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Dolly Mixture

Dolly Mix 25.06.10 – Pride Parade, Zombie Walk & a website in 24 hours

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FullCodePress

Absolutely love the idea of FullCodePress. Get a team together and build a website for a charity in 24 hours for free. If I don’t do something like that between now and this time next year, I’ll certainly get involved next June. Progress pics here. Thanks Stu.

Congrats to the team from my beloved BSc in Multimedia in DCU who scooped the overall prize at the Digital Hub’s ‘Best in Show‘ competition with their series of short films for the Pashli charity.

Come along and join the Pride Parade on Saturday at 2 from the Garden of Remembrance – it’s always spectacular!

Or if your more enticed by things of a dead nature there’s a zombie walk happening at the same time from Stephen’s Green. Get the full info here.

Console’s annual benefit gig is on at the NCH next weekend. Jack L, Maynooth Gospel Choir and Acabella doing the honours. What’s stopping you?!

Apple-loving Stephen Fry on iPhone 4. Blog post entitled ‘A Welcome and a Warning‘.

Thoughts

Wish you were here

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At the risk of having very much over-sold Cerys Matthews’ gig the other night (and in turn her new album) I feel a duty to write a quick post that will outline part of the reason why her gig was so moving for me the other night.

The 21st of June – the longest day of the year – holds some bad memories for me. In short, while en route to a family funeral on June 21st 2007 I answered a call from my dad where he told me that his cousin whom I was very close to has passed away. A bad day, thankfully I haven’t seen the like of since and hopefully will never see again.

I’m not sure if it was the unexpectedness of her passing or the fact that there were two hugely emotional losses so close together that I feel I haven’t yet gotten over her death.

Sitting in the National Library on Monday night as Cerys sang the opening bars of Spancil Hill with her acoustic guitar I was transported directly back to sitting in her beautiful cottage in Clare around Christmas. She would organise a gathering of the family circles to sing songs, read poems and tell stories. No televisions, no phones, just people enjoying each other’s company and talents. It was magic.

The same week I find myself wishing hard she was still around for a chat, a cup of tea and a slice of her honest opinion.

Isn’t it amazing the impact people can have on you?

Wherever you are AnnaMay, I hope the sun is shining on you. Wish you were here.

Reviews

Go see His & Hers

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It’s getting quite a lot of coverage since being released last weekend but I enjoyed it so much I think it’s worth another wee push. I was lucky enough to see a preview of it a few months back in the Lighthouse cinema in Smithfield which I think might be just the place to try see it yourself being more cosy and intimate.

His & Hers is a documentary that follows the life of an Irish woman in the midlands from toddler to pensioner but told through the eyes of over 70 different ladies. It’s a really interesting concept for a movie provoking all sorts of questions while being beautifully shot and edited. A film with so many different characters must have been a major challenge to piece together coherently but it is done so excellently and the film flows seamlessly as a complete narrative.

The movie has been receiving a fantastic reaction both nationally internationally, most notably picking up an award at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. It’s funny, entertaining, moving and something that most Irish people will identify with – after all, between the lot of us we’ve all surely had a grandmother, a mother, a sister or a daughter at some stage of our lives.

It’s on nationwide release since last week. You can find out more about where to catch it here and meet the cast of 70 fun and fascinating ladies here. Thanks to Element Pictures for the chance to see it. Enjoy :)

Dolly Mixture

Dolly Mix 22.06.10 – Paddy Games, Tour de Picnic, eCSStender

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Just when you thought sillyness had left our shores for another summer, the Paddy Games comes along. It takes place on August 14th in Cork city and is open for registration.

The common man’s games, Paddy Games founding principle is taking silliness very seriously.

Events include Retro Running (i.e. Backwards running), Irish Dancing Hurdles and Mobile Phone throwing.

Fancy free entry to this year’s Electric Picnic in exchange with raising some cash for Temple Street Children’s Hospital? Check out the ‘Tour de Picnic‘ – essentially it’s a 90km charity cycle from Dublin to EP in Stradbally, Co. Laois. Raise €500 and you’re in. Info is available here.

The text shadow is becoming the glossy button effect of old in the web design world at the moment. More and more designers and developers are dabbling in the visual gems that CSS 3 affords despite the fact that CSS 2.1 spec has yet to be signed off. An article on A List Apart today highlights the dangers of ‘forking’ that this adoption of these proposes and offers the solution of a new JavaScript library called eCSStender.

I don’t know how I feel about this. While I agree that forking isn’t ideal I don’t think that loading pages with yet more JS libraries is the acceptable path to take either. What do you think? Will you be using eCSStender? Are you using CSS 2.1 and 3.0 properties yet?

Reviews

Beg, borrow or blag TIR by Cerys Matthews

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I’m literally just in the door from an evening of Celtic poetry and song with Cerys Matthews at the National Library on Kildare Street.

I wasn’t sure what to expect but after seeing and hearing Mike Scott & Co give the work of Yeats musical treatment earlier this year I had a hunch it could be pretty good. It was that. That and more.

Cerys was armed with a huge and long love of Yeats, Burns and Thomas and an amazing ability to deliver a ballad. I was hooked from the first few bars of her opening ballad. Her gorgeous delivery of Spancil Hill brought me back to my own childhood – in scary vivid fashion – to when I would play a set of traditional tunes for my grandmother (by request) on my keyboard. I think it was second or third song on my playlist and I can’t wait to get home to have a look for my little setlist and handwritten sheet music.

Anyway, back to the gig. Having the memory of a goldfish at times I sadly can’t recall names of songs of the setlist, most of all the beautiful Welsh hymn and traditional songs she treated us to in between affectionate readings of her favourite poems. The Welsh ballads brought me back to my home turf in Ballyvaughan, Co.Clare where an impromptu “Welsh weekend of music” has been taking place every Spring for years. I wonder could the travelling songlovers bring her with them in 2011?

Something magical happens when a singer takes up a song that means something to them. They don’t sing it from the throat, it comes from the centre of their being, almost like they expend part of their soul in the expression and delivery. It’s powerful feel, it’s powerful to hear and it was there in bucketloads tonight.

I could have listened to her for hours. Thanks Cerys.