Glenn Skuthorpe and Band Play Dire Straits

 

Eliza Hall at Payinthi, Sat 4 Mar, 2023.

Attempting to play the music of Dire Straits is a risky business. Band leader and vocalist Mark Knopfler is one of the few in rock music who carved out new territory. He invented a distinctly new sound that was instantly recognisable as Knopfler’s – an understated vocal style and a bluesy melodic electric guitar finger style that was smooth as silk.

Turns out Glenn Skuthorpe’s delivery style is very much suited to playing Dire Straits music. Whether he subconsciously picked up the Knopfler way from hours of listening to him or it was just inherent in who he was doesn’t really matter. What matters is that is he has that same ability to deliver a vocal full of rich melody in that low almost semi-spoken way, and to play the guitar with emphasis on accuracy and tone rather than volume and speed. No shenanigans; no ‘look at me’ theatrics – just solid musicianship with a great feel.

Supported by a great band who clearly really enjoyed playing these songs, Skuthorpe and co delivered an excellent show. Claire O’Meara on keys/piano added welcome harmonies on several songs, and Aldo DiSario on drums was just all class – great to watch and listen to. Like so many bass players Mike Haynes was just totally focused on his craft and there were several occasions when you realised that it was his bass lines that were punctuating the beat with a metronomic pulse – beautiful work on Romeo And Juliet.
Mark Hawkins spent most of the time on rhythm guitar but added saxophone when necessary – the sax and piano duet at the start of Tunnel of Love works beautifully as a teasing intro to the main event. Skuthorpe’s guitar solo on this piece was a treat.

The show closed with the hauntingly beautiful Local Hero – not strictly a Dire Straits song but who cares – we all wanted to hear it, and Skuthorpe’s guitar was true to the original melody and feel. Just beautiful.

As it so often is with bands the quality of the final product is so dependent on the acoustics of the venue and the ability of the human doing the mixing to get the balance right. The sound was a little muddy early on, but things got better as the show progressed. But this is a real challenge for anyone playing Dire Straits. Knopfler was not a loud player, and he was a relatively quiet singer but somehow you have to get that vocal and guitar cutting through the mix, so the signature sound is at the core. There were times when that wasn’t the case, but all in all this was a great show. Those subtle melodies, trademark guitar licks, and the almost detached vocal mood were all there to remind us just how good Dire Straits were. And how good Glenn Skuthorpe is!

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

Recalibrate - Adelaide Fringe Review 2023

 

The Lab at Light ADL @ West Village, Thu 2 Mar, 2023.

The Lab’s L-shaped stage and 180-degree panoramic projection backdrop encourages innovation. The fourth wall disappears as characters are in full view as they arrive and exit the stage. The extended projection space allows for all manner of use – text messages on screen, characters who are not physically present can interact with on stage players, radical changes of set from one scene to another, locating scenes in specific geographical locations, the use of silhouette, and canny use of liminal messaging between scenes via abstract imagery and sound.

All of these elements are employed with excellent effect in Recalibrate. And then of course you have the rightly billed powerhouse cast.

Simone (Emma Beach) has returned home from Las Vegas to help out with a mystery family emergency. Her entrance is awkward and funny – it’s immediately obvious she’s the black sheep of the family. She’s also someone who can see through crap and knows when people are fooling themselves. Her sister, Mary (Katie O’Reilly) is a case in point; lost in the world of motherhood. Their mother Carmel (Jacqy Phillips) is an academic coming to the end of her tenure. She is desperate for Tessa (Kelly Vincent), her star student, to stay on and complete her degree, but Tessa is tired of theoretical ‘academic bullshit’ and wants out. Relationships between all the characters seem fractured and tense until Carmel stages a protest on the roof of the university armed with a megaphone. Her impassioned rant from the rooftops is both an irrational outpouring and a brilliant account of what she sees as wrong in the world. As a fellow Boomer I found it deeply moving and had to fight back tears. A line was crossed here – somewhere it stopped being theatre and became terribly real. It was a powerful moment.

This desperate display of emotion briefly brings a degree of equilibrium until a final twist challenges the sisters one more time.

Jacqy Phillips, Kelly Vincent, Emma Beech and Katie O’Reilly were all wonderful in their respective roles, but Phillips’ performance is one for the ages.

It might be described as dark comedy. Variously bleak, humorous, and hopeful. But nothing in life is straightforward and everything comes at a cost. A really impressive new work from the SA Playwrights Theatre.

Written by Lucy Combe. Directed by Elena Vereker.

