mummy! newgrange!
Whoops – i have a lot to post about, and no notes. Yesterday – went to Jameson, found it was closed till March. Went to St. Michan’s, which was highly recommended in my guidebook – and I couldn’t really understand why wandering around the church, which was a small, cute, but not very exceptional church. Then a guide came to get me (and later 2 germans) to go to the CRYPTS. HOLY SHIT – this might be the coolest thing ever. The crypts are 900 years old, under storm doors, covered in spiderwebs and dust, and have lots of coffins and MUMMYS!!! I got to touch an 800 year old mummy! (He was a crusader. He was 6’6”, so his legs had to be broken to fit them in the coffin. And his thighs were crossed to show he was a crusader. There were 3 other 400-y.o. mummys: a nun, a reformed criminal (missing both feet and a hand), and an anonymous woman.) The crypts are thought to have inspired parts of Dracula – and I totally believe it. It was awesome.
Next I went to Glasnevin cemetery, which was very pretty. Saw Daniel O’connell, Michael Collins, Maud Gonne, the De Valeras, some archbishops, and I spent nearly 30 min trying to find countess markievicz, but couldn’t. Then I went to Kavanagh’s next door to un-freeze. Its supposed to be one of the top 10 pubs in Dublin – and I believe it – it was adorable and friendly and really lovely.
Today I went to Tara (just a hill now, but the guide did a good job of explaining its history) and Newgrange, which is the oldest building in Europe, and predates stonehenge and the pyramids and is a UNESCO heritage site. It was very cool. There were lots of neolithic art carvings, including the triple spiral. And then we got to go into the passage tomb, which is aligned with the sunrise of the winter solstice. The whole experience was very cool; at one point the guide turned out the lights and recreated the sunrise with electrical light which, while not the same, was still amazing. And the tomb room was really tall! The passage was narrow, but the hall was several metres tall – built 5,000 years ago, with dry rock construction, and still in great condition. Unbelievable. We also saw Slane castle (need to see the Chili Pepper DVD), and the Boyne river (as in battle of). The guide was a lovely woman, who gave a very good overview of history. Unfortunately, I got up early today and forgot my notebook, so I have no notes, and no plaque details. C’est la vie. It was cool.
starlight – muse
Entertainment:
Aha! The game’s afoot in SF… http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/13/maltese.falcon.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
and the gofugyourself entry on Britney’s head is awesome…
Love this from Cleolinda: Barrymore “Not Dating Braff.” When pressed for a comment, she replied, “I already have plenty of mixtapes, thanks.”
Deschanel made of ‘Tin’: “Zooey Deschanel (Elf) has been cast in the lead role of Tin Man, Sci Fi Channel’s Robert Halmi-produced miniseries retelling of The Wizard of Oz. Deschanel will play DG, a young woman — think Dorothy — who finds herself transported from her dull life into the O.Z. (Outer Zone), a fantasy-filled world of wonder that’s also plagued by dark magic. She’ll star opposite Alan Cumming, previously cast as the Scarecrow-like character of Glitch.”
And I’m thrilled about Aaron Eckhart joining the Batman sequel. And if you haven’t seen it already – the Vanity fair Noir photo shoot is awesome – although I feel very sorry for Patrick Wilson who ended up in the crease in one of the big group scenes.
Why YouTube is good for television–and why megacorporations are stupid to force YouTube to remove clips. “Comedy Central has put clips on its own site and even allows them to be embedded, like YouTube players, on blogs. Fine. But the first problem with that is that the network is speaking to the audience it already has. To attract a new audience – to make up for the free YouTube promotion it has now cut off – Viacom will have to invest marketing money. Control can be expensive. The second problem is that the network, not the audience, is picking the good stuff now. If your audience wants to praise and recommend and pass around your best stuff, why wouldn’t you let them, encourage them, enable them?”
Tags: Travel
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