Myles by the Brother

 The Irish Times, Sat. Oct 1 2011

In the following extracts from 'The Brother (Myles)', artist Micheál Ó Nualláin reflects on the hard life of his older sibling. MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH BRIAN (MYLES) 

Illustration: Oil on canvas. 1948. Flann O'Brien by his brother Micheál Ó Nualláin. Collection of Boston College, USA.



I MADE MY first acquaintance with Brian as far back as 1932, yet I remember this as if it happened yesterday. I was four years old at the time. I was out on the raised lawn in our back garden on a beautiful summer’s day. I was wearing a floppy summer hat and a child’s suit with two ducks in front staring at each other. I was amusing myself with a hatchet, or as Maureen Potter would have called it, a hacha. Brian must have seen me from one of the windows at the back of the house and rushed out to ensure that I would not do myself a grave injury. I remember seeing him approaching me up the steps. He had a pale white face and two slightly prominent front teeth, like those of a rabbit. He came up to me and said in Irish (which was the language of our home) “Tabháir Damh” (the north of Ireland dialect; “Tabhair Dom” in Munster).

Keith Richards Talks About 'Life'The New York Public Library

Stones Guitarist Keith Richards Talks About 'Life' from The New York Public Library on FORA.tv

POLICE, ADJECTIVE
POLIŢIST, ADJECTIV
Romania 2009
DIR Corneliu Porumboiu
PROD Corneliu Porumboiu
SCR Corneliu Porumboiu
CAST Dragoş Bucur, Vlad Ivanov
Ah... film not seen. Here's the notes: Porumboiu, a leading figure in the New Romanian Wave, and director of the witty and trenchant 12:08 East of Bucharest, has scored again with a wonderfully mordant satire, this time of the police and bureaucracy of "justice". Cristi, a reluctant undercover cop, is on stake-out, engaged in the tedia of  procedural police work as he stakes out the movements of a suspected/potential young drug dealer. As Cristi becomes more and more convinced of his "stalkee" he comes face to face with the absurd Kafkaesque legal system through a brilliant parodic linguistic analysis of the job he has undertaken and the issues of personal moral responsibility.


Instead: 

Brilliant, inspired serendipity of scheduling — Centre Stage not available so this terrific Morris Panych play was performed in the basement of the Acme Food Co. restaurant. At one point head dishwasher Dressler shakes a raised fist to the ceiling and says he wants to go up and gouge out the eyes of the diners with an escargot fork.

NINE LIVES
United States 2005
DIR Rodrigo García
EXEC Alejandro González Iñárritu
SCR Rodrigo García
CAST Amanda Seyfried, William Fichtner, Elpidia Carrillo, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Joe Mantegna, Stephen Dillane, Aidan Quinn,Robin Wright, Molly Parker, Kathy Baker, Dakota Fanning, Glenn Close, Sissy Spacek, Holly Hunter, Amy Brenneman, Jason Isaacs, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Ian McShane, Mary Kay Place

Friday Night Film Class 2011

STILL WALKING
ARUITEMO ARUITEMO
Japan 2008
DIR Hirokazu Kore-eda
SCR Hirokazu Kore-eda
CAST You, Hiroshi Abe, Yoshio Harada

A middle aged brother and sister gather with their own families for a visit to the seaside home of their elderly parents. The occasion is the annual commemoration of their older brother who died tragically in a drowning accident fifteen years earlier. During the course of a single summer day, Kore-eda (After Life, Nobody Knows) — one of the grand masters of contemporary world cinema, in the tradition of Ozu and Naruse — gently reveals the family fissures, the unresolved grievances, resentments, disappointments, and bouts of pettiness that have gnawed away over the years, especially for Ryota, the disenfranchised second son. It's a touching universal story, acutely observed, recognized in moments of enlightenment, even grace.

THE TREE OF LIFE
United States 2011

DIR Terrence Malick
SCR Terrence Malick
CAST Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken, Sean Penn,Fiona Shaw

ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER
TODO SOBRE MI MADRE
Spain, France 1999
DIR Pedro Almodóvar
SCR Pedro Almodóvar
CAST Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz

Douro Valley, Portugal — Vila Regia

 BILL ZACHARKIW, Montreal Gazette
Douro 2009, Vila Regia, Sogrape, Portugal red, $10.10, SAQ # 464388. Dark fruit and lumbering, but bursting with that Douro power. No effort here to round off the edges, so if you want a wine that has torque and screams Douro, here you go – and all for $10.10. Serve at 16C. Drink now-2011. Food pairing idea: spicy sausages.

The Vila Regia was the “rawest” (of 3 Douros tasted) – lots of fruit, not a lot of complexity, and without the polished tannins of the other wines. This, I assumed, meant that it spent little or no time in oak barrels. To me, this is a sign that the grapes came from younger vines, which usually tend to produce softer fruit flavours with less complexity. There is always room for a well made $10 wine, especially one that speaks so genuinely of where it is from – and is unpretentious and simple.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Wine+primer+pricing/5513411/story.html#ixzz1ad7u7Z79

The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avante Garde at SFMOMA