessed from the cover.

We also have a feature about the attempt to bring Brazilian forró dancing (which I keep insisting should be described as “dangerously sexy”) to Dublin, and in a totally intentional nod to the pre-christian roots of the winter holidays; the bizarre story of AchillHenge.

So sit back, order that hot whiskey even though you’re not physically trapped in the pub, and leisurely peruse. Happy holidays from the University Times Magazine.

REVIEWS

They can bring out the best or the worst out of musicians, Eoin Hen-

A photo by Gaelen Britton

y this time last year it had been snowing for over two weeks. It all seemed like fun and games at first, suddenly we could go sledding on the hills beside the dodder, we uploaded pictures of deformed snowmen to facebook, and we relished the excuse to drink hot whiskeys at any given opportunity. Eventually the novelty wore off and we were just stuck with the national embarrassment of being “out of grit,” and a previously 20 minute cycle into town now took 2 hours. Throughout though, it all looked very Christmassy.

Maybe it’s because the weather isn’t yet as extreme this year, or maybe it’s this grim “age of austerity” zeitgeist, but the whole Christmas vibe seems much more restrained this year, and is therefore in my opinion much more tolerable.

@UTzine

Eoin Hennessy reviews all the latest albums and EP’s.

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B

FASHION

Elizabeth Brauders dishes on french fashion.

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Crowley-Long.

Illustrator: Sadhbh Byrne

Contributors: James Hagan,

Olen Bajarias, Jamie Wright, Shauna Watson, David Cullinan, Aoife O’Brien, Laura Gozzi, Luke O’ Connell, Katie Abrahams, Gaelen Britton, Michelle Doyle, David Doyle, Eoin Hennessy, Elizabeth Brauders.

LOITERING WITH INTENT...

BEFORE YOU KNOW IT, IT’S OVER.

PABLO PICANTÉ

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Woe betide the student caught amongst the thrall of Leaving Cert-ers on the annual Trinity Open Day. For Olen Bajarias, no alternative was too grim.

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n the 2nd and 3rd of December, a torrent of nasally-congested SixthYears from The Pale, from The Not-So-Pale and from Beyond-the-Pale busted through the holy and undivided gates of Trinity for her annual Open Day, bloated with questions and/or just Ferris Beuller College S.J. truants.

Held near the end of the Michaelmas term, the two-day affair was an unnecessary cold sore to students already beset (and upset) by a disfiguring-to-thepoint-of-ostracism faceful of exam anxiety acne. The question on the collective lips of these poor Elephant men and women for their Alma Mater: Bitch, what were you thinkin’?!

Not particularly in the mood to stay too long at ground level and chance getting swept away by the unstable violence of the CAO rapids and plummet to sure death off-a-waterfall somewhere, I re-purposed my backpack into a Bear Grylls-esque ghetto kayak and sought sanctuary in the Hamilton library on the first day of the Open Day. I waited out the hours amongst Schols hopefuls, the mortally injured, hoodies, M.I.A-loving refugees and agoraphobics, studying and crossing my fingers for an encore of last year’s snow haemorrhage that kept the Open Day at bay. (A big shout

out to the wonderful folks over at Trocaire! Without the surplus Lidl overstock of Elevenses Raisin Bakes, we would have had nothing to subsist on but hope.)

Elated from having survived Day One physically unscathed and with only minor psychological trauma, I readily said yes to chaperoning my siblings to go see Twilight – Gore-Tex of Cool and methadone to relaxed-fit, single bingers. The cringe-tastic film poster of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson crammed together in an awkward, still-life embrace was pungently reminiscent of the covers of those smutty, pocket-sized-so-nobodyfinds-out romance novels: He, a post-Fabio champion of pomade and iron-deficiency anaemia and she, the little horny schoolgirl outcast that may or may not be his long-lost sister.

Within earshot and making no attempt to use her indoor voice, was a mail-order bride type on her phone, drooling golden-syrupy sweet nothings at ‘hubby’ while queuing behind my brother and sister.

Behind them were tweens in varying states of hysteria and malocclusion: the type of girls for whom the sight of Taylor Lautner’s abs serves as a crowbar blow to the knees, leaving them wincing on the floor, helpless, incapacitated

and in love. One of them, a precocious nymphet and prey to lurking, opportunistic Humbert Humberts, was holding a copy of one of the Twilight books the way Sebastian Flyte held on to Aloysius – making me predict that she’ll probably end up an alcoholic in Morocco, moonlighting as a waitress-cum-belly-dancercum-stripper in “The Enchanted Hunters: Harem, Bar & Restaurant”. The crowd was exactly what you would expect for something like this. Only I had expected more people.

The film itself: it was OK. She should have had an abortion and saved us the hour.

I came to college the day after to cram a bit, held at gunpoint by exams that can’t just be sound and leave me alone.

With a signal flare this time, I braced myself for another Leaving Cert onslaught that didn’t come. Turns out, they all had already left. Huh. A weird, complex feeling.

Beside the Science Gallery is the Bit.Fall installation by the German artist Julius Popp. At one point, the word it spelled out in water was ‘Twilight’. I grabbed my phone with whiplash speed to take a photo, but the letters had already begun dissolving the moment they came out of the nozzles. They were gone when I looked up.

The next words were ‘Open’ and ‘Day’.

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nstigators of La burrito revolution de Dublin, Pablos was always a strong contender for the University Times Pendiente Burrio award. The brainchild of marketing guru Colm McNamara, Pablos Opened in Spring 2010 on Baggot street, and their 2nd branch in Claredon Market was up and running

by December. Some may take issue with the vaguely racist pigeon-english through which the mascot communicates, but this is about burritos damnit!

For the purposes of this review, we looked exclusively at Clarendon Market.

There’s a great selection of drinks; from pomegranate iced tea to Pale Moon ale.

One could question the inclusion of Pabst Blue Ribbon, since the only reason people drink it in America is because it’s cheap, and at €4 a bottle here, getting it only confirms that yes you are a tool. Mr. Pablo can hardly be blamed for that though. Another great thing about Pablos is the set menu, and while you can choose ingredients if you want, they’re confident to tell you what they think works well together, and they have a couple of cheap options.

The attractive staff are always friendly and ready with a recommendation and the place itself has nice vibes, with thoughtful décor and daycent chewns.

It’s really all about the ingredients though, and Pablos

Service/Atmosphere -- 5 Ingredients --5 Flavour -- 5 Construction -- 4 Value -- 4 Overall -- 23/25

cannot be faulted in any way here. The meat is slow cooked and marinated, and can only be described as “Yes. Very yes.” The feta too has been a revelation and the lime rice and beans are perfect, unlike some…

And the pork? While not on the student menu, its worthy of our lord and saviour Jesus Christ, who wouldn’t be able to eat it being Jewish. His loss.

The salsas deserve credit also for not only varying in spice but also taste and texture.

There is more to think about then how hot you want it. All in all, Pablos is a prime example of being more than the sum of its parts; the different flavours work together and for those 10 minutes, they seem to tell you that everything is going to be alright.

The wrapping too is above average, toasted only slightly after rolling, giving it a firmness without being brittle. It can get messy and fall apart, but burritos will, and it’s a minor slip in an almost flawless performance. The truly beautiful can never be perfect.

In terms of value, it would be nice to see the carnitas and steak burritos on the student deal, but like the most astute drug dealers, Mr. Pablo knows this is a sellers-market. In conclusion, are we crying because of the super picante salsa or from this brush with the sublime? Viva la Revolution, Pablo!

Dance

FOR YOU, FOR ME,

FORRÓ.

A group of dedicated dancers are attempting to raise awareness of Forró, a dangerously sexy brazilian dance, through classes and parties.

Shauna Watson investigates.

