Is language shaped by culture?

roggernaut | Culture and politics | August 31, 2010

I was watching a very interesting lecture by Linguist Daniel Everett today (author of ‘Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle; his account of the culture and language of the Pirahã people’). He was talking about his time in the Amazonian jungle with a small tribe called the Pirahã. He first went there as a missionary in the 70’s in the hope of learning their language (one that was utterly unknown to anyone else but the tribe) in order to convert them to Christianity. 30 years later they converted him and he is now an aethiest.

However, that is not the extrodinary part of his tale. What is more important and profound are the conclusions he drew from his experience with the tribe, their language and culture and the impact his writings have had on the linguistic world. Up until now it was thought that human beings had a universal grammar, a language instinct – a theory put forward by Chomsky, Pinker and others. Without going into the mechanics of it Everett came up with an alternative hypothesis arguing that language is, like the bow and arrow, a tool to solve a common human problem: the need to communicate efficiently and effectively. In other words he believes that language is shaped not by biology but by culture.
Needless to say his work has created furious debate among linguists, cognitive scientists, and evolutionary biologists.

“My claim is that there is no such thing as ‘just a language’ and that the homogenizing efforts of Pinker and others, focusing principally on theories that stretch and chop grammars to fit preconceived notions of what a language should look like do the science of linguistics a serious disservice. Each language in this sense, while sharing cognitive and communicative principles in common with all other languages spoken by Homo sapiens, is unique. This is why it is such a tragedy when a language dies — we don’t just lose a grammar. We lose an entire way of thinking and talking about the world; we lose a set of solutions to the problems that beset us all as humans.”
Daniel Everett

Now, I am not in a position to argue the case one way or the other, I am not qualified, well read in the subject nor equipped to debate these hypotheses in an articulate manner however, Everetts conclusions do make think of how I speak, we speak, our vocabulary, how we exchange information, explain, describe, imagine, think and articulate, express the world around us and the culture in which we live.

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Arts deadly sins: Wrath

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | August 29, 2010

Wrath. The last sin on the list. One we all are guilty of. So I shall list those I vent my spleen on. Please note that I am not contrite and shall continue to be wrathful towards the following people:

• Arts bureaucrats who create needless paper trails and make life difficult for working artists
• People who use the word ‘Cultural economy’ as if it’s a good thing that culture has been commodified
• People who offer the possibility of creative space and freedom in order to massage their own egos
• People who use the arts to better themselves
• People who promise the sun, moon and stars until something better comes along
• Pretentious fools
• Arts quangos
• Brit art
• Misuse of arts funding
• Over zealous health and safety
• Gentrification of festival programming
• Arts companies who receive funding based on good applications and longevity not good work
• People who wrap their ill conceived ideas in pretentious art speak
• Those in the arts who feel morally superior to everyone else
• Arts reviewers that readily criticise work without understanding the immense difficulty in producing it
• Administrators that get paid good money to write meaningless five year arts plans
• The term ‘Arts worker’
• Festivals that use meaningless and unauthoratitive tourism statistics and surveys to justify their funding and existence
• People who make and produce work based on where they get funding from
• Festivals that have no sense of place
• People that jump on the latest band wagon that’s going through town
• Lazy arts journalists
• People who go with the flow just because it’s easier
• People who agree with everything even if they’re diametrically opposing views
• People who sit on the fence
• Committees
• Over blown job titles in arts organisations
• Misuse and bad management of ‘Interns’ and volunteers
• Organisations, companies and individuals in the arts community who uphold the consensus rather than question it on a continual basis

Seems like alot. It is alot. As you can see my organs are regularly vented. Yes, yes, wrath is going way over the top and perhaps I should call it my ‘things that annoy most intensely’ list but what fun would that be? Besides, if I did change the title I wouldn’t be able to finish my 7 deadly arts sins. So, on to the 7 virtues next – I have a feeling it’ll be alot harder than sinning. For more a recap on my deadly sins see below:

Please feel free to vent your spleen here too…

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Rewatching The Departed

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | August 25, 2010

‘The Departed’. I know most people have seen it before, so have I.
But last night we settled down into the couch (‘in’ is the operative word) with ice cream (has to be good quality) and watched it again on Film 4. What a great film, thoroughly enjoyable and I would argue with anyone who thinks ‘Infernal Affairs’ – the original on which ‘The Departed’ is based and directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak – is better.
Like many people I watched the Hong Kong film on DVD after I had first seen ‘The Departed’. Now I love Hong Kong action films; the locations – partly because my family lived there for 17 years – the stylized violence, shootouts, acrobatic fight scenes and spectacle but, nevertheless, I much preferred the American version of this film perhaps because ‘Infernal Affairs’ was surprisingly restrained and cool for a Hong Kong flick.

‘The Departed’ on the otherhand is full of razor sharp dialogue, a pumping soundtrack dominated by Dropkick Murphys, The Rolling Stones, Roger Waters, Van Morrison, ultraviolent set pieces, a belligerent amount of swearing, slurs and insults and a wonderful cast.
I for one really loved Leonardo Di Caprio and Matt Damon and thought their symbiotic relationship, on which the premise of the film was based (the premise is most definitely the star), worked seamlessly throughout the film which, although long, never dragged.
On the downside Jack Nicholson was a shallow caricature with no redeeming qualities whatsover. He played the devil incarnate as a ham who, towards the end of the film, lost the plot completely. That aside, he was always entertaining as a malicious, badass, motherfucking, crime boss.
Mark Wahlberg also played his part with relish having many choice lines as a hardnosed Sergeant and let’s give due credit to Alec Baldwin who, although not normally seen on screen in a Police Captains uniform, was superb.

