Random Thought of the Day

It's a little frightening to me that the safest method of travel - by airplane - is by far the most expensive.

It's almost as if the FAA, the government, and the airlines wanted us all to die. That's their gratitude for our keeping them in business for nearly 100 years. Not to mention, so many airlines (and airport staff) make traveling such a chore, such a burden, such a pain in the arse, that spending several days in a car, truck, trailor, cruise ship, or canoe to reach your destination is infinitely preferable.

Your tax money hard at work, ladies and gentlemen.

Bizarre Bazarre

For Spring Break this year, the Goldring program (minus a few) went to Ireland, hitting up Dublin and Galway in about eight days. I'm working on chronicling the trip, but a very particular part of the trip stood out to me that I wanted to share.

Before I went, a friend of mine at Newhouse told me about a friend of his who lives in Ireland. She's written travel books about Ireland and published a novel set in the place. Her name is Camille DeAngelis, and he gave me her email. Seeing as how this woman has pretty much accomplished everything I want to accomplish in life (substituting France for Ireland), I emailed her at once, and we had several wonderful conversations. She gave me tips for surviving in Ireland (including how to tip, and the general rule of thumb is, don't) and raved particularly about the shops on the island of Inishmore off of Galway Bay. Her travel book, Moon Ireland, further raved about the shops, saying, "The best is Sarah Flaherty's shop"; Sarah, who knitted her sweaters even as she visited and gossiped with the customers. Everything in her shop was hand-made, and all from materials to be found on the island.

I must confess here that I did the tourist thing, as discreetly as possible. While still on the coach I checked the name of the shop, and as I stepped off I asked the driver where Sarah Flaherty's shop was. He took my kindly by the arm and right into her store, saying, "Sarah, here's someone to see you." (Below, a picture of one of the shops near S.F.'s.) Sarah Flaherty was a short woman with gray hair and kind, sparkling blue eyes, and a way of talking that struck me as being half way between the Irish nuns who ran my primary school and the sort of grandmother who remains eternally forty years of age. She was energetic and friendly almost to the point of making me wonder what I had done to deserve such generous treatment. Ireland's reputation for welcoming must have sprung largely from County Galway.

In the course of discussion, I told Sarah that I had read about her shop from a woman who wrote about her in a travel book, and who recommended her personally to me most especially. "Do ye have the book here?" she asked me, and I told her I did. She asked to see it, and I gave it to her, marking for her the page that mentioned her shop. Straight off she asked if I would sell it to her! I have to admit I fumbled a bit - my mother had bought this book for me, and Camille and I were to meet that evening after I returned to the mainland and I would like to have the book with me. Sarah told me that she'd had people come into her shop before after having heard of her store through travel articles or books, and that after they'd left she wished she'd bought the items from them. She had no easy internet access on the island, and it was difficult and expensive to get books to ship from the States anyway. And it was true that I could replace the book quite easily, whereas Sarah might never see it again. So we made a trade - I bought one of her sweaters, and she marked the price of the book off of the price for the sweater.

I bought a hat as well, but sadly the town of Galway swallowed it up while I was watching the Saturday rugby game; I tried to look for it, but was unsuccessful. But I have the lovely sweater, which reminds me precisely of the sweaters worn by those same nuns I mentioned earlier. And at the end of it, I've got this great souvenir and wonderful story, and Sarah has the book and my card to remember me by. As they say, all's well that ends well.

Romeo & Juliet at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin

The Abbey Theatre on Dublin's north side stands as an anchor of the Irish cultural experience. Founded in 1899 the Irish Literary Theatre by, among others. William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory, the theatre has continued to perform new works as well as classic theatrical pieces, usually to great acclaim. One would think that a company with such a reputation, developed over decades, could put forth a masterful presentation of a guy playing the spoons.

Spoon players might have been more enjoyable than the current production of 'Romeo and Juliet', directed by Jason Byrne, which closed on 22 March 2008. At the very least there might have been more sincere feelings from spoon players than what came from some of the performers. Shakespeare's lines were rehearsed to the point of being mere recitation rather than performance - Mercutio's Queen Mab speech feels more like a wind-up toy than one of the greatest mysteries in Shakespearian plays - and the main direction seems to have been merely "talk faster." Only Friar Lawrence pauses enough to appreciate the gems and emotions within each line. The others tinker about in a storm of dialogue, starting their lines almost before their cues. More feeling comes from a turn of the head of Capulet's henchmen, behind his Joker-like make-up and wig, than in the entire balcony scene.

Shakespeare can trip up the most experienced of actors, but wrestling the words into submission was not the only problem. Tackling the sentiments behind the words seems to have been more difficult for this cast, largely because the timing was sped up so greatly that it was a mystery how the fellow players, let alone the audience, could keep up.

