Or a fragmentary synopsis of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West derived from some of the English and Spanish words I had to look up:bistre; chine; tang; jornada; jacal; pritchel; frizzen; bungstarter; vadose; vernier sight; lobo; sotol; tapadero; felloe; duledge; monocline; kerf; rebozo; almagre; carreta; escopeta; legbail; pauldron; ocotillo; squail; […]

When untrained amateurs try to do it, we call it “pulling a face.” But when executed by professionals, it’s simply…acting, dear boy.

Apparently, the Irish Times‘s house seer John Waters believes the Intertube and bloggers are contributing factors in the Decline of West. Perhaps that explains why www.johnwaters.ie (featuring a fetching pic of Mr Waters in full-bearded “Iron John” mode) will forever be “coming soon”. But pace Waters’s opinion of the emptiness of bloggers’ “discourse,” can I […]

No, not Heath Ledger. Rather “Doug Krantz, 27, a New York University student and Iraq war veteran,” who turned up outside the actor’s Manhattan home upon hearing of his death. His reason?”I have a sick fascination with morbid stuff.”

As plunging stock markets expose the fallacies of the widely flogged “decoupling theory” (Google returns almost 65,000 hits for the query “decoupling + United States + economy”), it seems hard to disagree with the arguments of President George W. Bush (as channeled by The Onion): While speaking to a group of White House reporters, President […]

RTE’s website coverage of today’s turmoil in the world’s financial markets kicks off with the following, interest-deflating headline: “US economy already in recession – consultant.”Alas, the subheading “Oh no it isn’t! – another consultant” is nowhere to be seen.On a tangential note, Louis XVI famously wrote “rien” (“nothing”) as a journal entry for July 14, […]

“Entrepreneurship Takes Off in Ireland” is the title of an upbeat New York Times‘ article on the go-get-’em business moxie that is supposedly rampant in the “new” Ireland.The piece kicks off with a bold–some begrudging inhabitants of the “old” Ireland might prefer the word “ridiculous”–assertion:”Ireland is now alive with enthusiasm for entrepreneurs, who seemingly rank […]

Given the near-daily reports about crises in the Irish health service, the country’s position on this chart seems surprising.Then again, the murder rate in Baghdad has also declined impressively in recent months, but I still wouldn’t be in a rush to visit.

For a mid-week post, I was girding myself to produce an elevating squib on Alex Ross’s much-lauded history of 20th-century music, The Rest is Noise. However, having reached only page 90 so far, even I am reluctant to offer a nugget-sized synopsis of Ross’s argument. For more, stay tuned–unless you’re a follower of the Second […]