Hello all,
A good American film was shown here last week. Of course
the nearest cinema is in Galway, but during the winter the Letterfrack
Film Society has the use of the audio-visual centre at Connemara National
Park, and shows a film there every two weeks. So last Thursday "Smoke"
was shown; you might have seen it; based on a story by the Brooklyn novelist
Paul Auster, and placed in Brooklyn.
I got a lift out to Letterfrack with Ralph and Gavin Lavelle. We'd been
having quite a bit of rain, but it had eased off by the evening, and the
road from Clifden to Letterfrack was passable. But there was flooding in
the Inagh Valley, at Derrylea Lake, and at Kylemore Lough, so Connemara
was virtually an island; we had become that Other World, between the Old
World and the New World, that I was thinking about in my last letter to
you.
I think the Other World of Connemara was a good place to be viewing an
American film placed in Brooklyn; if we could enjoy it and be moved
by it, then the work was well done. For me it had a leisurely, amiable,
wholesome air, but perhaps I missed something darker or more complex, and
I may not have been as surprised or thoughtful as expected, by the relationships
between the Black Americans and the White Americans which the film seemed
to draw attention to. It affirmed what I know well, that the weather of
the world is a chancy thing and you'll bear up under it the better if you
go in company with those you meet on the road.
After the film --and when we left the rain had cleared, it was a mild,
misty night -- we went across the road to the Bard's Den and some talk.
This turned mostly on contemporary music, beginning with a comment about
Tom Waits' song, "Downtown Train," which was on the soundtrack
of the film. He is one of many American artists that we could think of
who are better known and regarded here than in America.
I would have to say that the sense of the discussion was that contemporary
music lacks direction. Still, there is light in the tunnel from time to
time, as when on the D line you approach the Seventh Avenue station in
Brooklyn on the downtown train, and you have only to walk down Seventh
Avenue from Flatbush to 16th Street to be celebrated in the lens of Augie's
stolen camera. That's how "Smoke", and Brooklyn and contemporary
music came together that night at the Bard's Den, in the Other World of
Connemara.
Over the week end our local theatre group presented a play -- it was John
B. Keane's "The Year Of The Hiker." They
performed at the Clifden Town Hall, to an audience of about 500, altogether.
Two hundred attended on Sunday night, and the curtain was delayed for half
an hour because there weren't enough folding chairs and some of the lads
had to run over to the Alcock & Brown Hotel to borrow more. Your friends
Mary and Anne Hession were in it, and of course everyone knew all the actors,
that was the craic of it. All the actors except one -- David Ley, a young
American man who is teaching at the Community School. He's from Vassar
College, which each year sends several education students here for their
semester of teaching experience. He played his part with enthusiasm, and
was well received.
Do you remember seeing a film called "The Field" a few years
ago, that was shot near here, at Leenane? It's based on a John B. Keane
play. Well, our production of "The Year Of The Hiker" was video
taped Saturday night, but I don't think it will get quite as good distribution
as "The Field," so you'll probably have to wait until you're
home again to see it.
A couple nights ago Connamara Community Radio held a pub quiz to raise
money for the station; it was their second since the summer, and they held
two previously. As before, one pub in each of ten different villages and
towns in Connemara acted as hosts; here in Clifden the quiz was at Guy's
Pub. The questions were read out over the radio; the teams consulted and
wrote their answers; volunteers collected the papers after each round,
scored them, and phoned the results to the station, where all the scores
were collated; the leading team for each pub was announced after each round.
The three highest scores for the whole night got prizes -- Christmas hampers
donated by local merchants -- and the team with the highest score in each
pub also got a prize.
Guy's had twelve tables with a team of four at each -- you would have seen
most of your friends there. Your mother and I made up a team with Noleen
Welsh, our next-door neighbor who teaches maths at the Community School,
and Brede Sweeney, who teaches science there. We had a respectable score,
but were never contenders. The quiz was won by a team at Joe Kane's Pub
in Maam. The winning team in Guy's included Paul Keogh, the librarian,
and Noel Kirby, Director of Connemara National Park. Justin King was on
the team that won the raffle, midway through the quiz, at Guy's that night
-- a bottle of wine, which in a misguided show of bravado they opened and
drank on the spot, to their instant confusion, as they had been encouraging
themselves with porter throughout the evening.
The Boy Scouts have begun selling Christmas trees today, and the lights
will be going up in town this evening.
From Tullyvoheen, good night and God bless you.
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