(This review also published in The Clothesline.)

An Unwasted Evening – The Genius of Tom Lehrer

 [CABARET/Comedy ~ WORLD PREMIERE ~ South Australia]

The Jade, Sun 19 Feb, 2023.

American Tom Lehrer was something of a child prodigy. He studied classical music from the age of 7, and was admitted to Harvard at the age of 15. He did eventually become a Maths professor and taught at Harvard and MIT but somewhere along the way he got distracted by musical theatre and started writing his own tunes.

Satire was his chosen genre and for 20 years from the mid-fifties onwards Lehrer’s songs were part of American popular culture. Nothing was off limits for Tom Lehrer – he poked fun at everything: war; religion, social mores, politics – and made people laugh in the process.

Adelaide’s own Dr H does a great job of bringing Tom Lehrer’s songs to life for Adelaide audiences. He is an accomplished pianist, and got the balance between telling the stories and playing the songs just right. Even though many of Lehrer’s songs are as much spoken as they are sung (they are chock full of clever lyrics) they do require a vocal dexterity that Dr H is quite at home with. The Elements, a song about the periodic table as its subject is a case in point!

Tom Lehrer wasn’t overly concerned with political correctness and his songs were often banned. His ilk would have even more trouble getting airtime these days. But it was great to hear gems like The Vatican Rag and National Brotherhood Week again. A song from 1954, I Got It From Agnes, gets a new lease of life if you replace the term VD with COVID, and could be a candidate for the anthem of the times!

A really enjoyable show. Though there is a plethora of tribute acts on the Fringe program again this year, if the story is worth telling and the songs are worth hearing, then it’s worth putting on shows like this for those who missed artists like Tom Lehrer the first time round. And for the many who know and love Lehrer’s work and want to hear it again – It was a full house. Lots of interaction and singing along available for those who wish to express themselves in the ‘safe space’ of The Jade!

We went all home happy after a rousing singalong ending of We Will All Go Together When We Go. (Yep – an end of the world ditty!)

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

Mustard - a play review

 Mustard by Eve O’Connor: Theatre On The Edge ~ Adelaide Fringe 2023 Review                                           [Theatre and Physical Theatre/New Writing ~ AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE ~ IRE]

The Arch at Holden Street Theatres, Fri 17 Feb, 2023.

Mustard charts the trajectory of a relationship from the dizzying heights of bliss to the darkest depths of despair, and describes one person’s – perhaps just slightly unhinged – reaction to the attendant emotional roller coaster. Nothing much new there, but what sets Mustard apart is the incisive nature of the writing that delves into the human psyche with harrowing and exhilarating detail, and the mesmerising routine of an actor experiencing metaphorical baptism and rebirth.

The writing here is so tight; so delicately crafted. Descriptions of what it’s like to lie alongside the beautiful body of someone you love are deliciously detailed and intimate. And, similarly, the physical pain of ultimate rejection is visceral – you feel it and remember equivalent moments in your own life.

It’s a play of extremes – joy and despair, wisdom and madness, love and hate – that suggests that the distance between these polar opposites can be frighteningly close.

There are moments in Mustard where the integration of physical theatre with an unerring delivery of a script woven with passion and intensity, the integration of body and mind, is perfect.

Written and played by Eva O’Connor, she delivers a masterful performance. Extraordinary theatre that will take you to the edge.

4.5 stars

This review also published on The Clothesline.

Trapped by Kindness (1980)

 Events of my time in Weligama were impossible to sort into any chronological order as they seemed to gather their own momentum occurring spontaneously, and often with no bearing on any events before or since. Magic moments that materialised from nowhere to enchant, entertain, and warm the soul. 

I do remember that after about three days in the village I left! Not because things were not to my liking - far from it - but because I felt trapped by kindness. After being raised in a western middle class society it was very difficult to experience having several people devote a large part of their day to ensuring that you are happy, comfortable, well fed, and well entertained. In the world I had been raised in, it is customary for full grown adults to attend to some of their own survival needs, even when a guest in somebody else’s home. But in Weligama those first few days, all the basic requirements for living were provided for me: a roof, three meals a day, timely morning and afternoon coffees, cigarettes bought (and often lit), clothes washed, lamps lit, house cleaned. I could go on, but I think it's enough to show just how often in a single day our host family provided small comforts to make our life an easy joy.

