Ireland, 2010

This is us, now, Ireland, in the twenty-first century, 30th March 2010.
I may send this to Brian Lenihan later.

The Genius switch

Contrary to widely held belief, there IS in fact an "OFF" position on the Genius switch.
And Mary Coughlan has found it.

"Hello Mary. Is John at home?"

Sometimes I am unlucky and turn on the telly and there he is, stepping into a half built house, pretending he has just happened by with a camera crew. There`s Mary, swinging out of the rafters, sawing, lifting, hammering away while John swans around, pointing at things and sipping coffee.
Duncan has no desire to speak to Mary. Duncan wants to speak to the man of the house.
One of these days Mary will answer " Sorry, Duncan, John is dead. I killed him with this nail gun here".

I have an image in my head of Duncan in a Tutu, dancing round a huge pile of burning nappies. I may draw it later.

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Thanks you too darlin. I have been through my spam folder and with the aid of my trusty calculator, have realised a cool 598 million and change, in various currencies, mostly Nigerian Dollars if I reply to all of these emails. Cool. That should take care of my Phoenix advertising bill for this month

Politicians looking at things

Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan was on the radio the other day talking about misuse of alcohol; during his interview he used the phrases "we will be looking at", "that will be looked at" and "I am confident that is being looked at" at least 18 times: I would have continued counting but instead I ran from the kitchen with my head in my hands. For sheer fingernails-down-the-blackboard irritation this comes top of the list, for this week at any rate.
In my little world, "Looking at" something means precisely that: looking at it. It doesn`t mean anything is going to be done, necessarily. So can I assume that if a politician continuously says that whatever it is is "going to be looked at" that this is as far as it will go? I can see these guys taking out the file, looking at it, and putting it back on the top shelf again, before heading out to RTE where they can smugly announce that this issue "has been/is going to be/ was looked at". Or better still, if they ask some trainee in the office to simply stare at the file back on the desk while they are on the air, they can cheerfully pronounce that this issue is "being looked at". Hurrah!
While I`m on the subject of Politicians, I would have thought Trevor Sargeant, former leader of the Green Party, would have made it his business to learn the correct pronounciation of the word Nuclear.
In Woody Allen's 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors, the Mia Farrow character says she could never fall for any man who says "nucular."
It`s almost as annoying as the misuse of the word "Presently" .
End of rant (for now)

Artist`s Statement?... Huh?

I was asked to provide an Artist`s Statement for an upcoming exhibition.
"A what?" I asked, having been until now unaware of such things.
Apparently people want to know why you do what you do. "What`s wrong with just doing it?" I enquired, only to be met with a glare I hadn`t seen since the day I got sent to the Headmaster`s office.
So off I went and had a look at other people`s Artist Statements. After a while I asked for a Dictionary, Thesaurus and Translator.
"Annie dear. You have to write something. We neeeeed it for our clients" whined the curator.
I muttered something along the lines of "You`re getting a king`s ransom for this work I`m doing so why don`t YOU write it then" but not within earshot.
I`m an Illustrator.I draw stuff that hopefully people will like and maybe buy because they like the look of it. I didn`t know I had to EXPLAIN this as well.
I sat at the keyboard for a day or two and eventually came up with
"My work centres on the parallel abstraction of shape and form whilst manoeuvering between the conflict and tension of light and shadow in the emotional chaos of the unconscious symbolism consisting of ideograms which reflect in a negative way on shape and form.
But mostly I do this because I need the money".