A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Get into the groove in Galway
Get your bootie limbered up for the Havana Cultura festival next weekend on Galway’s left bank. People will be havin’ a good time (sorry) at the Cuban music fest in Galway’s Latin Quarter from Friday, June 3rd to Sunday, June 5th where the streets and pubs will ring with Latin music, dance, street entertainment, art and cultural events. Bands include the Ireland-based Cuban All Stars (who appeared on The Apprentice), the Cuban Jazz Project, and the Sabor Cubano salsa band. But it’s not all about spectating: there’ll be DJs to get you dancing; mojito master classes involving rum, sugar (or sugar cane juice), lime juice, fizzy water and mint; drumming lessons; and salsa classes.
The festival was launched last year as the Little Havana Festival, and this year promises to be more contemporary and have extra free shows, sponsored by rum-maker Havana Club. Now where’s that mojito – we’re dancing. See facebook.com/havanaclubireland.
Emma Cullinan
Lennon v McCartney at Flat Lake
A little play that has taken off in ways the writer never expected will be performed at the Flat Lake Festival at Hilton Park in Monaghan on June 5th. The 10-minute comedic drama Lennon V McCartney was written by Drogheda native and Beatles obsessive Stephen Kennedy after it struck him that the perennial debate of which Beatle member was the most talented had never been discussed in drama form.The two-man production portrays two friends debating the merits and talents of Lennon and McCartney over a pint, and has been performed around the world since it debuted in 2009.
Performing the play at a festival usually turns up interesting results, says Kennedy, who co-runs Nighthawks arts collective when he’s not writing, or holding down a job in IT. He has written a follow-up entitled Death and the Beatle Fan. “You never know what’s going to happen in the audience. A very drunk guy walked into the room halfway through the play in Liverpool last year, and started trying to participate in the argument that was taking place on stage. He was so drunk he didn’t realise it was a play – he seemed to think it was some kind of panel discussion on Lennon and McCartney.” At Flat Lake the play will be performed by Dylan McDonough and Kevin McGahern.
Lauren Murphy
Garden design classes
Does your garden need a makeover?
Or are you planning an extension that will leave your outdoor space in need of a re-think and re-shape? Landscape architect David Andrews has created a series of four workshops that will help you be your own garden designer. Starting next week (on June 1st) in Cultivate on St Andrew Street in Dublin, the course comprises a two-hour block on four consecutive Wednesday evenings. Participants will learn how to survey their plot, and will be advised on matters such as paving, planting, budgeting and sustainability. The course, which costs €250, culminates in an individual hour-and-a-half consultation. See cultivate.ie for more details, or tel: 085-1126686.
Jane Powers
Index
What's hot
Plant crechesThere's one at Bloom next weekend but we'd like to know the staff-to-plant ratio
Bank-holiday festival feverForbidden Fruit at Imma, Flat Lake in Monaghan, Cork X Southwest in Skibbereen . . . Pray for good weather
Rousing speechesWe didn't know Taoiseach Enda Kenny had it in him
'Fifty People One Question – Galway' on YoutubeHeartwarming stuff
Ice cream is the new wineAs the price of alcohol falls, and the price of gourmet ice-cream soars, so ice cream has become the perfect gift for harassed hosts. And they can enjoy it when you're gone
Asian hairdressersCheap and cheerful and springing up all over the city. We like Tian Du on Capel Street in Dublin
French tarragonIts prestige is rising on the basis of scarcity value alone. We can't get the plants, or even the seeds. Russian tarragon is no substitute and dried is not the same
Rugby inclusivityConnaught being brought into the Heineken Cup by Leinster's win – what a result
Champions LeaguePurists are bemoaning the move to a Saturday night slot, but at least it means another memorable sporting weekend. Here's hoping the focus isn't all on a certain player
What's not
Cavalcade fatigueThe visits were historic, memorable and moving but it's nice to no longer have to wait for Garda permission to cross the road
The summer break of the 'Late Late Show'We complained about it when it was on but it leaves a vacuum when it's gone. Especially for #latelate tweeters
Property envyThe good news is that with the way house prices are falling, you'll soon be able to afford the mansion on the hill. The bad news is the banks won't be lending you the money to buy it
Bad bus etiquettePeople who take up an entire row on a packed bus. You know who you are
Paint it blue
We’re big fans of temporary, raw art spaces, and few such venues have the consistency of the Blue Leaf Gallery’s project space on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in Dublin. Its current exhibition is Tempest, featuring work by Suzy O’Mullane. Her pieces largely revolve around animal forms and female figures that are allegories for O’Mullane’s personal experiences. If you know the artist’s previous work, these striking images will immediately feel familiar. If you are coming to it for the first time, they provide plenty to get your teeth into. The show runs until June 10th, and there is a detailed catalogue for the exhibition, including plenty of O’Mullane’s earlier work, such as Warm Love (left) from 2009.
Back a dark horse in Belfast
STEP OFF THE busy thoroughfare of Donegall Street in the centre of Belfast and in a matter of seconds you will find yourself in the cultural hub of the Cathedral Quarter. It’s one of the oldest parts of the city, whose cobbled streets, brick warehouses and hidden courtyards have, over the years, been a melting pot for trade unionists, independent thinkers, a red-light district, a haven for visiting mariners, the gay community and, in the early 20th century, a large influx of Italian immigrants.