This endless stream of kindness and good deeds towards me left me feeling ambivalent. At least a woman can assert her right to wash her own clothes at the well, or take part in other domestic duties without becoming too much the object of mirth and chattering but in Sri Lankan society, men simply do not indulge in traditional domestic duties. It often seemed that women exist for the men in fact. And frankly, it annoyed me not to be given any say in the daily basics that kept me alive and comfortable. Perhaps I wanted to assist in the preparation of food for example, but this wish would be considered absurd because I was a man.

Another thing that bothered me in those first few days was something that really was no one else’s problem but my own, and simply it was that I possessed no strategy for coping with such limitless kindness. Because of the aforementioned roles of men and women, neither was I able to show my gratitude in the way I would ordinarily do at home (washing the dishes maybe, or doing the shopping). Where the problem lay was that I felt that I had to repay the kindness being offered me, and not being able to I felt something of a freeloader. I later learned that in true keeping with Buddhist tradition, these people gave for giving's sake only; there was certainly no expectation of return, and the fact that I felt I had to return favours was a mistake on my part, and purely my own personal problem.

I did leave the village for a short time of something less than a week, and from the moment I departed I wondered why. Everything was provided for me there. Why am I going? What am I thinking? When I returned Titus just stood, grinned with twinkling, knowing eyes and said: “ You come back?”  And this time I knew I'd be in no hurry to leave. Besides, all I had to do was sing!

MY FIRST NIGHT IN SRI LANKA (January, 1980)

 I arrived in Colombo early in January 1980. I was to meet a friend flying in from London some few hours later, but as is nearly always the case with international flights these days, her arrival was delayed - by 12 hours!

After baggage collection (I refused offers of assistance from one of a squad of scrawny porters dressed in blue rags and barefoot) and customs clearance I made my way into the arrival hall. I was soon asked by a neatly dressed chap if I needed any help and I told him of my plans to meet this friend from London. He did not recommend sleeping the night at the airport but rather suggested that I find a hotel in Colombo for the night and arranged a taxi for me accordingly.

In short, he did nothing more than International airport information offers are required to do - he was doing his job. However there are a few things about my brief encounter with that man (my first with a Sri Lankan) that make it a pleasant memory. Firstly, it is customary for those seeking information from such people to approach them at their counter. He in fact left his counter and approached me. Secondly, there was a genuine warmth about the man that was not just ‘bunged on’ for the job, this being all the more a refreshing surprise when I learned that he was the chief Information Officer!

Image by Walter Lempen

We departed the airport by taxi for the long drive into Colombo. Though it was after midnight I remember the road still being a hive of activity. Ox cart drivers taking advantage of the cool of the night without too much competition from the daytime’s manic drivers. Pedestrians ambling along in conversation, some alone, seemingly headed nowhere in particular. Cyclists. And every mile at least one boutique or hotel (what we call restaurants or cafes) still quite alive and thriving on late night clientele.

I remember too, the shrines. This area northward up the coast from Colombo, is heavily Christian, but signs of Buddhism are evident throughout most of the country, as it was there that night. So, roadside Buddhist shrines, temples with larger than life images of the enlightened one, and illuminated five metre high statues of the Virgin Mary all blended into the scenery as we came closer to Colombo.

Colombo came as a shock. I had read much of this country before coming here and was suitably impressed by its favourable standards of education, literacy, hygiene, and housing, all of which by Asian standards, rate highly. I reasonably expected that Colombo, the capital, may show signs of Sri Lanka's achievements in these areas and that it may be free of some of the blights of other Asian cities.

I couldn't have been more wrong. To put it bluntly, Colombo is a shithole. I thought so that first night when I was genuinely surprised by what I saw and I still do. I have since of course discovered some quite pleasant areas of Colombo, but they are few. I have also discovered that despite its capital, Sri Lanka is better off than most of its Asian counterparts, but one must look for evidence of that fact outside of Colombo.

My taxi driver took me in turn to the few cheaply priced hotels we had been told to try – all full. We tried some in the medium price range - full. I refused to stay in the likes of the Intercontinental but just about everything else seemed full. I still can't believe to this day the solution my driver came up with. He said that he was going back to the airport, but as the next plane was not due until 6:00 AM, I could sleep in his car until then. After establishing that he was in fact quite serious, I thanked him profusely, accepted his offer, and we set off back to the airport. Not only did his car have lay-back seats, but neither did he charge me for the return leg to the airport. So, apart from interruption from an occasional mosquito, I got at least a few hours sound sleep in my first night in this charmed land.

Denpasar to Darwin with Merpati Nusantara Airlines

 

Image by Ardhana S

Merpati Nusantara Airlines were a regional Indonesian airline that used to fly between Bali, Timor and Darwin. And they were cheap. They ceased trading in 2014.