I’ve seen alot of Scorsese films and after seeing Shutter Island recently – another film I really enjoyed (and I didn’t see the twist coming til the end which made me love it all the more) – it’s clear that his vision is becoming more baroque, his set pieces more saturated, grand, exaggerated. Bloodfests and high octane sequences play the predominant role in ‘The Departed’ with character development taking a back seat and while for some this may not be ‘ The Scorsese way’ - after his classic character films such as ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Raging Bull’ and ‘Goodfellas’ - the film is nevertheless alot of fun, a rollicking ride and at home on a Tuesday night makes for great television.

So a word to all you ‘lace curtain motherfuckin Irish pussies’ if you haven’t seen it get it out, if you have already it’s worth another watch…

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DIY culture in the mainstream media

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | August 23, 2010

Worry is constant. The summer is drawing to an end. The festival and events season is done, my working year is over and another begins. Our events company lives ever so close to the bone, every event, project, opportunity, a lifeline to the next. It’s a fretful way to live ones life, constantly chasing, always harried, tired, anxious as if on an intravenous caffeine trip. There are easier ways to get things done, produced, achieved but doing it on your own, by yourself is so much more liberating, somehow freer; no state body to answer to, no quango to indulge, no local bureaucrat to keep sweet. However with freedom comes responsibility, stress, worry and possible penury; there isn’t any grant to get you by, no award nor bursary. You go bust you go bust, there is no dole to keep you afloat. You just drown. However, at least it’s a job and everyday there’s an opportunity out there, somewhere, to make a living.

But, with mutantspace.com, this ezine and the Trash Culture Revue there is none, for the whole point is to do away with monetary exchange completely – it is a principled decision to create an alternative gift economy based on the sharing of skills and resources, an autonomous DIY economy. Building this economy takes alot of time, effort and sometimes I have to will myself on, drag myself to the computer, the phone, for a coffee to discuss something or other. It is tiring, sometimes despairing but for anyone involved in an autonomous project this is part of the deal you make with yourself, it is fulfilling and the non monetary rewards are great.

However, over the past year my feeling of wellbeing has been tempered by the way in which the mainstream media have moved their camp into the DIY aesthetic. It seems to be the recession flavour of the year. For journalists the opportunity to write about empty spaces, collectives, co-ops, autonomy, independent record shops, craft, grow your own, make your own, do your own is just too hard to ignore. Their copy is all so dreary, inane and they always miss the point, or rather always glance off the surface, happy to describe the reflection of what they’re looking at. They forget that for some people autonomy is a principle, an article of faith.

Not everyone wants to be bigger, brighter, famous, the next sensation. Some projects, events, spaces want to be left to their own devices, free of state intervention and igf that means they remain small, idiosyncratic, particular, whatever they want to be so be it. Not everyone sees state funding as an objective so why does the media present it so? Some people just want to do their thing, their way. What’s more they’ve always been there. Will always be there

In a recent article in the Irish Times by Jim Carroll entitled ‘Cultural Confidence and Cash’, he, like many other journalists manages to turn his article on the ‘new cultural vibrancy’ into a debate about whether or not the Irish Arts Council should start supporting new ‘alternative spaces, events, etc’, the upstarts. Much of what he wrote I agreed with however one thought above all struck me after finishing it;

Can we not, just for a minute, stop relating everything we do to the bloody Arts Council?
Can we stop yabbering on about ‘new funky alternative, cool, spaces’?
Can we stop blithering on about DIY events, festivals, projects?

DIY isn’t new, what is new is the relentlessness of the media to turn it into a lifestyle advertisement. It’s pathetic. I find it hard to swallow. It infuriates me. All of a sudden something I feel strongly about, something I’ve worked hard at, something that is fundamental to me has somehow been trivialised, diluted, listed, quantified, generalised in order to create copy, sell jeans, magazines, coffee, whatever, who cares.
I do. Always will. So if you’re going to write about cultural vibrancy, new ways of developing, making, producing then at least look closer, think harder, search deeper. Stop taking the easy road and selling us all short some of us don’t want what you all seem to think everyone is looking for

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The long told Irish myths of Sligo

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | August 20, 2010

Getting away to the west of Ireland makes a nonsense of my own importance; my work, hang ups, obsessions, pre-occupations with all things bureaucratic, systematic, that play an inordinately large and irritating part in my daily life. No pressure, thoughts, reminders of the next gig, event, festival. No untruths, lies, bullshit, bollix artspeak. The most important decisions of the day are based on which way the wind is likely to blow, when the rain is going to arrive, if the sun is going to come out and most importantly which of the two local pubs will we go to for an afternoon pint while looking out at Oyster Island.

In Sligo the sky is majestic, the beaches, long, wide and windswept. It’s generally cold, squally and grey, the horizon scraped right off a brooding Dutch seascape. For the few days my family and I were there we were on a mission to get out and walk, embrace the elemental force that never manages to make itself heard in the city, to feel the whispers of myth that are deeply imbued, embedded into the Sligo landscape. That myth is made manifest in the two stanchions on either side of the bay; Ben Bulben and Knocknarea. On one side you have Ben Bulben, where Diarmuid was killed by Fionn mac Cumhaill (you can read more about the exploits of Fionn and the Fianna in the Fenian Cycle), the culmination of a long pursuit launched by Fionn after both Diarmuid and Grainne (his wife and lover of Diarmuid) ran away together.
On the other side you have Knocknarea where Queen Medbh is buried (apparently in an erect position, in full battle regalia, facing northward toward her Ulster enemies). Medbh was the catalyst for one of the greatest Irish stories – and indeed one of the World’s great epic tales – Tain Bo Cuailnge (The Battle Raid of Cooley). Her tomb can be seen for miles around and people often , to this day, carry a stone from the bottom of the mountain to place on her cairn on the summit in the vain hope that luck might befall them.

