Rain on Me

We've all summoned our own rainclouds. Here's the new video "Low Rising" from The Swell Season, a little empathy when the damp mood hits:

Gone Feising

Tiernan Butte hosts its annual Feis next Sunday, November 15. All regional Irish dancers should leap at the chance to show their skills, and the dance troupe invites young traditional musicians from the area to display their art, too. The event starts at 2:30 pm at the Butte High School auditorium. The Butte feis, or dance competition, is more of a showcase, really--a chance for the little girls to trot out their curls and the lads to show they know their way around a slip jig. A judge from Chicago's Trinity School of Irish Dance will explain what she looks for in a young dancer, and smiles and nerves will rattle the stage. It's all good fun.

What better way to spend a grey Sunday afternoon in November? The dancers will be in costume, flashing away. Admission is $3 for the public; dancers and musicians may register for $4 to $20, depending on their levels of achievement. Those wishing to sign up at the door should arrive early; call Becky Sprunger at 406.490.6629 if you would like more information.

Happy Birthday, Dracula!

Bram Stoker would be 162 years old today, if he lived the life of the undead. Born in Dublin to a clerk and a free-thinking woman, Stoker was a sickly child who recovered completely and suddenly at age seven, and went on to a literary life. A theatre critic for a newspaper run by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, he met the Shakespearean actor Henry Irving, who invited him to manage his Lyceum Theatre in London. The job threw Stoker into the highest circles of the artistic life -- so vampires were a natural subject. Happy Birthday, Mr. Stoker. You bled out the words, and so live on. Here's the Stoker site from The Literary Gothic; explore.

Pity the Starfish

Nature can be cruel sometimes; most of us have seen minor tragedies erode our yards and fields and forests. Still, the scale of the trauma makes all the difference--one bison hit by a truck is sad, surely, but thirteen wiped out in one blow is a horror. It marks us. This week, bad weather tossed the seabed near Lissadell Beach, County Sligo, and left a galaxy of sudden death in its wake. Here's the story from the Irish Independent. The pictures are glorious in their grieving.

The View From the Tower Crane

Here's a tender love song from Donegal musician Eunan McIntyre, put to images by Máire McSorley:

Flash Mob Patrick Street

Don't just give mouth service to the arts--get up and dance! If you're going to be anywhere near Cork city this week, join the flash mob for the arts there next Saturday. On November 14, at 1:30 pm, they'll be letting a little blue sky in over Patrick Street. Rehearsals are November 11 and earlier on the 14th. To participate, e-mail letmrblueskyin@gmail.com. Join the commotion!

A Social Studies Project

What do you know about Irish immigration? These lads have the gist of it:

Another Road Song

We're traveling ourselves, to Butte today. Wish we were on the N17. Here are The Saw Doctors to sing about it:

The View from the Ground

Helena native Kevin Connolly isn't an ordinary photographer. He's not an ordinary anything--as anyone who has seen him traveling on his skateboard will attest. Though he has no legs, Connolly gets around. He bounces. He's got a unique perspective on the world, and he's skilled enough to document it. His new book, Double Take, is a memoir that explains the strangely compassionate view he takes in his "rolling exhibition." He catches the glimpses and curiosity of the world, never blinking. Here's the book's website from Harper Studio; here's the link for The Rolling Exhibition, worth more than a glance.

Making an IMPAC

The IMPAC Literary Awards longlist came out today, with some of our favorites on the roster. Here's the write-up from Eileen Battersby in the Irish Times.

All Souls Day

If you haven't done so yet, it's time to read Michael Patrick MacDonald's book All Souls: A Family Story from Southie. Published ten years ago to local acclaim, the book has gained a cult status among the Boston Irish. The tide of admiration is splashing west. So far, it's reached the Mississippi River--last month, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, made it required reading for freshmen. 

MacDonald grew up in the Old Colony projects of Boston, and saw the effects of Whitey Bulger's drug policies firsthand. He watched friends and family cave in to the culture of violence, but with an idealism born of his grand spirit, he fought back. He wrote the truth as he saw it. He has stood up to gangland ever since, working to get illegal guns off the streets and end the cycle of poverty and destruction. His sequel, Easter Rising, speaks of "roots and rebellion," and serves as a cant for all of us.

The book's blown into the Windy City as well. This weekend, MacDonald was among the featured writers and panelists at the big iBAM fest in Chicago. If there's a list of classic Irish-American memoirs out there, MacDonald's has to be near the top--it's akin to the harder chapters of Angela's Ashes for our day and our country, evidence that we shouldn't be too smug about New World prosperity unless it's informed by a heritage that helps us rise above hardship--and help others to do the same.

Jack O'Lantern

Happy Halloween to You. The pumpkin's a new world veg. It's flash, yeah, but in the old days on the ould sod they carved turnips for All Hallows' Eve. Yep, you heard me--turnips. And it's no easy task. Here's a view of the task from YouTube:

Weathered in the Grain

We've an abundance of riches--two new websites for Celtic music groups in Montana this month. First came the traditional ballads of Dublin Gulch, and now come the lyrical wafts of sound from Weatherwood, the Celtic-bluegrass-old time trio based in Bozeman. The group is led by Tom Robison, who's long graced the Scottish fiddle scene in the Gallatin Valley. His skill has grown richer with the years, gorgeous now as the grain in old fir. He's mentored many a young fiddler, too, and played with great patience for the Contra dances and Burns Night celebrations through the years. With him in the band are Steve Marty, who performs on guitar and mandolin, and Lindsay Turnquist, who adds hammered dulcimer, octave mandolin, and a bit of rhythm on the bodhran.

Proof of Robison's good nature comes from Justin Janicki, traveling guitarist, who spied his fiddle case at Bozeman's HomeBrew Internet Cafe and asked him to jump right into a duo. The kind man obliged, and here's the impromptu result:

Weatherwood has a new eponymous CD out; get details at the website. There are a few jigs in the lot, including one written just for our region -- "Bear Canyon Jig." It's a nice set, well made.

A Sorrow That Never Was Said

For Halloween, here's one of the great Irish ghost ballads, She Moved Through the Fair. It's a haunting version with vocals by Donna McKevitt and visuals by Chris Briggs:

So He's a Bit Distracted

It's the twins, you know it is. 

Matthew Broderick's having a bit of trouble with his lines in rehearsal these days, but anyone who's had babies understands that there isn't as much sleep in a house with tiny dotes. The New York Times spun out Broderick's work into a larger issue in today's paper, though--here's the story about stage prompts and why actors need them. 

Funny so many Irish plays are involved. Is it that our texts are more complicated? Perhaps we tweak the English language just enough to make it difficult to memorize--no pat answers, no glib stereotypes.