Back in the 70s it was still perfectly normal to smoke on a plane – albeit it had to be down the back! However, it wasn’t so normal was to smoke a join on a plane. 2001: A Space Odyssey had been released in the late 60;’s and was still on my must see list. I was rapt to discover that I could watch it on my flight from Denpasar to Kupang.

So there I was happily winging my way home watching one of the classic movies of the time  when I feel a tap on my shoulder. The very nice man in the seat behind me wanted to know if I’d like to share a joint. I was quite shocked but not too shocked to say no!  So after that I was even more happily winging my way home while watching A Space Odyssey. The joint was the perfect accompaniment to the soundtrack.

We landed in Kupang without further incident. This was to be a quick stop to pick up any extra passengers for the next leg to Darwin. However, a couple of things happened to delay that next leg. Firstly, the skies opened to release a typical tropical downpour complete with thunder storm. Secondly, some guy had bought a lamp that had a solid silver ball attached and was being grilled about its contents. They suspected drugs of course, but no matter how often he insisted that it was empty the Kupang customs folks were not going to let him take it on the plane until they could break open that silver ball. That proved impossible, but the argy-bargy back and forth went on for ages. We should have been back on the plane by now and being served lunch. Perhaps because we were stoned this fellow traveller and I decided that our lunches were probably on the plane and we calmly walked out of the terminal across the tarmac and on to our plane. And sure enough there was a trolley full of sandwiches and other treats for Kupang to Darwin passengers. We had just retrieved a tray each and were about to tuck into lunch when one of the airline staff caught us in the act and ordered us back to the terminal!

Customs staff were still wrangling with the passenger with the silver ball and the weather had become so bad it was declared unsafe to fly. So we were all to be put up in Kupang for the night. I don’t know where it was we stayed. It didn’t really feel like a hotel but we were pleased to see a dining room that was set for a large group pf people – at least we would befed. As it turned out dinner was nothing more than bread and butter – that’s all a very unprepared Kupang could muster. 

CC image courtesy of Jacques Beaulieu

Before I went to sleep I went for a walk and remember feeling like I had entered another world. It was as quiet as anywhere I'd ever been. I stood on a bushy headland looking at the sea and listened to the sounds of unseen distant voices, birds, sea and wind and felt a great peace.

As we boarded the plane for Darwin next morning I bumped into Lizzie – my brother’s kind of girlfriend at the time. She had just got off the plane from Darwin and was heading to Bali to meet up with him. We flew on that same plane back to Darwin. This time it was my turn to be thoroughly grilled about what I been doing in Bali - drugs, marihuana etc. It was all quite pleasant and I was quite open and honest with the customs guy asking all the questions. I quite enjoyed the interaction in fact. Later that night I was fossicking around in my shoulder bag – which the customs guy had thoroughly searched - and out fell a nice juicy head of cannabis. My heart skipped a beat before I smiled and I realised that I had been very lucky, and that this story could have had a very different ending!

Bali Tales 1973

I had been in Bali, or more precisely, Kuta, for just a few hours. I was approached by a French guy wanting to know if I wanted to buy some dope. My instinctive reaction was to say no. He said he was leaving Bali that night and had more dope than he could use and would give me a very fair price. I still said no!

But there was plenty of dope to be found and I think we spent a lot of time stoned there. I honestly don’t remember. But there is photographic evidence of something lifting the mood and providing bloodshot eyes in photos like this:

And this:

The blond woman in this photo was from Melbourne. Her name was Alison and we decided to enjoy a magic mushroom omelette together for breakfast. I have very few memories of what happened after that. I seem to remember lying on the beach with her and on a whim I decided to go off for a wander elsewhere – somewhere off the beach and into the jungle. I have no other memory of that day until she came to my losmen later that night. She was as red as a beetroot and really angry with me. She had fallen asleep on the beach and got very badly burnt. She said I had just left there on the beach. That was true but in that addled state I doubt whether I was able to join the dots and think that maybe I should stay with her or wake her up, or make sure she didn’t get burnt or something. Anyway – not very chivalrous on my part. I blame the mushrooms.

The Western looking guy on the bed behind me in the first photo above was an Australian guy called Michael. He was ostensibly in jail for possession of marijuana, but as you can see he was out and about and enjoying himself. He said he could basically do whatever he wanted as long as he let the police at the local station know where he was, and returned there each night to sleep. A nice cosy arrangement!