The stories of both mountains play a role in two mythological cycles that stretch back millennia and when looking at them one cannot help but wonder at the lives that were lived on the ground beneath our feet and the stories that were told and shaped out of the landscape around us. I have read all four cycles. They are wonderfully entertaining, enriching, enlightening stories that make you realise there is so much more to this beautiful country than that thin, venal, corrupting sound and image of greed, power and money that we constantly see and hear around us.

Sligo is an often forgotten County so next time you’re heading to the North – West be sure to stop in the Yeats Country; go for a walk, a pint, relax, breathe it in and keep it there

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Arts deadly sins: Lust

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | August 17, 2010

Lust is generally seen in sexual terms but for now let us think about it in terms of excessive love for status, celebrity, recognition. Not unlike greed but somehow more flagrant, deceitful, base, shallow. A greedy person can’t help but openly play in the fairground (see my previous post on greed). The sycophant on the other hand hides his desire, his lust behind a lurching smile, over blown enthusiasm, ardent handshakes, eager back slaps and frenzied applause. Yes, the toad is alive and well in the arts, always looking to better himself off the backs of others or at the very least striving to be seen in a better light by associating himself with those that have what he lacks; talent, success, influence, status.

The toad doesn’t lust after people – a mere means to an end – no, no, no the toad is only interested in being recognised as a great artist, pioneer, innovator, uber – producer, director, genius but is so lacking in self – belief, confidence, worth, so consumed by his own inadequacies and failings that he reduces himself to success by association. That is the goal, the objective of the toad. But then, perhaps we are all toads. Perhaps the arts is just a stagnant pond in which we all endlessly play this lustful game, looking around, nodding in assent, smiling, forming groups, alliances, dalliances in the vain hope that the next big thing, the next sensation will happen on our patch, our lily pad and extension make us ‘the special one’ for a day, if only, just for a day

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Arts deadly sins: Gluttony

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | August 14, 2010

So we’re onto Gluttony. It’s difficult to know the difference between greed and gluttony and as a consequence of my ignorance of religious matters I’ve gone back to the 13th Century and turned to the definition as penned by Thomas Aquinas. He knew what was what, after all the man was a saint. Greed is predominantly associated with status, wealth and power, a subject I’ve already touched on in one of my previous posts. Gluttony on the other hand is far more prosaic. According to the great man gluttony can be defined as:

Praepropere – eating too soon
Laute – eating too expensively
Nimis – eating too much
Ardenter – eating too eagerly
Studiose – eating too daintily
Forente – eating wildly

So let’s start there; too much, too soon, too expensively, too eagerly, too daintily and too wildly.
How pray tell can this have anything to do with now, today, the arts? Well, first summon up a Hogarth image and then place a number of well funded arts organisations, companies and individuals (add appropriate names here____________) around a large ornate, mahogany table, paid by the state, delighted with themselves, smug in their own cleverness and their position on the high moral ground of the cultural landscape all ready and prepared for another course of funding.

Let’s face it, everyone wants funding, everybody seems to want more of everything now, all the time, chomp, chomp, chomp. Perhaps they always did. Everyone wants to be at that table, expects to be, a birthright ordained upon them. They demand to be fed by the state in order to run their buildings, projects, events, festivals, expect to be paid to travel around the world, put up in hotels and given expenses.
Not because they’re greedy, no, not at all, I would never deign to think that no, they do it for the benefit of us, the development of culture on this island, the national interest, the growth of the cultural economy (the latest in a long line of catchphrases used to legitimise funding as everything is done for by and in the economy), of course they do, yes, yes…

I would never question those who wantonly take off to festivals and events in far flung countries to see shows they can’t afford to bring back to Ireland why would I?
Who travel to conferences with the sole aim of meeting someone from another country – who has an equally short sighted, small minded state funded arts quango – in order to come up with a rubbish idea that will guarantee ‘transnational’ (a real bureaucratic term I kid you not – if you’re ever writing an arts council grant and want money to go travelling use it prolifically, infact using any word with over three syllables always impresses a bureaucrat) funding and the opportunity to take off on a ‘working holiday’, ‘a cross – cultural’, ‘pan – European/American/Asian’ project.
Who want and expect funding just because they do something, start something, run something that is deemed ‘civic minded’, ‘community spirited’, ‘environmentally sound’, ‘culturally diverse’
This is gluttony or at least a gluttonous attitude and is widely prevalent in Ireland. Yes, there are many out there dining on the taxpayer in the name of culture.

And I am definitely a sinner. In my time I have travelled to five countries on three continents at the taxpayers expense. I have had free meals, slept in good hotels, bought rounds of drinks, gone to shows, bought presents on the taxpayers tab. Were the trips legitimate? Well, some of them were necessary, others weren’t, I went because I could, I was able and I knew I’d have a great time doing it.