Commercial Court links Donegall Street with Hill Street and is one of the most attractive short cuts in town. It has become the unofficial territory of publican and businessman Willie Jack, whose premises face each other across the narrow walkway. The Duke of York is one of Belfast’s busiest bars, occupying a site dating back to 1710. Locals and tourists flock there to enjoy its unassuming, easy atmosphere and spectacular flower displays.
“I do the flowers myself,” says Jack, who was heavily involved in the punk music scene in Belfast in the mid-1970s. “We have a dirty great Victorian city here and it’s up to us as citizens to take pride in it and keep it looking good.”
He opened The Dark Horse just over a year ago. It is a cool, relaxed, alcohol-free spot, with dark wood-panelled walls, an ornately tiled floor and ceiling, wrought-iron tables customised by students of the nearby art college, carved chairs, stained glass lanterns, old clocks, glass whiskey decanters, apothecary flasks and Victorian mirrors advertising local distilleries and drink manufacturers. On the menu are quality teas and coffees, sodas and snacks. It stays open until late at night and hosts poetry slams, impromptu sessions and readings.
“We see it as an independent little underground bar, with a socialist ethos, in the style of the Amsterdam coffee houses,” says Jack. “We don’t go in for all that celebrity stuff. We’re about real people.”
Jane Coyle
Word on the street
What it means: When a key member of a band heads off to the great gig in the sky, they leave the remaining – mostly anonymous – band members bereft, facing a bleak future. No more private jets, mega world tours or chart-topping glory. Without their superstar frontman, they'll have to go back to playing the nostalgia circuit and – the ignominy – end up appearing on the "which one's the drummer" section of Never Mind the Buzzcocks. There's only one solution: get another star to replace your deceased cash cow, and hit the road to pay homage to your fallen comrade's legacy.
Where it comes from: When the remaining members of The Doors wanted to cash in on the heritage rock industry, they got the Cult's Ian Astbury to channel the spirit of Jim Morrison. When the three guys from Queen went back on the road, they made an unlikely choice for Freddie Mercury's replacement, throaty rocker Paul Rodgers. These are the Frankenstein bands, made up from parts of other bands in order to artificially prolong their shelf-life.
Thin Lizzy, who play Slane today, are a prime example. With former Almighty singer Ricky Warwick replacing Phil Lynott, the band can keep on dancing in the moonlight 30 years after they played the first Slane in 1981.
How to say it: They've got the singer from The Zombies, the guitarist from Vampire Weekend and the drummer from The Creatures – sounds like a Frankenstein band.
Clothes maketh the man
Clothes shouldn't intimidate a person – but if the clothes in question are those designed by the late Alexander McQueen, then chances are they will intimidate, thrill, confuse and intrigue in equal measure.
McQueen's work is the subject of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the show's catalogue has been packaged together with a preface by curator Andrew Bolton, an introduction by journalist Susannah Frankel, and an interview with Sarah Burton, now creative director of the house of McQueen. The show and book, Savage Beauty, offer plenty of ammunition to the charge that the fashion and art world will never see the like of Alexander McQueen again.
McQueen's work inhabits a space somewhere between fashion and art. He frequently said that he wanted people to have a visceral reaction to his pieces, in much the same way as a great piece of art should immediately provoke a strong reaction – horror, joy, delight or despair. In his preface, Andrew Bolton quotes McQueen on his attitude to fashion shows: "I don't want to do a cocktail party, I'd rather people left my shows and vomited. I prefer extreme reactions." And what shows: in one, a model spun on a revolving disc, marionette-like, while two robots, borrowed from a car factory, spattered her white dress with paint; in another, Kate Moss appeared as a hologram, floating spectrally above the crowd; then there was the imaginary chess match between the US and Japan, with the models taking their places on an oversized board.
The level of detail in McQueen's pieces is overwhelming. He was a superb tailor, who worked with speed and absolute conviction. In the book, Frankel describes a collaboration between McQueen and prima ballerina Sylvie Guillem for Eonnagata, a lavish dance show. She quotes Guillem as saying: "Alexander was doing a costume for [choreographer] Russell [Maliphant], and Alexander said: 'It's not sinister enough . . . Give me some fabric, give me some scissors,' and right in front of our eyes, he cut another costume. It took about three minutes. It was just so fast – and so completely right."
Many of McQueen's quotes in this book (which is about the size of a laptop and twice as heavy) are technical observations: "[I design from the side], that way I get the worst angle of the body. You've got all the lumps and bumps, the S-bend of the back, the bum." His more general statements could as easily refer to visual art as fashion; what comes across is that his pieces aren't items of clothing; they are fragments of an overriding narrative, characters within story arcs. McQueen wasn't satisfied with rewriting the rules of fashion; he was also intent on making aggressive statements. His collection Highland Rape, for example, established him as a force to be reckoned with and he was appalled by simplistic readings of it, insisting it was a patriotic response to England's historical treatment of his Scottish homeland.
In the end, writes Susannah Frankel, McQueen became "less open to the outside world, both personally and professionally". In February 2010 he killed himself, nine days after the death of his mother. He had completed 80 per cent of a new collection, which was shown in an 18th-century Parisian hôtel particulier to audiences of no more than 10 at a time.
McQueen's work, as illustrated in this book, asks as many questions as it answers, and that seems to be the mark of great art. In decades to come, perhaps historians will still be arguing about the meaning of McQueen's work, in much the same way they discuss Rothko or Picasso.
Savage Beauty is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until July 31st. The book is published by Yale Books, £30