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cross the brief time I’ve spent on this Earth, I have gone through quite a batch of answers to the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” There has been the typical young girl consumed by Disney responses like “a princess”, “a mermaid”, “Mary Poppins”; the post puberty ideals like “an actress” “a fashion designer” and “a boy,” before setting into a more realistic frame of mind of just wanting to be employed. Predictibly, somewhere along the lines I went through a phase of wanting to be a dancer.

After two lessons, I impatiently gave up because I hadn’t immedietly transformed into a dancing prodigy who could break dance in the rain à la Step Up, and was still waiting on the offer for a role in Swan Lake.

At this stage in my life, like many others, the most dancing I do is usually alcohol induced, and includes all the classics. You have your fist pumping, successive knee bending, and irregular combinations of the two. So I considered expanding my catalogue of moves beyond the chicken dances, head banging and pole swinging in Alchemy, and as it turns out, there is a group of people attempting to import forró to our Ireland.

The dangerously sexy dance of Forró is described as less competitive than salsa and less pedantic than tango.

The style originates from the North East of Brazil and is more free and natural than any other dance style but is expressed with a lot more feeling. Paulina Kozyra, Alicja Misiak and Rogério Silva decided to bring Forró to Dublin last March through their friends in Portugal who had started the project of introducing Forró to Europe. I humbly started one of the beginners classes, to

assess this South American hoopla for myself. The dance of Forró is very intimate as the couples dance cheek to cheek, their bodies pressed against one another’s. Alicja pointed out after she saw the terrified look on my face that I’d have to force my body so close onto strangers, that the intimacy of the dance is another distinguishing factor about Forró when compared to salsa; “It’s necessary to dance together brushing cheeks, chests and knees because sometimes, the man may lead the steps with his knees. The togetherness of the couples allows them to feel the body language of their partner and to read where the steps will take them.”

My new partner, Grzsiek had been attending the classes for a month yet still looked as daunted as I, stepped forward to take my hand to practice the basic steps of Forró we just learned. When I surprised myself by remembering the steps of salsa, from what seemed like the distant past of transition year, Rogério pointed out that once you have the basic steps of the dance perfected, you can learn any complicated step of Forró from there. “Learning the moves is like learning to ride a bike; once you know how, the knowledge will stay with you forever.”

After the class, I was invited to stay for the Forró party where the members of the beginners’ and intermediate classes get the chance to practice the moves with other dancers of varying ability. During the party I danced with Rogério who had been immersed in the style of Forró since the age of 15. As I danced, my chin resting on Rogério’s shoulder, his cheek brushing against mine, I forgot about my previously apparent awkwardness of dancing so close to a man I had met only a few hours before as he conveyed his passion for

Photographer: M. Weissbecker

Forró; “I love to dance to the slow Forró music. I don’t feel the desire to dance the complicated steps and twirls all the time and this way, you can just feel the movement of each other’s bodies and listen to the music of Forró.”

There is a strikingly distinct sound to the music style and is explained by the contrasting instruments in a Forró band, which includes an accordion, a triangle and a zabumba (a type of Brazilian base drum).

Each song usually opens with the accordion, giving an Irish Traditional music feel, followed by the triangle where the music takes a French turn before the confusion of the genre is lost as the zabumba is introduced and the music concludes wholly Brazilian. Each week a DJ provides the music for the party but once a month they host a Forró band. Rogério emphasized to me that the most important thing he wants people to know is the existence of Forró as a dance and music style and to reach out to the non-Brazilians who

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know nothing about it at all. “It’s not all about seeing people dance complicated twirls and moves, and want to learn those immediately. You need to know the basic steps and to learn about the Forró as a style. We organize the parties so people can practice their skills of Forró and to just enjoy themselves. Some come to watch but most people dance, as it may be their only opportunity to dance Forró outside the class.” As a student, there’s always an opportunity to dance outside the Forró parties.

If I could just muster up the courage to express my new skill in a club, I might become a dance prodigy after all. At least I’ll look a lot classier than the girl running crotch first towards the poles in Alchemy.

Forró classes take place in POD on Harcourt Street every Thursday from 7-8 for beginners and 8-9 for Intermediate-advanced followed by a party from 9-11. Classes are half price for Trinity students. For more information about Forró visit http:// www.projectoforrodelampiao.org/

Gaming

WHY DON’T GIRLS PLAY VIDEOGAMES? Aoife O’Brien is both a gamer and a female. She wants to know why it seems like she’s in a minority.

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irls and video games – can the combination exist? There are plenty of obvious reasons to explain why video games are less appealing to those of us with two X chromosomes, from over-sexualisation of female video game characters, to the difficulty of mastering the dual analogue controls; which for some reason seems to pose no problems for our male counterparts. While most video games are not aimed exclusively at young males, many are still designed with that market in mind. The result often presents itself in the form of hypermasculine portrayals of men, while the female characters are often there for the sole purpose of “fanservice”, to excite the player without any contribution to plot or character development. Even when female characters are given the same roles as male characters, such as Mass Effect or Fallout 3, which allow the player to choose the gender of

the character they control, they rarely receive as much media representation. Up until recently, for example, only the male Commander Shepard was featured in trailers for the Mass Effect games, despite both genders getting equal amounts of content in the games. Many female players could be put off these games due to the unrealistic portrayals they receive in some games, as stereotypically it is the plot, characters and relationships which most appeal to females, while male players value action and gameplay more. Games which fit the above description are also generally the ones that receive the most media attention and are deemed to be most popular, with Gears of War being one such example. This could result in females seeing all video games as being similar, thus deciding they don’t like them without having even tried them, and deeming them something solely for the guys. The huge number of facebook pages that spring up whenever a new Call of Duty is released reinforce

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this, with such gems as “Hey baby, here have a turn on COD... LOL jk, go back to the kitchen”, “If she makes you food and watches you play CoD, she really loves you”, and on the other side, “the boy who snapped CoD to show his girl how much she means to him”.

Another possible reason girls are hesitant to play video games is that they feel doing so would make guys view them as less feminine. An evolutionary psychologist might argue that everything can be linked back to sex, and video games are no exception. The competitive aspect of most games fits with Freud’s theory, as competition for mates has existed for thousands of years. However, there are many genres of video games which do not have such a focus on killing and competition, such as puzzle games, adventure games, platformers and role-playing games. These games are, in fact, often much more popular with girls, however they do not receive near

as much media attention, which explains why people assume girls rarely play video games. Despite all the reasons I have given thus far, that assumption is, in fact, incorrect. These days, more than 40% of the people who play video games are female. Seven years ago, however, the statistic was only 25%. This may indicate that game developers have, in the past few years, recognised that only one in four players were female, and made changes in their games in order to make them more appealing to girls. The subject of girls and video games is one which received much attention from critics in the past few years. In the past, females were often cast in the “damsel in distress” role, with their rescue being the final objective of the game, as is the case with Zelda and Peach in the Legend of Zelda and Mario games respectively.

Outside of Japanese games in the 80’s, female protagonists in video games were exceedingly rare. This has since changed, with both Zelda and Peach becoming playable in later games, and women have been introduced as allies, sidekicks, villains and player characters. As mentioned earlier, some of these characters are included purely for sex appeal, however this is not the case with all characters. Alyx Vance of Half –Life 2, for example, has received praise for her personality, intelligence, and the close bond she develops with the protagonist without merely being “eye candy”.

The attitude of the video game industry towards women is undeniably changing, and most girlsare unaware of this. As video games have been more popular with males in the past, if the number of girls who play video games is to rise then the changing attitude must be highlighted. As a girl who frequently plays video games, I believe that many of the excuses girls give for not gaming are, quite simply, prejudices. Assumptions are made based on a few games, which do not accurately represent all video games, but usually are only a representation of one genre. Most girls who play video games tend to be those who were introduced to them at a young age, and grew up playing them. Maybe if girls who didn’t, put aside their conditioned disdain for videogames and gave them a chance, they’d come to see that videogames are indeed awesome.