Of course I must temper this all by making it clear that some people do need to go abroad, especially if they’re artistic directors of festivals, theatres, curators of galleries, etc. Some people do need state funding to run buildings, projects and events. However, this does not take away from the fact that we live in a cultural environment in which many people see it as their God given right and privilege to sit at the taxpayers table and feast on funds in order to satisfy their ego, satisfy themselves

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The New Confessions by Wiliam Boyd is a great read

roggernaut | Book reviews and writers | August 11, 2010

I’m a great fan of the Scottish writer William Boyd and have read most of his books over the last number of years. The New Confessions is one of his best. Like all of Boyds novels its span, breadth and pace are second to none – a defining characteristic of one of the most accomplished storytellers of his generation – and you cannot help but revel in his joy as a teller of great tales.

A fascination for what happens next is the key to the human love of narrative and Boyd’s novels pulsate with so many ideas that when you finish one of his novels you find yourself utterly exhausted by the sheer speed and physicality with which things happen. This particular novel is no exception with his ‘what happens next in a person’s life in a moment of historical crisis’ – which has been his obsession for years – being the driving force behind ‘The New Confessions’.

The book follows the life of John James Todd from his birth in Edinburgh up to his final exile on a Mediterranean island, having fled the USA from fear of being implicated in a murder. Todd fights in the First World War and also films it as a cameraman. He then works for a film studio in Islington and then ends up in Berlin with close friend Karl Heinz, where he starts his filming of The Confessions. He falls in love with American actress Doon and shortly after his marriage falls apart. After the financial collapse of his backer he is forced to move back to Scotland before ending up in Hollywood along with many other German exiles. He becomes a war correspondent during the Second World War and then returns to America with Karl-Heinz where he becomes caught up in the communist trials of Hollywood actors and directors.

As Boyd himself said “There’s a lot of stuff in America now about ‘the Greatest Generation’ meaning, the people who lived through the Depression, then fought in the Second World War and made the world safe for democracy. And people did have amazing lives, then. My wife Susan’s father for instance, he was 19 when he fought at Tobruck, he was captured, was a prisoner of war, escaped to Italy, was recaptured by the Germans, shipped to a German POW camp, did slave labour in an ironworks, was shipped to another camp out East. He woke up one day to find the Germans gone and the Russians arriving. He commandeered a bicycle and cycled through the ruins of the Third Reich to meet the advancing Americans. Then he went back to Glasgow and became a tea merchant.
His life before and after was entirely normal – he got married, had three kids – but in the middle of it was this extraordinary event. And as that generation grows older and dies, the sons naturally wonder: what can it have been like? And they, the ones who didn’t take part, are the generation whose novelists want to write about it all.”
Telling the tale of a fictional character who passes through key moments of the 20th century is a popular enterprise so why did he want to do it?

“It was the scale of the thing, the format,” he says. “The New Confessions was about looking back on your life and shaping it and lying about it. But I wanted to create an intimate journal, where the diarist lives from day to day, but has no idea what will happen. That’s how we all live. My ambition was to make the reader live Logan’s life just as he does, as it happens, with its ups and downs and tragedy and uplifting elements, in a way you don’t get with any other literary form. I wanted to get this common, human-being experience that everybody shares, however grand or ordinary.”

Like all well written stories The New Confessions makes extremely interesting, exciting and entertaining reading as you follow the life of an individual through the great historical moments of the 20th century. An individual just trying to get on with it despite the circumstances he finds himself in.

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Arts deadly sins: Greed

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | August 9, 2010

The rapacious desire and pursuit of wealth, status, and power is surely a normal state of being is it not? Are we not all enthralled by the power of mammon, consuming everything we see in order to become what we feel we could be, should be, must be, deserve to be

“oh, if only I was smaller, bigger, fatter, thinner, smarter, dumber, from somewhere else, had a different family, lived in a different town, had better parents, teachers, mentors, friends, didn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, was healthier, sexier, more charismatic, had star quality, talent, took the chance when I had it, was braver, keener, hungrier, could do something, anything, was more, oh, if only…”

Do we not all measure success in money, standing and ability to control? Are we not all living in a post ideological age in which the free market is the only arbitrator of truth, of what is right and wrong, never lies, has all the answers? Are we not better off submitting to the Gordon Gecko mantra that greed is good?

Over the years I have met, worked with and come in to contact with a wide variety of people, companies and organisations in the arts who have come down on one side or the other; those who believe in the fairground – with its flashing lights and loud tinny noises – that is mammon and the other which believes in making, creating, expressing, playing, developing, sharing, communing.

I must admit, I am not without sin, I have indulged in the fairground attractions. They’re fun, for a while, and then you lose interest, get bored for there is nothing else, nothing to scratch at, ponder, think about, get excited in. In short there is nothing beneath the surface, there’s only a sell and a cheap one cent toy.
From the other I have learnt much. It’s difficult to qualify, quantify, articulate. It can mean many things to different people, it comes in many guises but its role is universal. It sees art as a vehicle to express, to acknowledge, too love, embolden, harass, engage, reflect, annoy, fight, disturb, enrich and deepen the culture around it. It does not seek to turn it into an object in order to sell, brand and make wealthy, does not seek status or power. It is not interested in fairground attractions its concern lies in sharing a universal experience – it is the antithesis of the gaudy fairground of greedy artsmongers.

