Dublin Details

Dublin is not a pretty city, like San Francisco or San Diego. It is not as overwheming as London or New York, and it lacks the dour, handsome dignity of Edinburgh. But what it does have is an abundance of interesting architectural details. In this respect, it reminds me a bit of Boston. Here are just a few such details - although they were photographed on a gray day, I think the interesting bits come through. The "Dublin Shots" link should take you to the Picasa site if you want to see more. {Warning: As of Tuesday 10/7 I am only up to day 3 out of 15 so this is far from complete at this point.}



Door and weather vane from Dublin Castle

Chimney Pots, Dublin

Travelling Once more

We are on our way again after a long gap.

I don't propose to post exquistly detailed and exquisitely boring chronological accounts of what we did each day during our trip to Ireland, Wales, and England - that goes in the travel journal files. (Well, it is boring to most folks, anyway.) But there are so many little things and pictures to share. The logo above will identify such postings which may be nothing more than bullet points. If you, Dear Reader, want to know more or see more on any of these topics just leave a comment.The first batch:

• Irish newspapers are in one of two formats, tabloid or true broadsheets - 8 columns, maybe 18 or 20 inches wide. I don't think the US still has any in that size left and I am glad of it, since I lack the skills to cope with a paper that big. But I must announce sadly that the content is far better over here.I can read everything of interest in the Daily Courier in less time than I can get through 2 pages in the Irish Times, despite skipping most of the local interest stories.


• Irish television is completely uninspiring and the news is only slightly better. The three biggest stories this week are the upcoming vote on the Lisbon Treaty (every pole has a Vote Yes and a Vote No poster), corrupt and greedy financial officials (so what else is new?) and the Championship Ploughing Meet - a very intense celebration of rural skills and values that is amazingly important to people. The man at the next counter at the bus station was clearly struggling with a choice between paying his bills and taking his family to the ploughing competion - he finally peeled off nearly everything in his wallet to buy the tickets.


• An area in which the Irish show superiority is in their manhole covers and other Art Underfoot. There are unexplained plaques all over Dublin, and Galway has excellent manholes.

Fun Places to Take Visitors in the Prescott area:

My aunt, who is herself new to the area has some visitors coming at a time that we cannot be around to share. She asked me for a list of places that we might want to take them.

There are all the big places on the tourist maps - and there are plenty of them! There are also the music, theater and art events listed in the Daily Courier. But this recent post from Walking Prescott reminds me that there are many other sights prized mainly by locals:

Walking Prescott: Western kitsch galore!
The Lone Spur and Zekes

Where and what else is a good but lesser known event or restaurant or store or what-have-you?
Nominations from me:

1. The Petroglyph Hill in Vista Park, Prescott
2. The new Slick Rock trail in the Dells off Heritage Park
3. Lynx Lake and German Night at Lynx Lake Cafe
4. Peavine Trail
5. The Equipoise statue, the Library Lizard, and the Yavapai College Lizard by Heather Johnson Beary

I have a lot more ideas too - let's see what we can come up with!

A Century Ago Facebook Was Named The Penny Postcards

Elizabeth Bernstein wrote an August Wall Street Journal column titled “How Facebook Ruins Friendships”. She writes about the way Facebook and Twitter and their kin have reduced the actual time spent for friendship maintenance by using it for an obsessive urge to share the utter minutia of life. We don’t really need to know what all of our friends did for lunch or what their video game scores were… but if we primarily communicate that way, we are not likely to discuss serious or complex matters either.

The author made some very good points about the social network phenomenon that I will have to give some thought to (if I ever get caught up with Facebook and email.)

But I suddenly realized I have a very closely parallel phenomenon documented in my postcard albums. From roughly 1905 until the outbreak of World War I, the western world was swept by a tremendous fashion for exchanging postcards. It was very similar to Facebook – the messages were short and semi-public, and there were competitive urges to gather a lot of pen-pals, (the “friend list”) of the day. Pictures were a large component of the fad – though the appeal of some of the images on the cards escapes me as thoroughly as does the appeal to send Facebook quizzes and farm animals (whatever that is about!)

I went to the first album on the shelf, (happened to be Pre-WWI Holiday Greetings) and found one more common factor. A century ago folks didn’t have enough interesting stuff to fill the communication channel either!

Here is an timeless example:

The sender has picked out an attractive card with a simple clean design. But when we turn it over and look at the message, all Ivy could come up with is "best wishes from friend Ivy". T'was dull, Ivy

Not all cards still have much appeal to me - this religious themed birthday card is not my cup of tea. "A Birthday Themed Message from the BIBLE" with its proverb never got sent. Maybe the purchaser realized it would be near the castor bean oil in popularity.

The next example is another attractive card - with, I guess something timeless in the difficulty in thinking of something to say to the grandparents. The message "To my dear Grandma on her birthday from her loving Martha Ann" was not informative bit probably appreciated anyway.

The card after this one reflects one of the aspects of the Postcard Craze - the exchanges that sometimes got rather out of control... The Thanksgiving card is embossed with a yellow and brow ear of corn. On the back it is marked "2" and starts: "Your cards were new to me and beautiful but my dear you did not owe me five. don't return so many one will do for me. don't mind how many I send - for I forget after I do send them." (and more that is hard to read.) It is one of the longest messages in my abum

But ultimately this whole message is like sending stuff to other Facebook people just because you can, not because you really think the recipient cares. Or like forwarding the email of the 500 lb dog or the albino deer or the work cartoon that you have seen three times because - like the anonymous card writer from a century ago "don't mind how many I send - for I forget after I do send them".

The more things change, the more they stay the same!