Author: DJB

Why Do You Hate Your Knife?…

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…and other tidbits of cultural commentary from an American in Ireland. On our second night in Dublin we were enjoying a wonderful dinner in the historic Tailors Hall headquarters of An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland.  I had the pleasure of sitting between the An Taisce past-president and a board member born in that far-away Irish town of Knoxville, Tennessee.  (His wife is Irish and as a software engineer he had the freedom to work from home.)  It was a delightful evening filled with laughter from the witty conversation.  I was on my best behavior, so I was surprised when all of a sudden my Irish seatmate – a distinguished botanist – turns to me and says, “Why do you hate your knife?” In typical American fashion, I was using my knife and fork to cut my food then placing the knife on the side of the plate while switching the fork to my right hand to eat.  She proceeded to give me a lesson on “eating Irish style” so that the fork stayed …

Irish History: As Fresh as Today’s News

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As part of today’s International Conference of National Trusts, I joined a tour into the countryside to explore a bit of Irish history and see rehabilitation and interpretive efforts at work. Our host for the conference, An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland, owns a 1748 canal running through Ireland’s valley of the kings along the River Boyne.  The canal is under restoration and we had a chance to meet with the energetic project manager and learn about his work. The lock at the top is where the salt water from the sea meets the fresh water of the river.  The picture below is a historical view from the An Taisce web site of the canal in operation. This important part of the Irish attempt to capitalize on the Industrial Revolution was only one of the sites we visited.  I mentioned earlier in the week about seeing the silver at Christ Church Cathedral donated by King William in honor of his victory in Ireland that solidified his hold on the English throne.  Today, we visited …

Heritage of the World in Trust

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Every two years the world’s preservation and heritage conservation community comes together for the International Conference of National Trusts, a wonderful gathering of colleagues and friends working together across the globe to protect, enhance and responsibly enjoy our planet’s fragile heritage.  To read my full post on the opening of ICNT13, check out the PreservationNation blog on the National Trust web site. More to come… DJB

Santiago Calatrava’s Dublin Bridges (And More) By Dawn’s Early Light

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I am blessed with two talented children who teach me so much every day.  Claire has an imaginative and artistic eye that she uses to great effect in her photography of buildings and landscapes.  Andrew has been fascinated by architecture since he was a toddler and stood in our hall to carefully run his hand over the curved beaded siding on our wall.  As a preservationist and father, I love talking with them about their passions. So when Andrew texted me on Friday morning to say, “Dad, there are two Santiago Calatrava-designed bridges in Dublin,” I knew they must be special.  I wanted to see them not only based on Andrew’s message, but because I had seen the Spanish-born Calatrava’s Milwaukee Art Museum (a building I’ll be in again in a few weeks) and was intrigued as to  how he handled his designs in this city of bridges. To make a long story short, I left in dawn’s early light this morning and went on a 1 1/2 hour walk, beginning at Calatrava’s James Joyce …

Dublin, By Day and Night

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During last evening’s three-hour ringing of the bells at Christ Church Cathedral here in Dublin (apparently, a Friday evening tradition), I looked out the window to focus on the music and noticed the beautiful sunset.  I raced out of the hotel and took a few pictures to capture in my mind the wonderful juxtaposition of the bell ringing and the Irish sunset on the medieval portion of the city. Today was all business, but we had a chance to conduct it in wonderful space.  An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland, is our host this week and our INTO meeting today was in their headquarters – the old Tailors Hall.  I took a few pictures, including the view out the window from my seat.  I will talk more about the meetings in follow-up posts, but wanted to include the photos of the Hall as a post for today. Enjoy the photographs. More to come… DJB