My professional arts career has been littered with many different experiences but I have learnt nothing in the fairground. It was only through the happenstance of meeting individuals and companies who continually sought to improve, question, discuss, debate, develop and make through the sharing of knowledge with each other that I have come to understand anything.
Those that stay in the fairground just irritate me; they make the most noise, are tedious and have nothing to offer, only that which mammon can bestow on them –they are self important naked emperors. Me, I have no wealth, status, and power but I’ve been lucky enough to have been given many lessons, ideas, thoughts, methods, processes, knowledge by people who work selflessly at their art. A store of experience which I still look back on, continue to learn from, seek out, absorb, keep precious and share. It is a store without material value but an invaluable treasure that money cannot buy, a store whose value lies in what it can give not what it takes.
The sin of greed has no place in the making of art. The fairground may belong to someone but the spirit does not.

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Arts deadly sins: Sloth

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | August 7, 2010

Sloth. The desire for ease without effort. What a wonderful thought. I wish I could be slothful and not feel guilty, I wish I could sit and do nothing. Just dream, let my mind wander through unknown regions of my imagination without a care, a reason, a notion. If there is one sin I would gladly embrace it would be sloth. However, as someone who works in the arts I can’t afford it, no one who works in any artistic capacity can.

Being someone who produces events, runs projects and organises gigs on a weekly basis I’m forever thinking about the next job, the next idea that will keep myself and my family – small as it is – afloat. I have no holidays, sick leave, prescribed hours in a day. My days are simply too short. Time is relentless and it’s only getting quicker. Once one job is underway I’m already scratching for the next one, following one, hopeful one. You learn not to look to far forward, to trust your intuition, to hope against hope, stay calm in the face of any potential disaster at every turn. And now in the throes of a recession, your only choice is to stand up and be strong, look into the ill wind that blows, work within its limitations for there are no signs, sights, warnings on the horizon of what disaster is on its way. Worse still there is no lifeboat; redundancy package, social welfare benefit. There is only you.

I admire everyone who works in a non salaried position in the arts – it is extraordinarily difficult and despite my differences with many over the structure and system that governs the arts in Ireland and the state intervention that has made us unthinking proles I believe that those who spend their lives battling against sloth in the face of so much apathy – the easy option – deserve to be seen as lights in the dark in a world gone mad, a world gone shopping on credit, a world maxed out with nothing to show for it.

Me? The summer is nearly over, autumn will be here soon, my busy period is at an end and I have yet to figure out the next seven months. I can’t afford to be slothful, but oh how I wish I could be. Just for a day.

The image used in this post is a detail from an Hieronymus Bosch painting called ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’

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A prophet is a must watch film

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | August 5, 2010

I’ve been lying very low so far this week so much so that I have very little to talk about. So, in the absence of live music, theatre, art, festivals, rants and raves, etc I thought I’d encourage you to go out RIGHT NOW and rent, buy, get the French film ‘A Prophet’.

A friend gave it to me a number of weeks ago and I’ve only now got round to watching it. It was quite a film, a rare jewel, one of those films that hits you from nowhere, sucks you in, stays with you, that you want to watch over and over, want to shout from the roof tops about. And I’m not the only one, last year it won, amongst other awards, the Grand Prix at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, a BAFTA at the British Academy Film Awards, Best Film Award at the London Film Festival, The Prix Louis Delluc 2009, 9 Cesars including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor and was nominated for Best Foreign Film at The Academy Awards. In 2010 Empire magazine ranked it at number 63 in its “The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema” list.

So what makes it so special at a lengthy 150 minutes? It’s the clarity of narrative, focus and attention to detail that impressed me most and like many others who have written about ‘A Prophet’ it was, above all, the films central character and his well-executed “improbable rise from invisibility to dominance. As Luke Davies from The Monthly said “what gives [the film] such dynamic energy is the seamlessness with which this transition unfolds”. You care for someone who starts off as literally a blank slate in a prison (you know nothing at all about him except his name) and ends up as an underworld crimeboss.

So what’s it about? Well it’s essentially the portrait of a convict turned kingpin
After assaulting a cop, Malik (newcomer Tahar Rahim) earns a six-year prison bid. Though illiterate, the 19-year-old speaks French and Arabic. Instead of congregating with the Muslim inmates, he keeps to himself, providing a perfect target for Corsican Mob boss César (Niels Arestrup), who makes him a Godfather – like offer he can’t refuse: kill Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi), an Arab set to testify against the Corsicans, or meet his maker. Malik decides he would prefer to live. In return, César offers him protection but stops short of treating him like an equal. When Malik isn’t serving coffee and making deliveries, he studies French and Corsu. With what he learns from the mobsters, he befriends two other loners, Ryad (Adel Bencherif) and Jordi the Gypsy (Reda Kateb), and starts a drug-smuggling operation. The years pass, and Malik takes advantage of his parole leaves to work both sides of the fence and, when the authorities transfer César’s crew to a different facility, the balance of power shifts from the aging master to the model student.

Although it’s long and subtitled (I know many people don’t like subtitles) this film is a masterpiece. It couldn’t be shorter than its 150 minutes; there are no dead spots, no wasted moments, every second is riveting and as I said before it’s the seamless transition from nobody to somebody and the quality of characterization that really strikes you as you sit, once the film is over, in awe at what you’ve just seen unfold before your eyes.
Put an evening aside and see it.

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two delicious recipes: Jansson’s Temptation and Parmigiana di Melanzane

Joseph x | Recipes from a mutant kitchen | August 4, 2010

Have you ever been asked while abroad to share with someone what Irish food is like? Have you ever given thought to what Irish food is? My older daughter, who has lived in Greece for many years, tells me that it doesn’t exist, that all we have is borrowed dishes from here and there but little that is authentically our own. For once, I think she may be right, even if many of our food writers do refer constantly to our traditional cuisine. Of course, we have some Irish dishes like, boxtie, colcannon, Irish stew, barn brack, soda bread, etc. However, the list is anything but endless and hardly constitutes a cuisine which can be compared with that of our European neighbours like France, Spain, Italy or dare I say, the Nordic countries.