Feature

Where is the

MOSCOW OF A HUNDRED GOLDEN DOMES

Laura Gozzi, on a year abroad in Russia at Moscow State University, provides an onthe-ground account of the protests that have been rocking Moscow following the December 4th election

“A

free Russia for everyone, everywhere!” shouted a man in front of me, right before being pushed away by Interior Ministry policemen. I wanted to see whether they would keep going after him, but I was literally swept along with the crowd trying to move away from the narrow sidewalk enclosed on all sides by police cordons and crash barriers. When I finally got on the other side of Triumfalnaya Ploshad, or Triumph Square in central Moscow, still holding onto my camera while trying to keep it hidden under my coat, I looked around towards the huge statue of the futurist poet and revolutionary Vladimir Mayakovsky towering over the protesters.

I could see some angry faces, yes, and a few people who looked like they would not back down until they were in direct confrontation with the police – but overall, the big, sturdy cops (also known as “the cosmonauts” because of their bulletproof vests and helmets, all vaguely reminiscent of the early space explorers’ gear) greatly outnumbered the demonstrators. Despite being continuously pushed away and dispersed, the protesters kept re-assembling on different sides of the square only to be encircled again by the police who would then charge at the louder, more daring demonstrators, which would

in turn create a sufficient dose of panic in the crowd for it to disperse again. And so on for a couple of hours, until it became obvious that the ‘cosmonauts’ had won. At one point, a Ukrainian radio reporter shoved a microphone under my nose and asked me, “Why are you here tonight? What do you think about all this?” I was about to answer that I’m just a foreign student who wants to understand what’s going on, who needs to take part in this in some way, but the journalist was pushed aside, rather brutally, by a policeman before I could even open my mouth. I glanced over at my friend, and we simultaneously decided it was time to leave.

We went to sit down in a cosy café just down the road from Triumfalnaya Ploshad, but it felt like we were already worlds away from the anger and the frustration of the protest.

We sat in silence for a bit, gathering our impressions of what we had just seen, of the tension we had just felt from both sides of the demonstration. It was the fourth day of the protests following the Russian parliamentary elections of December 4th, which saw President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin’s party, United Russia as the overall winner, having gained over 49% of the votes.

The elections were immediately denounced by leaders of the opposition movement and

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Left: Photographer: Laura Gozzi

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Below: Putin casting his vote in the recent elections which have recently been disputed.

Right: Protestor being arrested at the recent protest.

rights activists as unfair and invalid on the grounds of massive fraud by election officials, who allegedly fabricated up to 25% of United Russia’s result. Since last Sunday, Moscow has been swept with an unprecedented wave of protests; and while they were met with puzzlement at first, by Wednesday backup troops had been sent into the city to control the demonstration that have been popping up on Moscow’s major squares. A huge demonstration is planned for Saturday afternoon on Revolution Square, basically next door to the Kremlin; every single social network, and even most moderate and usually cautious newspapers are advertising it.

Papers such as Bolshoi Gorod – an artsoriented magazine with liberal tendencies, which were probably the reason why its website, among many others, was “down” on election day – are putting out articles with headlines such as “Practical tips for protesters – What to do in case of illegal detention”.

People have different views on what is happening. Some are already resigned to the unfairness of the situation, despite being only in their twenties. My friend Masha, for example, didn’t vote last weekend.

“I care about my country”, she said. “But I don’t believe in the big parties; I like Yabloko [a moderate, social-democratic party], but if I’d voted for them I would’ve just ended up giving United Russia or the Communist Party [the second biggest party in the country] seats in the Duma, and I don’t want that”. She’s right: under Russian law, any votes casted for small parties that don’t make it into the Parliament are distributed among the bigger parties.

“Besides”, Masha chuckles, “they got all the votes they wanted anyway thanks to their tricks” Many don’t believe Russia should even try to appear to be a democracy. Anastasia, one of my language students, believes that the country “needs an autocratic power.

“...the problem isn’t that Russia has strayed from the democratic path – it’s that it never went down that road at all.”

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A king, or an emperor. I wish we still had the Tsar. It wouldn’t be democratic or fair, but at least we wouldn’t have to deal with corrupted parties and lying politicians.

We would all be better off if we could be united under one leader.” That is a rather strong position to have, and I find myself wondering if a blunt statement such as this one could be made in any other European country.

But I found that the majority of the people I’ve talked to are actually ready to react.

My friend Sergei tells me that “the problem isn’t that Russia has strayed from the democratic path – it’s that it never went down that road at all. But we have to show them that we read the foreign newspapers, that we went to the polling stations with our smartphones and recorded the fraud, and that we’re aware of what’s going on. We’re not going to back down. Even if we don’t win, we’re going to make as much noise as we can, because we know we’re right.” What Sergei says is very true: people are starting to realise that fraud and rigged elections are not “normal”. While this sounds like a truism to us, we have to keep in mind that democracy is a relatively new concept for Russians, who are more used to the idea of corruption and illegality than that of freedom of speech and vote.

They are just beginning to understand that, as citizens, they have the right and the duty to speak out if they think that their country is being torn apart by dirty politics. After all, voting is a privilege that most young people’s grandparents have never experienced, having lived under Soviet rule all their lives.

I thought about all this on my way to the protest on Wednesday evening. Would

things really change? Or rather: could things really change? I had my doubts.

But as soon as I got to Triumfalnaya Ploshad, I heard a girl shout “Where’s my vote?” in the face of a policeman-cosmonaut. I watched anger grow as one of them gave a protester a black eye for starting a wave of feet-stamping. I was tossed around by the crowd as the police started to “kettle” us. And, above all, I witnessed dozens of military trucks driving up to the square to put an end to the relatively small-scale demonstration, as if the hundred protesters could actually be a threat, and I realised that yes: the government is scared. The eyes of the Western media are pointed to Russia in the aftermath of the elections; no one seems to leave the house without a camera or smartphone; people are reacting in such an unprecedented, unpredictable way that the government feels the need to deploy its special “Interior Ministry” troops to keep the situation under control. So maybe something can change. People are tense, they’re changing, stirring. They don’t want to plunge back into a Soviet-style form of government, made up of lies and repression behind a façade of utopian modernity; they want to experience real democracy, and take full advantage of it.

I get back home, completely frozen, quite shaken up and a little angry, and check the Facebook page for Saturday’s protest on Revolution Square. There are 22,000 people attending. I click on refresh, and there are about a hundred more. An hour later, they’re over 23,000. Something, somewhere, is moving – and once it starts, there’s no telling when, or if, it will ever stop.

Feature

THE FEAST OF THE CONSUMPTION Luke O’Connell relates his experience of December 8th’s National Kebab Day, and finds it to be messy hard to digest.

I

t was that time of the year again: National Kebab Day, the feast of the immaculate consumption. I was lounging in an apartment on campus, failing to realise the day that was upon me, when great waves of hunger swelled up inside me. Maybe it was all of the advertisements by Abrakebabra that did it, or the festive sight of folks, young and old, cheerily wishing each other “Happy National Kebab Day” as they went about their Christmas shopping, or the homelessman outside Abrakebabra appealing in vain to the patrons for a donor kebab, until finally he gathered the €2 for a donner kebab.

It was an especially windy night and there was a madness in the air once 10pm hit that suggested only one thing: every burger joint east of the Shannon was experiencing their worst night of trading since the Mad Cow Disease scare’s peak and sales of the humble kebab were on the cusp of an all-time high, with interest in them showing no signs of yielding. A fever had swept the nation. I decided there was only one thing for it: get a Zaytoon delivered to Trinity College.

Trinity College, admittedly, has a very

mixed reputation in the city. Some walk by Front Arch countless times in their lives, thinking “Gosh, I wish I went there!” or “Do you remember the Ball of ‘97?” Another less sympathetic person might say “I know two or three people that go there, and I’ll be honest with you, they are all pretentious pricks, in my experience” or “Cunts, to a man, if you ask me”. But few delivery restaurants, I had naively assumed, would never have heard of the place.

