Lately, I've been quite perturbed by the extraordinary level of navel-gazing on Open Salon.    I say 'extraordinary' because, of course, there is always a certain amount of navel-gazing in our posts.   Where would we be, for instance, without the meta-posts by people l… Read full post »

Thinker, teacher,

poet, preacher, 

Mother, father,

voted-for-Dan-Rather, 

I am

What I do, not what I say

If I do not do, 

do I not have a say?

Why is it enough to tell you what I do? 

For a living?

When… Read full post »

Earth spinning on love axis

Karmic Banner-man

As many of you know, Ric Tresa has been in considerable pain since his fall on September 20th.    Open Salon seems strange without his regular technical advice, cartoons and comedy and
… Read full post »

I remember one Sunday morning coming down to the kitchen, and she was sitting there beside the Aga.   Julia.   Wretched, bruised, distracted, ragged.  Sitting folded upon herself, away from me, like a skeletal knot in the corner.  She brushed wisps of frizzy, filthy hair… Read full post »

From a story in yesterday's Kilkenny People, we learn that US President Barack Obama is descended from not one but two eminent intellectuals of the Irish 18th Century Ascendancy class.   The body of his great, great, great, great grand-uncle Dr. John Kearney, has been located in a hidden va… Read full post »

In response to Barkinglot's open call, here is a song that almost cost me my friends a long time ago.   It's an Italian Eurovision entry from 1974.   It won, if I remember rightly.  I know it was released in English after the Eurovision and, according to the youtube comments,… Read full post »

She was blonde and beautiful.   Not thin, not coiffed, not Botoxed; her bag bore no designer label and her shoes were dark courts, not red stillettoes.  But there was something...

The young female registrar struggled with the interview:

'So, you've been told it's terminal now? &… Read full post »

Ten poems, ten punctuations, some old, some more modern, all relevant to what I am today.   Thank you, Cy, for another provocative open call!   I've linked where I could to a rendition of each poem so that you may have a full-sense appreciation of each one.   Now I'm bolting… Read full post »

I've been reading Nuala Nic Dhomhnaill lately.   

I love the earthiness of her poetry, its rhythm, its cadence and its sexiness.    Perhaps this is what inspired me, watching a woman walking into a cafe on Grafton Street the other day.   

Something in her stride… Read full post »

Cyclopic has set a challenge - to name fifteen books that we found life-changing or otherwise unforgettable.   On Facebook, this challenge has two parts: to name the books, and to do so within 15 minutes.   Being a reasonable man - his bio is obviously written tongue-in-cheek! - C… Read full post »

There is a deep-seated atavistic fear in all humanity of the non-sense; it’s the horror at the centre of every joke, it’s the vertigo at the lip of every chasm.   This fear of madness threatens to overwhelm us all.  Affrighted, we gather like superstitious, torch-bearing vi… Read full post »

- in answer to JLee's open call, an updated post:

The pursuit of happy-ness, that is the modern dilemma; a generation has grown up heeding the parental and societal demand that they ‘just be happy’.   It’s an injunction that pervades the common discourse: ‘You&rsquo… Read full post »

I've spoken before about the mistaken belief that the staple of the Irish diet is corned beef and cabbage.     Corned beef is much more an English meal than a traditional Irish meal.     Bacon and its many by-products, Spring lamb in a white stew, Clonakilty pudding… Read full post »

In Dorinda's recent post, she mentioned a forthcoming holiday in Ireland, visiting Dublin and the Aran Islands.    Serendipitously, looking for some old photos on the computer, I found these pictures my husband took on a team-building business trip to the largest of the Aran Islands, Inis M… Read full post »

Happy Birthday, Teddy!

You're the most original voice on OS

A fighter, a champion, a brave knight

I wanted to buy you a cake

With candles and icing that shakes 

 But then those photos

Of a sweet LA 'Ho

 Suggested a gentler image, 

of a lady, a courtly lady

a… Read full post »

At a lecture on eating disorders and thinking about where to go for lunch - as one inevitably does at these things - I was struck by the image-ridden obsession of our modern existence.  We are reflected, fashioned, copied, mirrored, reproduced, in a maniacally Barbie-fied world. &nb… Read full post »

On June 16th each year, Dublin celebrates Bloomsday.  This is a ritualised re-enactment of the momentous banality of the events which passed in the life of Leopold Bloom on June 16,1904, in the sleepy, seaside town of Edwardian Dublin.   

This is literature.  This is culture. … Read full post »

It’s my birthday.   It’s not a significant birthday.  It’s significant it’s my birthday.   It’s not a significant age.  It’s a significant day.   It’s significant.   It’s just... my birthday.  

It ma… Read full post »

Our country has been rocked again by another abuse report.   This is a personal response.   

Listening to and reading the debates on the Ryan Institutional Report, I have to ask why are we focussing on the issue of money?    The core issue here is not  money but ac… Read full post »

Or maybe I mean:

Posts Snarks, and Flounces .......?

Anyway, when it occurred to me, I thought 'It's such a good title, why waste it?'

  Read full post »

I was 36 weeks pregnant on my first child when I awoke in the mid-night darkness with cramps.    Uncomfortable, I shifted to look, automatically, at the clock beside my bed.    My husband, still undisturbed, breathed softly behind me as another cramp clenched my… Read full post »

my lovely horse
Uploaded by fidothedogster. - Click for more funny videos.

My immediate reaction to Zuma's challenge was to seek out this song, 'My Lovely Horse'.    Unfortunately I couldn't embed the video without the help of my college sweetie - still doing my… Read full post »

On the flimsy promise of a (virtual) cookie, I have bared my psyche in answer to Ghost Writer's most excellent Open Call.   His three questions, though posed so simply, provoked this stream-of-complex-consciousness response....... 

#1 What do you dream about?

Me, cycling down… Read full post »

Forgive me, OS, this post may be a little chaotic - we've just won the Six Nations CUp by a Grand Slam after 61 years by 15-17, with a drop goal by O'Gara with 90 seconds to go and Wales missing a score in the final SECOND of the match.........I should… Read full post »

One of the first posts I read on OS was about the ‘Sunday Crowns’, the hats worn by black religious women to Sunday services. I’d come across the term ‘crown’ in an episode of ‘The Wire’ and found the post informative, provocative and entertaining. Her avatar… Read full post »