I have mentioned before that the food eaten in Ireland 50 years ago was, by and large, bland and uninteresting. Turn the clock back a hundred years and the mass of the population subsisted largely on potatoes and soda bread interspersed with a little bacon or fish, (if you lived near the coast) cabbage and root vegetables. Only the well-to-do, and they formed a very small part of the population, had regular access to beef or lamb and a whole range of foods that may be commonplace today, but were luxuries a few generations ago. How our food has changed and how grateful we should be for the many foreign influences that have turned eating in Ireland in the 21st century into such a pleasure!

This month I want to share with you two recipes, which come from two different European countries very far apart in every sense of that word. The first, Jansson’s Temptation, a dish of potatoes, anchovies and cream, hails from Sweden and was recently brought to my attention by my youngest son’s girl-friend; it is simply scrumptious and, given how well known it is in Sweden and Finland, I am astonished it never came my way before. The second, Parmigiana di Melanzane (sometimes erroneously called egg plant Parmesan in American cookery books) is an aubergine, cheese and tomato gratin of Sicilian origin and one of the worst kept secrets of Italian cuisine. I have loved it for years but this particular recipe only came to hand in the last few weeks and then thanks to a cousin of my wife, who lives in the south-east of England. Both of these dishes are eminently suitable for non-meat eaters, but can be served to great effect with grilled meat or fish. They could also form part of a smorgasbord or buffet-style supper.

Jansson’s Temptation

This dish should be made with salt-sweet Swedish anchovies which, I am told, are available in IKEA. The brand is Abba. If these are unavailable to you, ordinary tinned anchovies drained and rinsed will do. However, do not add any of the juice from the tins as indicated in the recipe below. The outcome will still be very good, if inauthentic.

Serves 3-4 for a light meal
60g softened butter
2 onions, peeled and finely chopped
2X125g tins of Swedish anchovies, drained (keep the juice of one of the tins)
6 medium sized potatoes peeled and cut into julienne strips
400ml whipping cream
2tbsp white breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 190°C/Gas 5

Grease a shallow ovenproof dish with half the butter. Fill the base with the onions. Using a pair of scissors, snip the anchovies into four and distribute them over the onions. Pour over the juice from one of the tins. Cover with the prepared potatoes. Press the potatoes down lightly and season. Pour over the cream and then quickly tap the dish a couple of times on a wooden surface to settle the assembly. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs evenly over the surface and dot with the remaining butter. Bake for 40 minutes or until crusted and golden and bubbling at the edges.
If you do not favour strong flavours, cook the onions in a little oil beforehand and if you are put off by that amount of cream, substitute half of it with either milk or beer.

Parmigiana di Melanzane

Serves 6 for a light meal

3tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1kg passata
2tbsp torn basil leaves plus a few extra to serve
Sunflower oil for frying
3 eggs beaten
Plain white flour for dipping
3 aubergines, ends removed and thinly sliced (about 1kg)
2 cow’s milk mozzarella, drained and sliced
80g freshly grated parmesan, plus a little extra to serve

To make the sauce, heat the olive oil in a medium-sized saucepan over a medium heat. Add the garlic and fry briefly until fragrant. Add the passata and 250ml of water, the torn basil and a little salt. Bring to the boil and simmer over a medium heat for about 45 minutes until you have a thick pouring sauce.
At the same time, fry the aubergines. Heat about 1cm oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Have a couple of dinner plates at the ready with the beaten egg in one and the flour in the other. Dip the aubergine slices into the flour and then into the egg and fry until crispy and lightly golden on both sides. Drain on some kitchen paper. It is this dipping process that marks the difference between this recipe and all others I have seen for this dish. The result is that your parmigiana is less oily.

Line the base of a 35X25cm roasting time or baking dish with a thin layer of the tomato sauce and arrange a layer of aubergines lengthways on top so that they overlap slightly. Add another thin layer of sauce, a couple of tablespoons of the grated parmesan and half the mozzarella. Repeat this exercise now laying the aubergines crosswise and repeat with a final layer of aubergines again lengthways. Finish with a more generous layer of tomato sauce so that the aubergine is liberally coated. Cover with foil.

Heat the over to 200°C/Gas 6 and bake the parmigiana for 45 minutes before uncovering and baking it for a further 25-30 minutes until lightly golden brown. Leave to stand for 10-15 minutes. Serve hot or at room temperature, scatter with a little more Parmesan and decorated with a few basil leaves.

I have frozen this gratin with reasonable success.

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Abahlali baseMjondolo

roggernaut | Culture and politics | August 4, 2010

‘Worker: Always honest, unless he’s rioting’
Dictionary of Accepted Ideas, Flaubert

We commonly hear about the suffering that goes on in the third world. Death tolls from natural disasters or the numbers killed from preventable diseases. Images of starving children, abused women, the homeless, as charities seek to make visible the marginalised groups in society. We read about the lack of employment opportunities or education, the lack of health care and infrastructure, about the awful working conditions in factories and the communities that suffer from industrial pollution. And of course we hear about the violence and crime that is necessarily associated with these conditions of hardship.
We also hear about the good work done to help these communities. The many schools, houses and football pitches built by responsible government departments and NGOs. The elections taking place in countries once oppressed by tyrants and riven by war. The development of business and industry in areas where there had only been subsistence living. People suffer and die everyday but efforts are being done to see that this suffering and death are alleviated, that the problems of the past are resolved.
We rarely see anything of the third world other than these two sets of opposing images. On one side the vulnerable, the poor, the hungry, the helpless. On the other the success stories, the ones who have been helped out of that condition, who have become educated and well-fed. Implicit in this juxtaposition is a before and an after- before knowledge there is ignorance, before food there is hunger, before peace there is violence. This is clear. What is not so clear is how the relation between these images creates a certain understanding about the people and their function.