I called up Zaytoon, Camden St, and immediately realised that this process was not going to be as easy as walking into the restaurant and ordering at the till. The man’s English was mediocre but enough to work with. I asked for a “Barg!” kebab, adding an exclamation mark where I hadn’t intended, and then came the part we’d all been waiting for, the elephant in the room, when he asked me my address. “Trinity College”, I said nonchalantly, even brazenly, even foolishly.

he asked, as it just failed to register for him, and I repeated, repeated, incredulously. I felt like saying, “Do you want me to spell it out for you? Do you?” but he read my mind and asked me to do so. I could feel him typing it into Google Maps. “Trinity...

Place?” he tried. “No! College!

Book of Kells! Dublin University! You can’t miss it!” But no matter how hard I tried I could not present this man with a mental picture of where I was talking about. I heard him conferring with his colleagues away from the

The poor man had just never come across the place in his life.

“Trinity College”, I repeated, seeing where this was going. “Which college?”

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phone’s mouthpiece. They, too, seemed clueless.

Deciding to come at it from a new angle, he asked me if there were any landmarks nearby, any bone I could throw him to elucidate my location. Ambitiously I tried “Nassau St”, hardly Dublin’s most obscure thoroughfare but nevertheless too tricky for this man. He asked me to spell it and then seemed to find it on his computer but became frantic about the possibility of parking spaces. I calmly assured him it

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E IMMACULATE wouldn’t be a problem – this was National Kebab Day for god’s sake!

He took the order and, relieved, I undertook to relax until the kebab arrived. I did not foresee my terrible fate.

The classic doner kebab.

A half an hour later, punctually, I received a phone call from the delivery driver, telling me he was outside. I was naturally very sceptical of this.

Predictably (or unpredictably, as I failed to predict it), the Nassau St gate was closed, and as I stormed around through Front Arch I found myself hurrying to avoid keeping the man waiting. At the Nassau St gate, the mystery man was nowhere to be found. I called him. He sounded lost, panicked. He asked me for landmarks. I tried Read’s of Nassau St. Grafton St. The Molly Malone statue! They all seemed to ring a bell for him but he wasn’t sure. I said I’d wait at the bottom of Grafton St. 10 minutes passed. Four or five phone calls later, he still hadn’t shown. I had spent €8 in phone credit by now. But something inside me made me persevere.

mercifully, had been in a thermal bag.

It was unquestionably the worst National Kebab Day of my life. When I got back to the apartment I found the 50c in my pocket, forgotten in all the commotion, but maybe that was God’s way of telling me something. Or maybe it was Trinity’s way. I’ll never know whether the delivery man was the same man I spoke to when I ordered, but what does this say about Trinity’s place as a world-renowned institution of education excellence? Not very much. With rankings in the international university league tables slipping and further austerity measures being introduced to third-level education, how can Trinity be expected to survive

Suddenly my mind became occupied by a curious dilemma. Did he deserve a tip for all the effort he had gone through or none at all for the immeasurably poor “delivery service”? 50c was all the tip I could afford in any case. I weighed up the moral decision in my mind but then the call came through that he had found the Nassau St gate that I had hoped for. I sprinted there and saw a car pulled over and an exhausted man standing gormlessly outside.

I gestured to him and his eyes lit up. I handed him all the change in my hand and took the kebab which,

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in this climate not of uncertainty but of sheer anonymity? Patrick Prendergast has a lot to answer for. Would he even know what a Zaytoon was if it hit him in the face? Did he even know it was National Kebab Day? It struck me that there were two very different worlds at play and maybe it was right that the two should never meet. National Kebab Day would come again next year, oh I was sure of that, but where would we be then?

I decided, with no small measure of trepidation, that I would make sure to spend that 50c wisely, and never again attempt to get a kebab delivered to Ireland’s oldest university.

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In Focus

The Duke Special in The Chapel Photographer: Gaelen Britton

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Interview

The Antlers David Doyle interviews soft-spoken, sandwich eating, drummer from acclaimed band The Antlers.

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here was a sense of restrained urgency listening to The Antlers during their sound check ahead of their recent gig in The Academy. Watching the sound build up in layers is mesmerising and the complexity of their latest work, Burst Apart, is apparent. Though in many ways far different to their much lauded cult hit Hospice there is still a powerful sense of intimacy, heighted only by the fact that there were only a handful of people around. Peter Silberman’s voice is nothing if not haunting and the rest of the band melds together until you’re left with a wall of sound which slices right through you and this was only the sound check.

In fact that commanding unity that the band has on stage is evident watching them backstage as well. Sitting around and sharing a few drinks before the show, there’s sense of casual relaxedness which seems almost at odds with the unsettling and at times devastating lyrics of both Hospice and Burst Apart. In fact as drummer, Michael Lerner comes into the small backstage room for the interview, clutching a sandwich (ham & cheese on rye bread) and a bottle of Heineken, there’s little to indicate that he’s part of one of the world’s most critically acclaimed indie bands; he’s softly spoken, more than willing to talk and very polite.

The gig in Dublin as part of the tour following the release of Burst Apart marked a major change in direction from the band in terms of musical sound since the last time they’d performed here and while the album has been a success, there was much questioning from critics as to how the band would follow a hit like Hospice and Lerner spoke

about the pressure surrounding that.

“We were aware of that. That ‘sophomore slump’ with a lot of bands - it’s a similar thing. Really there’s nothing you can do about that and if you let it really creep into your head too much it’s going to drive you mad. All we really wanted to do was make a record that we knew we had put our best effort into and which we were psyched about and something that to be honest that I want to listen to myself, as a music fan”.

The new album hasn’t only been a change in direction musically; it’s also been a fundamentally different sort of project for the group. Hospice had been a selfreleased album and largely the brainchild of Peter Silberman but Burst Apart, complete with a label behind it has had a much different creative process throughout. For Lerner that change has allowed greater time to be spent focusing on the music itself, something which the much more complex sounds of Burst Apart is testament to.

“I think DIY is valuable at every level, as you’re probably putting more of your own into it. But at the same time, you need other people to do things for you. You need people for releasing records and all the things that labels do. There’s a reason - it makes your life easier and allows you to concentrate on the music which is really all we’ve ever wanted to do”.

Despite the success of the new album, there’s still a fine line which has to be balanced as to how much pandering is to be done towards fans who want to hear tracks from previous releases. Indeed this clambering for earlier released material was evident during the gig itself with some fan, at times, over-enthusiastic attempts to grab the attention of the band in an at-

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tempt to hear something from the back catalogue. Though the gig itself manages to strike a balance between new and old material, Lerner was quick to explain the way the set list has come to be and managing the expectations of the fans while also being something that the band enjoys.

“I think that you want to strike that balance. It’s the same thing as a music fan of a certain band; if you fell in love with a record and you go and see the concerts, you want to see those songs live. I certainly get that but there’s also us touring on a record for a couple of years, heavy touring, which we’ve loved, but having fresh material is exciting for us, and there’s also a bit of the fact that Hospice songs, being what they were, meant that people were asking us if it becomes emotionally draining, and to an extent we’d become disassociated from that. So perhaps the set is now leaning a bit more towards the new record but we certainly play songs from Hospice. So maybe not all the songs that everyone wants every night but we have a curfew”.

The Brooklyn band are spending an increasing amount of time on tour, but the music scene in New York still plays a huge role in their lives with Lerner acknowledging its place as one of the music capitals of the world. The band is intensely passionate about their New York heritage and Lerner’s impassioned portrayal of the New York music scene is evidence of that.