Years later back in Australia I was browsing through old photo albums with my friend, Narelle, and she was really surprised to see a photo of her friend Michael in my photo album. Turns out she’d known him in Sydney years earlier!

It was de rigeur at the time to hire a motorbike and go riding around the island. For me, and for many young travellers I suspect, it was the first time I had ridden a motorbike. You did have to show an international driving license and pay the hire fee but after that you were free to hoon off around the island. So we did.

My brother Damien and I. It was a mixed experience. Obviously ripping down the road in a foreign land with the wind flowing back your hair and all that was exhilarating. But not even that thrill of youthful freedom could hide the embarrassment as you passed through villages and ruined their rural silence. No matter how slow you went you were this noisy interruption to their peaceful existence.

The high/lowlight of this day out on the motorbikes was on the way home. No doubt feeling a lot more confident by now I was doing a fair speed on a long flat piece of road between villages then boom – a large unseen by me pothole jolted me back to earth. Almost literally. I wiggled and waggled across the road for some way trying to keep the bike upright and just managed to stay on the bike and on the road. Damien had been riding some way ahead of me and was waiting in the next village and getting worried. He had seen the pothole and I should have been there by now….  He was as relieved as I was to see I was still in one piece and we continued back to Kuta without further incident.

During my time in Bali I became friendly with a German guy called Peter. He taught something or rather at a university in Berlin and was a very jolly guy and I guess we smoked several joints together. One time we were sitting in a restaurant when a few other German travellers came in. He briefly chatted with them and I was amazed just how much his character and tone appeared to change when he spoke German. All of a sudden here was this very serious guy who was speaking quite assertively. When his focus returned to our table and he resumed speaking English the jolly happy-go-lucky Peter instantly returned. It was one of many instances over the years when I saw how the language people spoke influenced who they were.

I always felt sure that Peter and I would meet again one day but alas it wasn’t to be. It was many years later that I found myself in Berlin looking for him with nothing with his name to go by. My friends in Berlin said his surname was a strange one – Wucherpfennig. In English it loosely translates as ‘miser’. Nor was it a common surname but hours of searching phonebooks and lists of names of academics in Berlin universities yielded nothing.  

My chosen route home from Bali was via Timor and Darwin, and that turned into quite a tale of its own.... (to be continued)

 

Amadeus Review

Star Theatres, Sat 26 Nov, 2022

Presented by Independent Theatre

Amadeus is a remarkable play. Written by Peter Shaffer and first performed in 1979, it is based on a fictional feud between Mozart and the court composer in Vienna at the time, Antonio Salieri. It’s quite Shakespearean in its level of gravitas and epic drama.

As an old man in his final hours Salieri feels the need to come clean and tell the audience (his ghosts of the future) what he’s done so we might set the record straight when we are born in our own future time. It’s a fascinating theatrical device and it works brilliantly.

Shaffer’s Mozart is a rude shock. He’s a bumbling, crass buffoon in the style of Monty Python’s depiction of upper class twits. No manners, no sense of decency, but a prodigious musical talent nevertheless. It drives Salieri crazy and he can do no better than refer to him as ‘that creature’.

The challenging task of portraying this brat of a Mozart falls to Ben Francis and he does a wonderful job. Manic, excitable, passionate, even vaguely endearing – he’s like an uncontrolled schoolboy buzzing about in his own world. Until he plays music – when he transforms into an angel.

Even Salieri has to admit Mozart’s music is magnificent. There are some wonderful moments when Salieri (played by David Roach) waxes lyrical in trance-like admiration of Mozart’s genius as we hear his music playing in the background.

The vast majority of the play has Salieri on stage and usually talking – it’s an incredibly demanding role that would challenge the best of actors. Roach has not quite got all of Salieri under his skin yet but it is an inspirational performance all the same. But ‘that creature’ certainly gets under his skin as he struggles with an intense jealousy towards his musical peer.

I loved the two Venticelli who function as Salieri’s spies around town and their scenes of eagerly reporting gossip back to Salieri in tandem comedy are really enjoyable.

There is so much to like about this production. The cast made ample use of the whole performance space of the Star Theatre to take us to the salons and concert halls of Vienna.

The set and costumes were a visual treat and though Shaffer’s Amadeus might be a little liberal with the facts, in this instance it’s a case of never let the truth get in the way of a good story!

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

Hand to God Review

Little Theatre, Fri 18 Nov, 2022.