An Afternoon of Dublin Cathedrals

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I arrived in downtown Dublin mid-morning local time with the better part of the day free before my meetings began for the International National Trusts Organisation (INTO).  We’re here because An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland, is hosting the 13th International Conference of National Trusts. So with the city’s two cathedrals located just steps from my hotel, I awoke from a short nap and headed out to explore these great historic landmarks.  (And as I’m writing this, my connection with the cathedrals continue, as I’m listening to the late afternoon peal of 19 bells from the Christ Church bell tower.) Christ Church Cathedral (pictured at the top of the post) was my first stop.  This is the Anglican-Episcopalian cathedral of the Church of Ireland and it dates from 1030, when Viking Dublin’s first cathedral was built on the site.  The current building took its present shape in 1180, and was extensively remodeled in the 1870s. It is a beautiful fall day in Dublin, so the light was streaming into the building through the stained …

It breaks your heart

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A. Bartlett Giamatti said it best. “It breaks your heart.  It is designed to break your heart.  The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.“ Giamatti – the former president of Yale and the great commissioner of baseball who banned Pete Rose for life and then died of a heart attack 8 days later – was writing about an earlier Red Sox loss on the last day of the season many years ago.  But the “breaking your heart” line applies in all sorts of baseball situations. Friday evening, on the last day of my summer vacation before heading back to work, the MLB-worst Washington Nationals played the division leading St. Louis Cardinals like they were equals.  Young Nationals “ace” John Lannan matched recently acquired and crafty veteran John Smoltz pitch-for-pitch through a well-played ball game that took only a little over two …

All the King’s Men…and the Health Care Debate

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On Saturday of our vacation it rained hard all day as the remnants of Hurricane Bill sent showers our way.  With no opportunity for biking or canoeing, Candice and I pulled out the 1949 Academy Award winning movie All the King’s Men starring Broderick Crawford and settled in for an afternoon with Willie Stark, Sadie Burke, and Jack Burden. I had a high school English teacher who loved Southern literature, so my first introduction to this powerful Robert Penn Warren novel came early in life.  I’ve read it on several occasions since then but it has been a long time since I’ve revisited the tale of political idealism gone wrong.  Seeing the movie – which won Best Movie, a Best Actor award for Crawford and a Best Supporting Actress award for Mercedes McCambridge as Sadie Burke – was a timely reminder that demagoguery is part of the American experience and not something new as part of the current health care debate. Willie has many memorable lines in the movie.  One that I’ve always remembered is …

The Sun Shines and the Nats Sign Strasburg

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I went to bed last evening around 11:40 p.m. after checking to see if the Washington Nationals had signed #1 draft choice Stephen Strasburg.  They had not. I awoke this morning and checked the Nats icon on my blackberry to find…YES, they pulled it off!  And for ONLY a little over $15 million.  The sun is indeed shining over baseball in the District today. Writing in the Washington Post, Tom Boswell talked about Washington’s baseball redemption. Few teams have ever needed a watershed event more than the Nationals. And no town in baseball has needed a validation and a fresh start more than Washington. On Monday night, at 11:58:43 p.m., both the team and the town got their wish. Just 77 seconds before a witching midnight deadline, the franchise that so often gets kicked when it is down and the town that is constantly accused of baseball’s original sin (being Washington) proved that it could do something big and difficult and right. The Nats signed Stephen Strasburg, probably the most heralded young pitcher of the …

Good Roots Music On the Web

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Even on vacation I can’t spend all my time enjoying the beauty of the river.  So I went online this morning and came across one new roots music blog and was reminded of another old favorite.  I thought I’d share them with you. The new find is called Fiddlefreak Folk Music Blog, written by a musician and artist on the west coast named Stuart Mason.  I found his recent post on singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz to be a great introduction to someone who seems worth checking out – just as his blog promised.  Visit the site and see if you find some new music that’s worth exploring. The old favorite is the website No Depression, which is the online version of the late and lamented magazine of the same name.  (The title is taken from the 1930s Carter Family tune, They’ll Be No Depression in Heaven, which could be just as appropriate in 2009.)   No Depression was a great magazine covering the broad area called Americana, alt-country, or roots music.  That tradition is bravely carried …