The images are related through a positive claim that the helpless can become the helped if and when they allow themselves to be helped. A positive claim that admits that there have been problems in the past but this time or next time or with more time these problems will be resolved. With patience we’ll ensure there are more success stories. It will take time but we’ll get there in the end. In the future these side effects of our history, the economy, corruption, poor leadership, inadequate safety standards, will be resolved. What we need is more support for the road ahead, for the road that has led countless others from here to there.
But as time goes on these supposed side effects are not resolved. People are not being helped. Inequality extends. People suffer more and more in their daily lives. This is a reality that is obscured by the positive relationship between the two sets of images. The people complain but they are told to be patient, to wait for more funding, to apply for more training, to participate in more constructive dialogue with their councillors and representatives. Those that wait must believe that their time will one day arrive from somewhere else. How could they believe otherwise? Unless they think the worst and believe that this is in fact their lot.
At each moment they are told that the house, the school, the water, is just around the bend; the people are forced to wait. Walking the long road is tiring but the NGOs, the elected representatives, the media, the police are so convincing. The images are so convincing: people have succeeded, people have come out of their poverty, been cured of their diseases, seen their children go to school. They walked the path from before to after.

What happens when people refuse to walk any further down that path with no end in sight, when they refuse to wait any more for what is rightfully theirs? They break the link between the images. They break the link between the images by leaving the path. They are walking elsewhere in a direction that is not marked, that has no signs, no directions and no guides. They walk alone, breaking open the path as they walk. By breaking away from the path they have also broken the two images. Now they are not helpless, vulnerable or weak, nor are they developed, educated and productive. They are angry and unrecognisable. As they walk the path appears but no one can recognise it or the people who walk on it.
Now that the people are neither helpless nor helped, now that they refuse the path way-marked for them, how are we to imagine them? We need another image. Those loyal to the path lament the lack of patience in the people. By leaving the path they are only wasting time walking in the wrong direction, making more work for themselves when they return. There is also the question of how the helpless could have refused the path given to them, how they could have organised themselves to start off in a different direction. Either they set off like animals in a frenzy, an irrational change in mind, like a herd of cattle scared by a changing wind, or they were led astray by some other agency, by a malevolent herder intent on furthering his own interests. The people following their own path are presented as irrational or misled. They are translated into a third image, the image of noise, the image of a rioting, corrupted, seditious mob that has turned its back on the right path, on the genuine suffering of the people and the only realistic hope of salvation.

Of course there is another image, one that is created by the people themselves. This requires a radical break with the three sets of images we are offered, the images of the helpless, the helped and the noise. It requires listening to what the people are saying as reasonable and articulate translators of their own experience, of understanding that there can be other ways of moving from the before to the after.

The following quote is taken from an article published in November, 2005 in a number of South African newspapers and journals:

“We have begun to realise that we are not supposed to be living under these conditions. There has been a dawn of democracy for the poor. No one else would have told us – neither our elected leaders nor any officials would have told us what we are entitled to. Even the Freedom Charter is only good in theory. It has nothing to do with the ordinary lives of poor. It doesn’t help us. It is the thinking of the masses of the people that matters.”

It was written in response to accusations that the popular Shack-Dwellers Movement, known as Abahlali baseMjondolo, was being orchestrated by anti-government agitators and intellectuals. To find out more about Abahlali baseMjondolo and the struggles which the people in those communities are faced with look at their great website www.abahlali.org or if you want an insight into some of the issues here is a short film by an Irish filmmaker on the same:

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Five things I keep going back to by Paul Solecki

roggernaut | All about mutantspace | August 4, 2010

1. Belgium
The first time I ever went to Belgium, having never been there before was the only reason I went. I liked it so much that when I came back to Cork I had several dreams about going back. In one dream I was taking the train from Cork to Dublin and had to connect in Brussels.
In another I was feeling hungry and went for some fries with samurai sauce. I kept thinking about it and dreaming about it, so I went back again a few months later. Last year I went again. I still think about places to go the next time I return. There’s nothing in particular I like to do there besides wander around aimlessly through Flemish streets and stop in random places to have a beer or a falafel, but I always end up having an amazing time and meeting the most interesting people. I’m sure I’ll be back again.

2. The Teenage Fanclub Message Board
Teenage Fanclub is my favorite band. The first CD I bought was Bandwagonesque in 1991 – I was 12 and living in Kansas and just starting to discover music on my own. I became a huge fan of the band throughout the 90s, but for some strange reason they never played a gig in Olathe, Kansas… There weren’t that many other fans of the band around that I knew of, but the band’s web site has a great message board, and I’ve been a member for a long time now. It’s not just about the band: it’s a music nerd’s hangout, a place to talk about what’s happening in the world, a place to just waste time when you want to be distracted at work. There are a lot of great people who are regular posters, people you feel like you kind of know after seeing their posts over the years. It’s a real community of people from all over the world, and the incidental common bond of liking the band brings them there. When the band plays a gig the people on the board organize a meet-up before hand and we meet up. People on the board get married, have kids, and occasionally die, and it means something to the boarders. I don’t live on the board or anything; I probably check it most days I’m near a computer for about five minutes or so, and I post something once every couple of weeks. But it’s a special place and I keep going back.