“I think being in New York is not that dissimilar to being in Dublin; in that at any given moment you don’t have to put that much thought into it, unless it’s a soldout show of course, and you can say ‘what’s going on tonight?’ and go. Whereas, people are waiting if you’re someplace in the States like the Midwest, where it’s not as populated, for months for bands

to come there. We’re spoiled like that. Not that we’re home that much lately but that’s the case in New York and I’m glad for that.”

In fact the New York music scene from which The Antlers emerged has played a pivotal role in their development and much of their previous releases have no doubt been influenced by many of the other indie bands which have emerged in recent years. The band hasn’t forgotten about their roots either and the current tour is ending in New York with something of a homecoming gig that is set to be their biggest yet. The return home also offers a chance to begin work on new material which Lerner hinted may be in the not too distant future saying, “We have some ideas now that we’re kicking around but really when we get back home, the timing is good because during the holidays things are a bit slow so we’ll be able to go back and see what else is on the horizon”.

However new material isn’t the only thing coming up for the group with a seemingly improbable and bizarre stint on a cruise ship planned for early 2012 and to make matters even more unpredictable, Weezer will be at the helm. The cruise from Miami to Cozumel in Mexico sees a host of alternative and indie groups entertain clientele on a yacht which even Lerner himself admits is “ridiculous” and to make matters more intriguing The Antlers will be judging the belly-flop competition on board, something which I don’t think many ardent fans would envisage as something that would happen to Peter Silberman and his bunch of seemingly meditative musicians.

However it may be that willingness to dive into the unknown and at times the seemingly bizarre which has given the band such a firm place in the modern indie scene.

Their uniqueness, it seems, knows no bounds and it has given them a devoted fan base which has devotedly followed the band through several musical incarnations, and Lerner and the rest of the group seem to acknowledge the importance of that group of fans. Indeed Lerner is keen to point out the unifying aspect of the music across all countries in which the band has found success, noting, “I don’t want to say things too cheesy or whatever but it crosses all boundaries, it’s universal. But it’s cool – music is music. Places all around the world have their idiosyncrasies or what have you but it’s nice to be able to tour the world”.

Feature Feature

Photograph: Michael McGloughlin

ACHILL-HENGE

The story of the mysterious megalithic monument

by Tommy Gavin

Y

ou may have heard of Joe McNamara. He drove a cement truck painted with the words “toxic bank Anglo” into the gates of the Dáil in September of 2010. Well, he’s back, and as Terminator 2 raised the stakes in its game (I don’t consider the subsequent films to be part of the same saga), so too has Mr. McNamara. If his first public act was one of destruction, his second has been one of creation.

For Mr. McNamara has constructed a concrete Stonehenge-esque structure on a hilltop in Achill Island. The circle is composed of thirty large columns over four meters in height, thirty meters in diameter and close to one hundred meters in circumference with tapping stones on top. It was built to be a “tomb for the celtic tiger”

according to McNamara supporter Benny Meehan, as reported in the Irish Independent. It’s a perfect news story for the internet age; it has topical relevance, a lifespan as the story progresses, and the all-important “what do you think” factor.

When he drove the cement truck (which had previously been used to block the entrance to a Galway branch of Anglo Irish bank) into the Dáil gates, causing €35 damage, it was according to his then lawyer Cahir O’Higgins, a protest “against the profligacy of the State in what he saw as expenditure of public money to save banks” and upon being arrested said ““my name does not matter, the truck belongs to Anglo bank. I am returning it to them to take away the keys.” At the time he owed 7.5 million euro to Anglo Irish bank,

and in relation to the incident, the courts heard that he was “pissed off”. Surprisingly, McNamara was acquitted of the charges levelled at him by the state for the whole affair, which would seem to render the whole protest successful. The gargantuan sum of 7.5 million has since been reduced to a 3.5 million, and apparently that “pissed off” sentiment has not subsided. It was in that same spirit then that what has come to be known as AchillHenge was erected.

According to Edwin McGreal’s coverage in the Mayo News, construction began on Friday the 25th of November using pre-cast concrete slabs and continued throughout the weekend and was completed that Monday. Estimated to have cost around €20,000 to construct, many of the workers apparently worked for free, happy

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enough just to be part of the mysterious effort. Over that weekend, as the Mayo county council became aware that something unauthorised was going on, several Council planning officers popped over to try and shut the project down, but not being able to physically stop the construction, work went ahead.

Predictably, the County Council is seeking a High Court order, and McNamara has already spent four days in Mountjoy prison for contempt of court. The case is on-going and it remains to be seen as to whether “Achill-Henge” will be torn down. The easy answer is to just say that by not having planning permission, it should be torn down on principle.

This is bolstered by the fact that it was built on commonage land to which McNamara did not have exclusive rights.

However, given the amount of effort that went into the project, it at least deserves to be thought about.

Supposedly, as with Newgrange and Stonehenge, Achill-Henge has been designed to channel sunlight at dawn during the summer and winter solstices.

This may seem irrelevant, but

may possibly be quite brilliant.

The most credible theory for the purpose of Stonehenge involves it being one of two henges, the other one being made of wood (which has been discovered), and there was a path (also discovered) that linked the two. At the wooden one, there would be a festival of life and fertility during the summer solstice, and at Stonehenge, the dead would be remembered during the winter solstice. It is very hard to prove what actually happened, but in the light of this theory, a concrete Stonehenge erected without permission in a field in Achill seems to be a perfect, if glib, requiem for the folly of those years when the country seems to have lost its mind. It appeals to lost ancient mythology and sarcastically recontextualises it to comment on the celtic tiger. It should be said that he does own the hotel closest to the structure so there will of course be cynics who will write the whole thing off as a selfish and opportunistic promotional stunt, and who knows, maybe it is. But that shouldn’t take away from the hilarious ingenuity of it, and could actually end up as a pretty good revenue generator for the island through tourism.

Beyond petty revenue though, its controversial nature is prompting debate, and raising questions, which should in theory qualify it as art, maybe even important art.

Furthermore, there is an unqualified but very plausible rumour on Irish property forum http://www.thepropertypin.com that not only will the structure channel sunlight, but has been designed to have acoustic mimicry properties such that, when the wind blows at precisely 45 knots, AchillHenge will emit “a second order harmonic tone to the tenor drone base frequency on the Píob Mór”. What that basically means is that when the wind is right, the structure will sound like a bagpipe drone (Píob Mór is an irish instrument similar to bagpipes, which Joe McNamara is known to play). Such sculptures do exist, where sound is generated from the wind around them, like Luke Jerram’s Aeolus. There is very little evidence to suggest that this rumour is true, but it wouldn’t be out of character for McNamara. If it is true, demolishing Achill-Henge wouldn’t just be a shame, it would be a crime of Terminator 3 proportions.

Culture

Music to lack the full emotion needed for such a serious subject and while the last four songs try to convey something through contemporary instrumental flourishes, it almost seems irrelevant to Redford’s struggle. Although there are some truly moving moments on this album, one can’t help but feel that it could have been a whole lot better.

Eoin Hennessy

The Roots - Undun

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or their 10th studio album The Roots have graced us with a concept record. One should not dismiss this as another Metal Machine Music (Lou Reed) or American Doll Posse (Tori Amos) but instead should embrace it as another original adventure from the eight piece hip-hop group.

The album tells the life story (in

reverse) of Redford Stevens’ decent into drug addiction with the first track on the album being Redford’s death indicated by the haunting sound of a heart monitor. Only lasting 40 minutes the album explores the various stages in Redford’s life through the expert word play of lead vocalist Black Thought. On the DJ Rogers sampled

“Kool On”, Black Thought comes into his own as he shows us how to use a word like “Methamphetamines” in a rhyme without hesitation. Despite the lyrics, it’s tracks like “The Otherside” and “Tip the Scale” on which the patent ?uestlove drums come in and really show off The Roots’ true potential. However, the album seems

“

The result is a simple yet beautiful piece which almost seems too elegant to be deemed as electronic music.

