Jazz Hands

The Cork Guinness Jazz Festival. What can I say? It was a party. I thought about writing a long post, talking about this and that and blah, blah, blah, but I do that more often than not. And since our internet was inconveniently under Irish bureaucracy for the last few weeks, I’m already posting a couple of longer entries. Thus, some random thoughts, yeah?

We’re on the train, and because of the scenery, deep dark, plowed fields, white sheep with black faces, groves of thin tall evergreens mixed with deciduous, standing water, canals, I have the oddest feeling of vertigo as we travel south when I’m convinced we’re traveling north. The sun is rising on the left, proving that we are indeed going south, unless the world has reversed itself, and it could happen, but as we travel, I’m reminded of trains and drives going north to Mount Vernon, WA, Syracuse, NY. The world has reversed itself, right?

We’re waiting for the vegetarian restaurant to open on a winding continental street with brick, new modern construction, stone, slanted roofs and school boys passing in uniform blazers. I’m using the iPhone for what it is truly meant -- to find Heaven, a poem about fish by Rupert Brooke (http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/heaven.html), to show Scott that yes, some poems, which are very good poems, are funny.

Ok, great thing about Ireland: In a crowded bar? Want another Guinness? Stick your finger in the air, and another Guinness shall appear. A lovely couple from Cork who hate Dublin told us that at this fantastic show by Cat Scratch Fever.

On a busy, commercial street, with wide, wide sidewalks, wide enough to be streets themselves, a four piece group, guitar case opened in front of them, gather a crowd as they play. From down the street marches a marching band, all in uniform, led by a woman with a large gold umbrella. They part through the crowd, and the two bands, still playing their separate songs, stare at one another for a moment until on some unseen cue, the marching band switches songs to that of the four piece group, perfectly in time, and they jam together, ending on the exact same note, at the exact same time, as the crowd grows larger and larger with whistles and cheers.

You know how it rains? Just in general? Anywhere? It rains in Cork as well. However, in Cork water also just hangs out in the air. The sun will be bright and shiny, and the wind will come up, and this water which was there all along will start spritzing around your head, just playing, never hitting the ground. It’s the weirdest thing.

Saturday night, we saw Milk and Jade. They’re jazz meets urban, and they’re brilliant. I think Dana Leong may be able to play the cello while standing on his head. He can definitely play bent over double, afro brushing the floor.

This magnificent creation was made by me using bar coasters. I call it Jazz Hands.

Someone told us that late teens to early twenties Irish women’s evening fashion looks like Easter eggs. In truth, a lot of taffeta and satin in bright blues, greens, yellows, and reds do hop around the dance floor, but I think it’s more peacock-like. I’m making up a word, everyone: peacocking. Ah, damn. It’s already in the urban dictionary. Well, that’s disappointing.

Early events are filled with jazz enthusiasts, those who know the difference between New Orleans jazz, side-men quartets, boogie woogie, and big band. The late night crowd, though. . . . It’s midnight, and a very cool, very scat group just started playing. The lead singer wears a red bow tie and a cardigan. The crowd thunders, packed, body to body, a few facing the stage, a couple of girls dancing ,but everyone else drinking, shouting conversations blurring together, drowning out the band, and it’s like this everywhere, the jazz just a background to the party. There’s a desperation the way they drink, Guinness a constant flow from the bar, the way they laugh, head thrown back, mouth wide, faces red, the way they pretend not to notice who’s watching, who’s pushed as they tug and pull at one another in mock war and dance. I’ve seen it in Dublin too, and I sense an unspoken anger that weaves all of them together just below the forced, purposeful cheer and good nature.

Turns out that the difference between a castle like, oh say, the Blarney Castle (Actually the McCarthy Castle. Blarney was a word coined by Queen Elizabeth in exasperation at negotiations.) and jails of a certain era, like, just for the hell of it, Corcaigh Gaol, built in the 19^th century, closed in the 1920s after spending time as an all women’s jail, is very little. They’re a bit drafty, a bit dark, and both look like my concept of a castle, though the decorations vary just a bit and Blarney Castle, unlike the jail, is missing a roof. The jail has also been populated with life-sized figures, some of which are just freaky, but the castle is right by a Druid sacrificial alter, the Witches Stone, and Fairy Glenn. The castle is very difficult to breach because of the thickness of the walls and the presence of rock underneath said walls. When Cromwell first tried to take it, his troops relied on the guaranteed hospitality of the region which required anyone who asked to be given refreshments. The pretended to hunt a deer, knocked on the door, and discovered that hospitality was only given when the master was in residence. At the time he was in residence in the Cork jail. And thus, we spent Sunday peeking at the political, the destitute, and the pagan faces of Cork. I was wearing high heeled boots because they didn’t fit in my suitcase.

My feet still hurt.