Presented by the Adelaide University Theatre Guild

Since its first production in 2011 Hand to God has been variously described as edgy, risky, filthy, provocative, and obscene – all of these descriptions are apt. It has nevertheless won multiple awards and based on this offering by the Adelaide University Theatre Guild  – deservedly so.

The action takes place in small town Texas in the space where fundamentalist Christian beliefs clash with the darker smouldering desires that many a good Christian blames on the devil. Margery has recently lost her husband and has taken to running puppetry classes for the local church youth group as she tries to build a new life for herself. Her son Jason joins in these classes, as does a very horny and outspoken youth called Timothy.  Out of the blue Timothy inappropriately declares his love for the much older Margery.  With this shocking revelation the genie of desire is released from the bottle and the struggle between good and evil begins.

Leading the way for the forces of evil is Tyrone, Jason’s puppet, as it becomes a mouthpiece for every carnal and impure thought Jason has ever had. Leading the forces for good is the local pastor – terrifically played with equal parts bluster and dignity by Brendan Cooney.

The star of the show is undoubtedly Tyrone, as played by his puppeteer, Jason. Matt Houston’s double act as himself and his wicked puppet is simply masterful.  Jason and Tyrone often communicate with each other in quick back and forth repartee. A little like ventriloquism – where two different voices argue with each other. Houston’s mastery steps up a notch when his puppet begins to torment others – tempting them to come clean and say what they really believe. He taunts and growls, hisses and heckles in an extraordinary performance.

Emily Branford shines as Margery. Her rock-solid belief in all things Jesus sure takes a battering, but she is in turn compassionate, understanding, despairing, deceitful and desperate and despite everything ultimately retains some sense of dignity.

Well-known rock and country music tunes make scene changes really entertaining and subtly remind the audience of location and underlying themes.

There are a couple of unforgettable scenes in this play – I kid you not! And as the posters around town suggest, some things cannot be unseen!

Those with strongly held religious beliefs will no doubt find this play offensive. But if, like the playwright, Robert Askins (who grew up in the Texan Bible-bashing belt), you believe that the hypocritical nature of fundamentalist Christianity needs to be called out, then you’ll love this.

This production of Hand To God is funny, insightful, and entertaining.  Strong, near faultless performances from the whole cast. And hats off to Director Nick Fagan for pulling this one out of the hat.

Go and see it!

(This review also published on The Clothesline.)

Ireland 2022

“How long will you be with us Michael?” Not the kind of phrasing you typically hear from a customs officer. I told him 4 or 5 days I think. In a broad Irish accent he quipped “With a name like that you should have no trouble fitting right in!” I wandered off toward the exit with smile and a tear in my eye. The first of many smiles and many tears over the next few days. I was home.

I set my GPS to Kildare – just far away enough to be out of Dublin, and off the motorway – and discovered some things were true of all small Irish towns: they have a traffic problem. Built long before the car era, streets are narrow with houses close together. Village main roads have bends around tight intersections, and there’s nowhere to park in the centre of towns. So I parked on the edge somewhere, checked my route west and decided that the motorway was the best option for the next couple of hours.

ENNISTYMON/KILFENORA

I had read other travellers’ comments who were disappointed in Ennistymon because there was nothing happening there, but it was a wonderful first stop for me: a colourful main street, windy roads, and a stone bridge over spectacular rapids called The Cascades. Impressive as they were I was more interested in something in nearby Kilfenora – a town I’d not heard of until my brother suggested I visit a cemetery there to photograph a grave of Mum’s ancestors – the Byrts.

I pulled in at what seemed to be the middle of town, saw a church nearby and walked immediately in that direction as if following a pre-ordained path. And there it was right in front of me. As I read the words and the enormity of where I was sank in I dissolved into tears. Not tears of sadness; not tears of happiness. It was something much deeper: tears of connection. It felt like a profound crossroads in my life. For so long I had wanted to visit rural Ireland and I was finally here. In the land of my forebears. This is where half of Mum’s family had come from. I was among my own people. Again, I felt at home.

Overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I was feeling I called my brother. Thankfully he answered. Initially I could barely speak but he took up the conversation on his end and began to explain the significance of what I was looking at. It brought me back to reality and stopped the tide of primal emotion that came bubbling to the surface – all because he had suggested some weeks before that I visit this town to take a photograph of a family grave. It may take me months or more to plumb the depths of what I felt there, but it has to do with a deep-seated connection to that place, those people, and the past. I needed to know where I came from.