Modern productions of Shakespeare commonly set the plays in time periods other than Elizabethan England. Why not? After all, so many of his plays contain themes - filial disobedience in 'King Lear', jealousy in 'Othello', ambition in 'Macbeth', and most especially forbidden love in 'Romeo and Juliet' - that are applicable at any time and community in history. Byrne, though, must have had some difficulty choosing exactly when he wanted to set his production. Romeo dons a James Dean-esque costume of jeans, a white T-shirt and a black leather vest. Lady Capulet and Lady Montague wear 60's dresses with furs and jewels. Capulet looks and carries himself like an Italian mob boss, while Montague looks more like an aging Fred Astair in his suit and tie. And Juliet? Juliet looks like she could be out on a run to Target in her tunic tank top, skinney jeans and Mary Janes. The weaponry was likewise varied and included Japanese samurai swards, daggers, rapiers and broadswords. The set, designed by Jon Bausor (who also designed the costumes), is functional, though minimalist. Only the lighting designer, Paul Keogan, performed flawlessly, creating more atmosphere than almost any of those you see on stage.

Smile When You're Lying

Chuck Thompson promises in his book Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer to dispense with the usual preaching that you find in books like Lonely Planet. Instead, he says, he wants to share “the most memorable experiences … [that editors say] always seem ‘too negative” to put into print. And for the first half of the book, he doesn’t disappoint. His stories about teaching English in Japan at 22, searching for coke in Alaska at 3 in the morning, helping a friend have “Korean sex” before getting married, all have a charm that’s so straightforward and honest that, though the material is rather frat-boyish with a healthy side of misogeny, it never occurs to you to hold it against him. After all, he's only reporting the reality of his experiences back to you. Rarely, if ever is he a willing, active participant.

You fall for his upfront candor, rejoicing in his successes and keenly feeling his failures. Not only that, but he writes so convincingly that you have to agree with everything he says. You begrudge Alaskans for selling their souls, and America’s “last frontier,” to the oil companies. You want to head to Ensenada and scour the docks for the Slayamahi II (or, by now, possibly III or IV), and ask Ernesto the owner for a ride. You want to meet Shanghai Bob, shake his hand and buy him a beer. And you definitely don’t want to visit the Caribbean again until the place starts to feel a little less like Disneyland on the beach. The whole first half of the book is as rewarding as being a Red Sox fan in 2007 – after years of peddling through the same old disappointments, you’ve finally gotten your money’s worth in gold.

Which is why the shift in the middle of the book comes as such a serious insult. Chapter Seven, promisingly entitled What Lazy Writers, Lonely Planet, and Your Favorite Travel Magazine Don’t Want You To Know, has a different tone than the rest of the book, one that you’re really not interested in after getting so many laughs and great scenes from the first six chapters. After traveling the world with Chuck, the reader now watches him pack up his bags and get ready for the excitement of what we already know will be the doomed venture of Travelocity magazine, operating out of that glorious location of … Dallas.

Up to that point, Thompson has pointed out several habits and tendencies of travel writers that, he says, annoy him to no end. Like putting the writer into the center of the story. He hates that. He does, however, make an exception when it comes to his own writing. You raise an eyebrow at his hypocrisy, but by the time he says it, a third of the way through the book, you have to forgive him. He’s just made it too agreeable for you already. Any page that doesn’t elicit a laugh is an oddity. But the one place where I wish he’d followed his own advice would be in Chapter Seven. Before Chapter Seven, you feel you’ve been traveling with Chuck, an arm around his shoulder as he confides in you all the secret stories he’s never confided in anyone before. Then, suddenly, you feel as if you’re being preached at by a minister on Sunday, reaming against the travel writing industry. He promises “a few highlights” of his manual on what to avoid in travel writing, and gives you ten pages. A few anecdotes bring a smile to your face, but for the most part you feel as if you’re watching a car wreck and you can’t possibly stop it. How can the Dallas branch of the Bible Belt compare to Bangkok pussy writing?

Something That Makes You Go, Huh?

Every now and then, you see something that just makes you stop and go, Huh?

The History Channel's show 'History's Mysteries' is all about decoding myths and, well, mysteries from, well, history. They explore things like Stonehenge and the Knights Templar (very popular in the wake of 'The Da Vinci Code' - this is, after all, Dan Brown's world, and we're all just living in it), but every now and then they do something with a little more, pardon the pun, life in it. Like the mystery of Dracula.

The character of Dracula was based for the most part on Vlad Dracul III, prince of Wallachia (now a part of Romania). Modernly thought of as a patriot who fought against the invading Turks, Vlad earned his epithet "The Impaler" for his cruelty towards those who offended him. (Evidence states that when there was an ambassador at his court whom he disliked, he had their hats nailed to their heads.) The blood-sucking habit was the invention of Bram Stoker, or rather, Stroker collected information from around the world and gathered it all together into the single character of Dracula.

All this is pretty yada yada yada, but what really made me sit up was at the compulsory Where Are They in Pop-Culture moment at the end of the program. Wedged between the stuffed Dracula dolls and boxes of Count Chocula breakfast cereal was scenic footage of - I kid you not - the Hotel Castle Dracula.

Settled in the same mountain pass that serves as the opening landscape for the opening of Stoker's novel, the hotel comes complete with all the modern day conveniences you'd expect of a service edifice only 25 years old. Including a "Turkish Bath," according to turneo.ro. The hotel, from the literature I could find online, is quite an experience, including role-play dinners and titles like "Baroness" for the guests, who get their portraits hung in the lobby when they win. One Romanian tour company website described the hotel's location as "the ideal spot for lovers."

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for exploring the best and the worst of the local culture, no matter where you are. Still, something about the whole set-up of Hotel Castle Dracula just made me think, You poor suckers. You're just asking for it.