3. Charlie’s on a Monday night
Sometime in November 2003 I went to Charlie’s in Cork on a Monday night. A couple friends had mentioned to me a few months earlier that some musicians named Hank and Ray played there every Monday and I’d probably like them. It turns out they were right, and since then there’s been a good chance that if I’m in town on a Monday night I’ll be at Charlie’s. Hank plays guitar and sings and Ray plays mandolin, and quite often they are joined by guest musicians – from beginners to famous virtuosos. There’s always a regular crowd there but there’s a good mix of new people too, and it’s always a great night. I’m partial to Ray’s mandolin instrumentals, but a few of Hank’s original songs are favorites of mine as well. They always know what song to play at just the right time in the night. Usually it starts out quiet and builds up until the crowd are screaming for more. I’ll see you there next Monday.

4. The Cafe Paradiso Cookbooks
I used to be a terrible eater. I’m an OK cook, but I just didn’t eat very well. Then in 2002 I noticed I hadn’t eaten meat in a week and decided to become a vegetarian, making me an even worse eater – a few friends used to comment that I was the only vegetarian they knew that didn’t eat fruits or vegetables. Since I moved to Ireland I’ve slowly improved and now I’m almost like a normal human being. But since I got the Cafe Paradiso cookbooks for Christmas and my birthday in January, I’ve been eating like a king a few days a week. Sure, sometimes it takes hours to prepare, but it’s always worth it. I’d better go check and see what I’ll make for dinner tonight…

5. Dervla Murphy books
I picked up a great travel book about Siberia a couple years ago at the library, and I liked it so much that after I finished it I looked for another one. I found one by Dervla Murphy. I’d never heard of her before but it looked interesting and it turned out to be one of the best books I’d read in a while. It made a few references to an earlier book she’d written, so I got that one next. I started doing some research about her and found she’d written a lot of books so I started checking them out and buying them and now I’m halfway through my 17th book of hers. Only a few more to go! In her first book, Full Tilt, she cycles from Ireland to India in 1963, and she’s still going these days. She’s really inspiring, and I’m sure that when I finish reading all her books I’ll go back to a lot of them again.

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Four delicious recipes with cucumbers

Giles Clark | Recipes from a mutant kitchen | August 4, 2010

Crisp, juicy and mild, the cucumber – having arrived some time ago from India – is now sold in Europe throughout the year. But the long, slim plastic wrapped (so that their skins can remain unwaxed) slicing variety more often do a good job. There are also the slightly more acidic, thick skinned and warty variety sold in polish stores that are perfect for the pickling the pickling jar. It’s with some sun on its back that it’s happiest growing and so summertime generally offers up some more exciting varieties. Sometimes with delicious flowers even, like its seedy sibling the courgette.

Cucumber, gin and honey

Cucumber does a fine job here of opening up the naturally floral and piney aromas of gin.
Either juice the peeled cucumber or blitz it up and strain through a sieve. Either way once done, heat it up in a pot until it comes to a boil and take it off the heat – this will help the impurities separate from the good stuff. Then put it through a coffee filter and season your nectar lightly with honey. Drink half juice-half gin, cold and with a little ice and a sliver of lime zest.

Rye, curd and cucumber

Peel your cucumber and cut it into halves or thirds depending on its length. Boil it briefly in plenty of boiling salty water – no more than five minutes, and then shock it in cold running water. When the cucumbers cool and dry and you’re almost ready to eat cut into quarters lengthwise, rub with oil and then season well with salt. Griddle over a piping hot pan. When nicely charred on all three sides serve on top of slices of baked rye shmeared with goat or sheep’s curd and finished with a grind of black pepper.
Makes a fine companion to a bottle of white wine.

Cucumber, beetroot, frisee and egg

The beetroot can be cooked to good effect in one of two different ways here. Baked till tender in a hot oven, then peeled and sliced. Or else sliced thin and grilled over fire. Either way, peel and dice some cucumber, throw into a hot pan with some oil and season generously with salt. Toss, and after a minute add a good splash of cider vinegar, take off the heat, and toss again.
Build the salad, as suits, with a spoonful of seasoned yogurt, the sliced beetroot, cucumber, frisee and a poached egg.
Strawberries, sweet pickled cucumber, mint and cream cheese

To make the pickle blitz up some cider vinegar with a little chopped peeled cucumber, seedless white grapes or melon and a glug of white wine. Strain through a coffee filter and then heat up with some a couple of stalks of tarragon and some sugar and a pinch of salt to taste. On the other hand a simple cider vinegar, sugar and pinch of salt mixture will do fine.
Peel your cucumbers and cut them into inch and a half lengths. Then cut them in half lengthwise, then into fairly thin wedges.
When the pickle is warm pour it over the cucumber and leave it in the fridge for a week or so.
Give your strawberries a quick wash in cold water, then take off their stalk and cut into halves, quarters or leave whole, depending on size.
For the cream cheese, add some cream and a little bit of honey to curd (when room temperature) and beat until smooth with a wooden spoon. Let it cool and stiffen a little in the fridge and when ready to serve and spoon on to each plate, with the strawbs cucumber and mint (some sorrel too perhaps if there’s any still growing near by) tossed in a little of the pickling liquor resting alongside.

Image by Fiona Hallinan

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