Floating Points - Shadows

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ne would have thought that it would be difficult running your own record label, producing your own music, touring the world as a DJ and running your own orchestra all while doing a PhD in molecular neurogenetics. However, Sam “Floating Points” Shepherd seems to be doing just that with supreme ease. On his 9th release, Sheppard has moved into new territory as he explores primal sonic boundaries combining jazz with eerie electronic sounds. It almost

ows EP such a masterpiece and its concluding track “Sais” only reinforces this view. Although it was released as a Dub version on Record Store Day last year, Shepherd has completely flipped the track by getting in a string quintet to play along side the synth. The

feels wrong calling Shadows an EP as it spans 5 tracks over the period of 40 minutes. The first track, “Myrtle Avenue” is a ten-minute epic which starts with a simple bass groove and then ultimately peaks with a smooth piano line and quick bursts of arpeggios. However, the stand out track on the EP has to be “ARP3”. Although it is clearly dancefloor orientated it takes a good 2 minutes to actually build up to a thumping 4x4 rhythm. It’s this drawn out subtly that makes the Shad-

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result is a simple yet beautiful piece which almost seems too elegant to be deemed as electronic music. Only 25 years of age, it is clear that Floating Points is destined for big things. Let’s just hope that he sticks to the music and not to the neurogenetics.

of “Sleigh Ride” and the amount of ukulele on the record is also impressive considering it’s a Christmas album. However, their version of Frank Loesser’s “Baby, it’s Cold Outside” is so cringe worthy it’s almost unlistenable. While this album may not be quite to this reviewer’s liking, one can still image drunken family members dancing around a table listening to this, ultimately very average, Christmas album.

She & Him- A Very She & Him Christmas

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side from her blockbuster films and massive Rimmel campaigns, Zooey Deschanel has decided to try and get more money out of the public by releasing a She & Him Christmas album.

The Him in this case is the lesserknown Matthew Ward who appears to do most of the production and ac-

companiment on the album. Although Deschanel has a very enjoyable voice, one can’t help but feel that she is only in it for the money this time around (as is the case with most Christmas albums).

On their previous records, She & Him have shown that their lyric writing ability isn’t all that bad, so one feels

that was unnecessary to make an album comprised of covers only. The covers themselves are of all your “holiday favourites”, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Buddy Clark, Frank Sinatra etc.

Although this album could be replaced by a plate full of cheese, it’s still hard not to slightly enjoy She & Him’s rendition

Various Artists - Bambara Mystic Soul: The Raw Sound of Burkina Faso 1974-1979

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rom listening to this album one would not think that it came from one of the world’s least developed countries. Burkina Faso is a land locked African country with a population of

more than 15 million. The country has faced many problems since it gained independence from France in 1960 so it is hard to see how this joyous Afro-Funk came out of a country so devastated by political unrest. Analog Africa, the

label who have released this compilation of Burkinabé beats, have brought together a mix of songs from two record labels which were set up in the mid to late seventies, Volta Discobel and Club Voltaïque du Disque (CVD). This is

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“

Although this album could be replaced by a plate full of cheese, it’s still hard not to slightly enjoy She & Him’s renditionof “Sleigh Ride”...

Analog Africa’s tenth release and although it’s slightly more adventurous than some of its previous material it is easily one of its best releases yet. It must be noted that there are absolutely no bad moments on this album, this is probably due to there being few opportunities to record in 1970s Burkina Faso so it meant that musicians gave it their all when the time came around. The most dominant musician on the album, Amadou Ballaké, produces some of the most impressive tracks. From the Jazz sounding opening piece “Bar Konou Mousso” to the smooth 60s psychedelic track “Renouveau”, Ballaké proves himself as an awe-inspiring musician.

Despite the bad recording quality on most of the songs, it somehow seems to suit all of the musician’s styles. Even though some of the tracks were recorded in 1974, tunes like Compaoré Issouf’s “Dambakale” could still be danced to in a club today despite the David-Guetta-generation in which we live. The icing on the cake is the 44-page booklet which accompanies the album and features interviews with musicians and other people involved and travelogues.

Although the music doesn’t reflect the conditions in 1970s Burkina Faso, it is still some of the most impressive, creative work out there and the fact that this music has retained such weight and originality despite being almost 40 years old is truly a tremendous feat.

literature

THE CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY: A CHRISTMAS NUISANCE We see them every christmas; the opportunistic big name cash in that end up as presents between people who don’t really know each other that well. James Hagan looks at four recent additions to the genre.

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he annual plague of Christmas celebrity biographies which take over bookshops may be on the decline. Long touted as a necessary evil in order to keep the increasingly anxious publishing industry afloat, the christmas celebrity biography phenomenon now seems to be slowing down in sales. Industry website thebookseller.com is reporting a huge reduction in sales in the genre in 2011. Its initial growth always seemed like a self-fulfilling consumer prophecy to me- a vicious circle in which ghostwriters produced pot-boiling copy they knew to be meaningless and indifferent shoppers settled on a front cover consisting of some cliched text and a face vaguely recognisable from television blown up to overwhelming proportions because it was an easy gift option. Could it be that people have finally grown tired of the Christmas celebrity autobiography? Or is the reason for a drop in sales that this year’s crop of celebrities are even less appealing and recognisable than usual as the practice experiences a peak D-list celebrity crisis?

Here is a look at some of the major celebrities who have put their names to books for this Christmas season; whoever recognises the most of them wins the sad prize.

describes the negative attitudes towards her career choice which she faced in her youth“from our background, you didn’t become an actor”. There are also revelations, which were heavily featured in tabloid press at the time of release, in “Things I Couldn’t Tell My Mother” as Johnston describes her experiences with depression and bulimia.

Another standard feature of the celebrity autobiography, name dropping more famous friends, is present in Johnston’s description of her time spent with The Beatles. Overall, while many of the annoying celebrity autobiography standards are found in this book, Johnston’s career trajectory is an example of wider social shifts of the time and she’s always seemed like a sound enough British tv staple. Good for her for collecting her pension.

throughout her life, which I suppose may be enough reason for some to purchase a new hardback instead of fishing out the older model from the bottom of a charity shop bin. These newly published photographs seem to be the main selling point of the book and it does appear to be more of a scrapbook with captions than a fully-fledged text-based narrative of Lumley’s life. Perhaps this is a fair move; it seems likely that those who find Lumley fascinating will find what they are looking for in this format.

Plenty of shots of Lumley encapsulating her paradoxical qualities of old school British glamour and rebellious bohemian frankness.

Also, personally, I relish the opportunity to change the voice of my internal monologue to that of her entrancingly husky, clipped drone, so I’m not entirely opposed to rephrasing of old news to supply more content for that purpose.

for anything new or surprising. However, anything associated with the Grylls name has a ready-made market waiting for it and it may not matter that “Mud, Sweat and Tears” is more of the same if that’s exactly what its readers are looking for. At the very least, Grylls’ brand, with its extreme survival ethic, is a departure from the usual generic books designed for the Christmas market.

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irst off there is Joanna Lumley’s “Absolutely: A Memoir”. The former bond girl and star of boozy sitcom “Absolutely Fabulous”’s autobiography provides a hint to the worthlessness and cynical moneyspinning nature of the celebrity biography phenomenon- it is the second she has produced in a decade, following 2005’s “No Room for Secrets”. However, the new book promises a host of new pictures of herself

ue Johnston’s “Things I Couldn’t Tell My Mother” seems a fairly typical example of the celebrity autobiography which appears in the seasonal period. After putting in the decades as a recongisable face on television screens (Going from “Brookside” to “Waking the Dead” to “The Royle Family” seemingly without taking a break) Johnston has chosen 2011 as her year to cash in on her reputation to produce her autobiography, the usual face dominated cover predictably feminised by its soft lilac colouring and thin font. It seems that anyone who has been on television long enough is entitled to take part in the autobiography game; the angle of interest in Johnston’s memoir seems to be the difficulties she faced in finding her way in acting despite class barriers. She

I

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n a groan inducing act of pun, Bear Grylls’s latest output is entitled “Mud, Sweat and Tears”. Grylls is surely one of the highest profile celebrities who has an autobiography on sale for Christmas. Grylls’s super human exploits have earned him a legion of armchair adrenaline loving fans in his native Britain and beyond. Through his different expeditions in remote areas of the world, his reputation for fearlessness in attempting dangerous exploits and willingness to eat any lifeform he comes across, he has built up a strongly identifiable brand, perhaps more so than any other autobiographer putting their life history out for sale this year. Yet his career is so littered with media output, both in television and literature, that there doesn’t seem to be much room left in “Mud, Sweat and Tears”

idal: The Autobiography tells the life story of Vidal Sassoon, the famous hairdresser often credited with playing a huge role in defining the style of the 1960s and creating the modern hair industry.