TOREEN

Our cousin Dennis had gone to some trouble to mark off an area of land on a local map that the Byrts had once farmed. This plot of land was in a place called Toreen where there was no village, and no signposts to indicate where it was exactly. Dennis’ map did have something called ‘Toreen Bridge’ marked on it so I set off to find it via narrow and windy country roads – L roads as they are known in Ireland. Toreen bridge was no more than about 6 or 7 kilometres from Kilfenora.

I was on the verge of turning back when I drove over a small creek on what was hard to see but was effectively a bridge. I got out of the car to feel the land round about and was enjoying some contemplative solitude when this cute, energetic Cocker Spaniel puppy bounded up to me out of nowhere and jumped up all over my jeans with its muddy paws. Obviously its owner was close by and soon this woman appeared quite unfazed that I was standing there in the County Clare equivalent of the middle of nowhere. I asked her if this was Toreen Bridge. She said, “This is Toreen. And that’s a bridge,  so …. It’s a nice spot.” And with that she and her puppy wandered off leaving me alone to further contemplate that I’d accidentally stumbled across another ‘ancestral site’. Home again. Connection again. I did what I had seen my friend Marek do on a tragically sad day many decades earlier. As people began to throw flowers on to the lowered coffin of 7 year old Slawek, Marek bent down and picked up a handful of dirt. I bent down and ran some Irish dirt through my fingers …. It helped me understand something Marek said that day. “Now my son is buried in Australian soil this will always be my home. “

GALWAY TO WESTPORT

I had always assumed rural Ireland would be beautiful. I had never imagined it to be rugged. On my drive from Galway to Westport I wanted to avoid roads more likely to be travelled by tourists so I took a route less travelled. I was unprepared for the grandeur, the isolation, and the feeling of being somewhere so remote, so elemental. I knew, and have seen, parts of Scotland like that – spectacular, remote, and unforgiving, and this part of Ireland was the same. Tall, dark mountains, empty valleys, wind-washed loughs. And then there’s the coast – the Irish west coast. The Wild Atlantic Way. I had intentionally spurned the famous Cliffs of Moher further south – preferring to find my own little bit of west coast, and found it in a tiny hamlet called South Devlin. Not your classic and dramatic windswept cliffs view, but windswept certainly with a thundering surf that flung gobs of foam upon the rocky shore, and small jagged cliffs leaving you in no doubt where one misstep might find you. The sensation of finally experiencing the powerful natural forces of this remote and wild coastline answered a strange promise I made to myself as a young man: that I would one day seek out the world of Christy Mahon from JM Synge’s Playboy of the Western World. And standing there in that wind and spray it felt right; like a crazy dream realised. Maybe my longing to be in such a place answered some ancient DNA insistence that I needed to feel it for myself. Whatever it was, I’d answered that call and as I stood there in the unrelenting wind I jokingly thought, I can die now!

BOOTS

At breakfast in the hotel at Westport the waiter casually asked me what my plans were for the day. I told him I was heading out to Achill – Ireland’s westernmost island. He wanted to know if I had suitable footwear for the marshy swamps on the island and when I pointed to the shoes I was wearing said they wouldn’t do. Some 10 minutes later another waiter appears with a pair of boots in a plastic bag. “A little big for you probably but they’ll do you for the day!” When I said I wasn’t coming back to Westport he said no problem, just drop them off with Beatrice at the hotel near the bridge to the island!

Achill was breathtakingly majestic. Nature at its most powerful – blasting cold winds off the Atlantic on a road that caressed its way around the dramatic coast. It was difficult to drive for more than 10 minutes at a time – to resist the temptation to stop and get out and feel the elements in their raw state seemed foolish. “This is a place where it was impossible to feel anything but joy” I suggested to a fellow traveller as she got out of her car. She just smiled at me.

CLONMACNOISE

Hidden away in the hinterland of the unfortunately named County Offaly is Clonmacnoise, the site of a ruined monastery and graveyard dating from 544 AD. I arrived before it was open and had the joy of watching its ghostly outlines emerge out of a morning mist in solitude. Perched high on a hillside overlooking a lake it is dotted with carved stone crosses and old stone walls of the long-gone monastery.  I enjoyed a joyous and contemplative hour with this extraordinary site to myself. I was about to leave and begin my journey back to Dublin as I glanced down at one of the gravestones inside the main monastery building and saw something that stopped me in my tracks. ‘RIP – The Coughlin Family’ it read. On another in-ground gravestone beside it was a list of all the Coughlins buried there. Now these Coughlins may or may not be connected to my tribe. No one has ever mentioned a family connection to County Offaly but it just served as one final powerful reminder that this is where Coghlans come from. Coghlans come from Ireland. Ireland in some deeply profound and elemental way that is very hard to articulate - is where I come from. And It seems Ireland was determined to not let me forget that fact.  One final time I was full of tears and joy.