It follows the 2010 documentary “Vidal: The Movie” in an effort to document and explain the life of the fashion icon. Sassoon’s personal history is as fascinating as his career, from living in an orphanage as a child to fighting fascist groups in London as a teenager. Yet it is the undeniable scope and impact of Sassoon’s professional activities which make his autobiography truly attractive and much more resonant than the others available this Christmas. Sassoon opened the first international chain of hair salons and the new haircuts he designed allowed women to spend less time on hair maintenance. His revolutionary approach to hair matched the growing liberation of women from spending time on busywork and the aesthetic this manifested in became iconic of the era. While the title may be as unimaginative as most (Jonny Wilkinson: My Autobiography, Paul Scholes: My Story, Lee Evans: The Life of Lee) Sassoon’s eradefining career means that there are more areas of potential exploration than in the usual Christmas wasteland of sportsmen and comedians.

Film

time, Will cannot stay in the ghetto for long and relocates to one of the more luxurious districts, where he grabs the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), forcing her to become his hostage on the run. The plot continues in a predictable fashion from here on: she develops an attraction for him and they join forces to take down the unjust system, starwipe and credits.

The film has a lot of promise, but in short, it never really manages to kick into top gear when it needs to. The hamfisted attempt social relevance is almost silly enough to work but neither these “topical” debates nor a fully engaging on-the-run setup are really orchestrated and this juggling act of the two never really gels together, leaving us with an unsatisfied feeling by the time the credits roll.

The concept is one that could have had much more screen time, rather than the escapes from Police, or Minutemen as they are known. There is little information given on this world, which arguably could be to encourage our imagination, but alternatively gives Niccol more time to focus on the lacklustre narrative, which seems to lack context in a largely unexplained world.

This Bonnie & Clyde dynamic that Seyfried & Timberlake try to emulate is another weakness of the film, simply because it doesn’t really work. It only reminds us how much better Warren Beatty & Faye Dunaway did it. Timberlake, personally, doesn’t suit the leading man role. He never seems to possess that gravitas, nor any real emotional range, that should hook an audience, but rather seems to

IN TIME. Time is money; David Cullinan reviews the film that takes the phrase coined by Benjamin Franklin literally

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ndrew Niccol’s fourth film, originally titled I’m.

Mortal, is quite a mixed bag.

Having such a strong catalogue of work to date, In Time feels more like a film helmed by someone still learning the ropes.

The title was changed, presumably to avoid confusion between the Universal Pictures film Immortals, released only a week later. However this move to a less memorable title is far from the worst of the problems of Niccol’s film.

The story begins with futureghetto resident Will Salas, played with offensive medi-

ocrity by Justin Timberlake, attempting to work enough so that his poor Olivia Wilde mother doesn’t have to.

Now, if that seems like a bit of a stretch for movie age gaps, you’re right. The film revolves around the concept that people don’t age past 25, time is the currency and the rich live forever and the poor die young. #OccupyTimeSpaceContinuum Will Salas happened to come to the aid of a wealthy out-oftowner who generously gives him over 100 years, in his last act, and with this newfound

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be more suited to the interesting supporting character role, a la The Social Network. Amanda Seyfried is perfectly serviceable, never stepping too far off the mark, as is Cillian Murphy who never really appears to be testing himself as Leon, the cop on their case.

Philippe Weis, the main antagonist representing the entire upper-class and Sylvia’s father, seems too child-like to have any real malicious intent, but that is more because of casting than Vincent Kartheiser’s acting ability. Perhaps this is the kernel of the problem. There never seems to be a sense of drive or urgency.

Will & Sylvia seem to have a ‘sure, let’s try this, it might work’ attitude, rather than any real determination or investment in a plan to succeed in trumping the great evil system that never asserts its menace too strongly either.

Other than these however, the film looks great, having been shot by 9-time Oscar nominee Roger Deakins, and the intricacies of this system, some more odd than others, are what maintained my attention throughout the running time.

For a film that should have a lot going for it, the film really doesn’t live up to its potential. Andrew Niccol’s melding of sci-fi/.fantasy with social critiques has worked much better in The Truman Show, S1m0ne and, to a lesser degree, Lord of War. Sadly though, In Time feels like this film was made before all of these. We don’t ever feel that Niccol is confident and in control, throwing too much into a film that could have been stronger as a simpler piece.

It works alright as trashy sci-fi, but not really (incoming pun)

fashion

CSC

EXPLAINING THE QUOI OF THE JE NE SAIS QUOI …

French fashion isn’t necessarily all its cracked up to be, according to Elizabeth Brauders.

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he fashion world is obsessed with France: Paris Fashion Week is one of the biggest events in the style calendar and designer labels such as Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent live on, even after their creator’s death. Books have been written on the French sense of style, just to help the women of the world who sit desolate in a deplorable state of decided un-chicness. (See: All You Need to be Impossibly French, A Woman’s Guide to Finding her Inner French Girl, Chic & Slim Toujours etc. etc.)

Having lived in France for the last 3 months, and spent time at school here as a teenager, I feel I’m qualified as an outsider to talk about the famous French sense of style, and my verdict is, well… it’s all a bit boring. It seems to me that they’ve built up the famous “Basics Wardrobe” that shitebag magazines like Cosmo like to push so much. You know, beige trenchcoat, black wool coat, plain t-shirts in neutral colours, well-cut jeans, little black dress, classic blazer... While that idea is all well and good, it appears that they’ve forgotten to add anything of themselves to that. The average French woman on the street does look undeniably chic and beautiful in her all-black/’insert other neutral here’ ensemble, but she also looks exactly like every other French woman, including her own mother or daughter.* While living with a French family I noticed that my exchange partner and her maman essentially shared a wardrobe.

The French stereotype of British and Irish fashion is completely at odds with this, think more Vivienne Westwood and Temple Bar vintage. We’re

not afraid of bright colours and we’re not afraid to wear something that others will hate. When I first moved to France for school at 16 a French teacher told me “Ah, we can always spot a foreign student in the playground, they are the spots of colour!” She was right.

Even at that age, the school was a homogeneous mass of humanity, and a yellow dress was asking for stares of amazement. How I longed to be one of those nonchalant French girls, I gave up my beloved sunshinehued dress and took to wearing all black, a dash of red lipstick for nights out, and some liquid eyeliner. It’s an easy look to imitate.

While this selfimposed uniform looks well and adds to a streamlined shape, for me it got old fast.

I started to ache for some Irish-style rainbow brights and coloured eyeliner, a little something of me in this cold façade. The problem with colours and glitz is that they age quickly and are dictated by the annual catwalks.

They are “fashionable”, as opposed to the timeless classics that are “stylish”. It’s easy to let the former wear you as you’re just another face trying to pull off the latest sequin blazer or mesh body-con dress.

In my experience, the trick is this: take those good, easy-towear basics that make you look good, and add in pieces of your own style. That little hint speaks volumes and makes you stand out,

without overpowering you. People will still notice you and not your clothes. “Fashion” pieces can easily be bought cheaply in Penney’s, but something beautiful, something “you” is worth the money. Whether that’s a simple black pencil skirt or a bright red tartan boob-tube is up to you. Parisien grimaces be damned, I think I’m rocking my

t’s the last college week of 2011, and the societies of Trinity are ready to spoil you even more than Santa did during the Celtic Tiger years. Okay, not quite.

Lame opening, I own it. But I, possibly like your overworked self, am brain-fried beyond the point of decent sentence structure. Truth is; all I want for Christmas is essays to end, to drink spirits, to walk the piss-stained cobbles of town under the stars and charming lights of Grafton. That time of festive freedom is nearly upon us, children. But first: The Hist will be holding a Q&A session with our national darlings The Rubberbandits on Tuesday evening in the GMB. The Law Soc will be doing a pub crawl on Tuesday evening.

Meet in the Pav at 6pm, and then its onto O’Reillys (Sub Lounge), MacTurcaills, Longstone and Doyles before heading to the brilliant Lafayette nightclub. The event is free for all Law Soc members.

ruby red prom dress.

Oh and for all those who’ve asked: Yes, French people (men and women) do wear berets, striped jumpers and neck-scarves.

No, they don’t look like caricatures of themselves, they look, in my opinion, pretty damn good. By the end of my stay here I hope to have mastered their origami-art of the silk scarf. *Disclaimer: obviously not 100% of French women dress this way, but it’s a suspiciously large majority.

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The Photography Association are hosting their exhibition in the Atrium one Thursday the 15th. From 6pm, you can steal wine and cheese, and appreciate art, like a true Trinity student. If you want your own works to be included, DUPA will collect pieces off you on Tuesday between 1 and 3 in the Snooker Rooms in the GMB and the same time on Wednesday in the same location.

Trinity Orchestra, Jazz Society and Trinity Singers have teamed up with The Phil to bring you this year’s big Charity Christmas Concert and Party in aid of Vincent de Paul. The performance will include some exceptionally well rehearsed and performed Christmas tunes, including a unique performance of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf narrated by the legendary Joe

O’Gorman. Tickets are €5, available on the door, and all proceeds go towards VDP! A Very DUAMS Christmas Party shall take place at the Atrium on Tuesday, 13th of December. For free, head at 7:30 pm onwards for drinks, alternative festive music and a guest appearance from some mysterious, red-clad fat man.

The annual Players Ball will take place on Monday 12th December in the beautiful Clontarf Castle. One of Players’ biggest events of the year, there will be a wine reception, three course meal, live band and DJ as well as great drink deals on the night. The mood will of course be festive, with carol singers, Santa Claus, mistletoe and all the trappings of a great Christmas Party! Tickets are on sale now from the DU Players box office from 10-6 every day as well as in the Arts Block until Monday. They will remain on sale in the Players box office during box office hours for Players shows and Wednesday Night events. You will be required to register your details and the tickets themselves will be released in the days before the ball. Tickets will be €40 for Players members and €45 for non-Players members. Afters tickets (admission from 9.30PM) are €15.

Especially worth noting is the Q Soc’s ‘Mock Marriage’ , taking place on Wednesday from 1pm in the Front Square.

To raise awareness about the inequality of the current laws around Civil marriage, couples of both different and the same genders will be married to demonstrate that Love is Love, and equal rights means full Civil marriage for all people.

Merry Christmas, and make sure you arrive back to these magnificent, historic grounds in 2012 to enjoy your jampacked social calendar once more.

Katie Abrahams

DO THEY KNOW IT’S COKEMAS TIME? by Michelle Doyle

I

f you’ve seen Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause, you’ll remember the scene where Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) goes to the doctor after waking up to find he’s clocked on 40lbs overnight. Within a matter of scenes, Scott has involuntarily grown a thick, white beard while the diameter of his waist has increased three-fold. He inevitably develops a penchant for cookies, milk and the colour red (an apt shade for a man whose heart beats to the tune of Jingle Bells) and eventually, inevitably, has to succumb to his new job role as Santa Clause.

The rapid change Tim Allen undergoes in the film’s 90-minute run-time however is similar in a sense to the fast-paced but fundamental changes Santa underwent this time eighty years ago, back in 1931, at the hands of a hard drinking, purported misanthrope: Swedish artist Haddon Sundblom.

Before Sundblom’s intervention, Santa’s imagery was based on a mixed bag of folkloric details that merged the Dutch Sinterklaas with the Nordic elf Tomte and the Anglo Father Christmas, all of whom were loosely based on the charitable Byzantine Bishop Saint Nicholas, whose origins date back to the fourth century in modern day Turkey. During the Reformation, St. Nicholas came under huge attack from Protestant reformist and original Grinch, Martin Luther, who tried expunging the Christian Saint and replacing him with a new Christmas gift-giver: Christkindl (The Christ Child); a more recent player in the Christmas saga, still in use today.

The story of how an austere Bishop eventually managed to outshine Jesus on his own birthday dates back to the 4th century when Pope Julius I was left with the tricky task of assigning an official date for Jesus’ birth. Eventually the PR savvy Pope picked December 25, the same day as The Pagan Midwinter Festival, while his pal, Saint Nick, was allotted December 6 for his own namesake feast day. Given both festivals’ close proximity in date, the two soon became mutually interlinked and eventually Saint Nick’s feast was entirely associated with December 25. It wasn’t until 1823 however that St. Nicholas found his diverse and evolving image being branded and standardised by the American poet Clement Clark Moore in his popular poem: The Night Before Christmas.

By the time the 1930s came round, more than a hundred years after Moore had published his Night Before Christmas, America was gripped by a crisis. The Wall Street Crash had ravaged the country and left it dead in its tracks. As the crisis engulfed the country, soft-drink

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company Coca-Cola was left wondering how it could boost the drink’s sales, which were generally poor in the winter months.

The last forty years of Coke campaigns had featured all-American boys, girls and starlets living the American dream and temporarily stopping for “The Pause That Refreshes”. Now advertisers were forced to devise new images that would imbue the same blithe contentment of previous campaigns without patronising consumers.

Furthermore, this campaign was going to be aimed at children, the next generation of Coke drinkers. It needed a brand-ambassador that appealed to kids and could be made synonymous with Coca-Cola.

Before 1931, Santa had come in a range of sizes and colours and was sometimes shown as an elf. The Santa that increasingly emerged during the depression however was a street-corner alcoholic, dressed in red and ringing bells.

Reproachable Santas and limited spend-ability were hardly an impetus for Christmas cheer. So, in 1931 spurred on by the gaunt Santas commonly seen wandering through downtown Chicago and inspired by Clement Clarke Moore’s vision of the eternally jolly St. Nick, plus a pay-cheque from Coca-Cola, Haddon Sundblom sat down to create and reshape American pop culture with his classic revision of Santa Clause.

Sundblom’s Santa was the ideal Coca-Cola man: a larger than life, eternally jolly old man in red who was realistic as well as symbolic.

His generosity and spirit were intended to project and reinforce America’s view of itself. And the fact that he was constantly being caught in whimsical situations featuring his favourite soft drink made him a lovable and cheeky character who could seemingly greet any situation with a wink and a laugh.

The Coca-Cola Santa made his debut in The Saturday Evening Post as well as making regular appearances in The New Yorker, The National Geographic and The Ladies’ Home Journal. Every year, for forty years, Sundblom created a new and eagerly anticipated Santa Clause. And when his model, a Coca-Cola salesman died, Sundblom began using himself as inspiration for the man in the Coca-Cola robes.

Eventually, through mass reproduction and the influence of advertising, Sundblom’s Coca-Cola Santa became the accepted and standard Santa Clause that harnessed and homogenised 1700 years of history. Forever more, Santa would be indisputably a huge, fat, relentlessly happy man. And he would always wear Coca-Cola red.