And with the enormity of this revelation resounding in my soul I drove towards Dublin airport. I finally understood something that has been a whisper in my heart all my adult life.

 

 

Vale Vance

Vance the Diver (photo courtesy of Claire Bradin)

Some time in the last few days Vance Stevens left this earth. The man who coined the word ‘webheads’. Our main cat herder. The man who kept us all together - for decades. The man who showed us all how enjoyable it was to learn and grow together. The man who never tired of creating opportunities to connect us.

Several times today I’ve found myself in tears. It's really hit home just how much Vance meant to me. Absorbing the fact that he won’t be around to gather us all together anymore is unthinkable at the moment. It’s like the internet has died. For me Vance was kind of synonymous with the internet. It, he, opened so many doors for me. Because of Vance I have visited countries I would never have seen; I have met so many wonderful people that have become close friends. And what I learnt from him on a professional level would take a book to document it all.

And he was a dear friend. Vance’s legacy will be huge, but the fact that he showed how our social and professional lives could enrich each other was a stroke of genius. I loved him and learned from him. As an equal; as a peer, as a fellow traveller out there on the world’s highways. I won’t ever forget what he did for me, and I’m sure many of us here will feel the same.

Of course it was us, the Webheads, that collectively made all this magic happen. But it was Vance’s idea. He started it. And he continued weaving that magic as long as he was able.

Tears continue to fall and I’m sure they will for a few days yet. Thank you dear man. I loved you Vance. We all did. 

THE WEBHEAD THEME SONG

Some links to Vance's legacy:

https://learning2gether.net/

https://vancestevens.com/papers/

https://advanceducation.blogspot.com/

https://vancesdiveblogs.blogspot.com

Wisdom of AI Light - Illuminate Adelaide - Review

The first 10 minutes of Wisdom of AI Light is totally bewitching. You are suddenly in the womb of a space that is shifting and swirling all around you. An exquisite soundtrack helps you centre as you drift aimlessly around trying to find where to be. You can wander, stand, sit, or turn but most people found their space quickly and remained still – mesmerised. Pictures and patterns and shapes fold and bend and soar in an ever-changing visual landscape that evokes childlike wonder. The Da Vinci segment teased with glimpses of the known – the Mona Lisa, Christ, and Vitruvian Man – before dissolving back into an abstract world of a different kind of beauty. The kind of beauty that results from artificial intelligence going to work on 20,000 of Da Vinci’s artworks. (One can’t watch this without wondering what Da Vinci may have thought of this if he were alive today!)

Occasionally in this short 30 minute show we are reminded of the raw data that is the basis of these projections and surrounded by thousands of thumbnail sketches scrolling rapidly past in multiple directions.

The Poetic AI segment churns out electronic wizardry from the text and images of great thinkers of the past. Letters, numbers, shapes form new creations that might be called a new kind of literacy – a literacy based on sensation rather than thought, on feeling rather than meaning.

The Data Monolith segment explodes the past literally as archaeological stonework bursts into fragments and spin out across the room to later reform as solid walls.

Everything is changing all of the time whichever way you look and in a strange way you start to go a bit numb and wonder about yourself in all of this. Where do I belong in this new form of expression? It’s all extraordinary; blindingly dazzling. Because we know the raw material for this production stems from history’s greatest minds and some of humanity’s greatest achievements it is hard not to dwell on what it all might mean. Or is it better to turn off your cognitive self and just immerse yourself in the wonder of it all?

Musically the show divides quite radically into two parts. The flowing, soothing score from Ludovici Einaudi is utterly compatible with Da Vinci’s time. The music for the other segments was much more abrasive, modern, mechanical – robotic even. Returning to something more ethereal for the segments connected to space and dark matter might have served to better separate them thematically and maintain the level of interest towards the end of the show.

Shakespeare’s words were probably incorporated in the Poetic segment somewhere. It was he who wrote ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” The Wisdom of AI Light felt a bit like that. Like a metaphor for contemporary times, it is fast moving, seductive, random, visually astounding, and shows off incredibly impressive use of emerging technologies – it all looks and sounds so impressive. It looks and sounds as if it should all be deeply meaningful. It is immensely entertaining, but I suspect life’s mysteries are more likely to be solved sitting under a tree on a sunny day, or by the sea at sunset.

(This article also published on The Clothesline.)