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  • Call the script doctor

    Robert Towne in Galway at last week's Film Fleadh. Robert Towne is the man Hollywood calls when a film runs into a problem. The Oscar-winning writer talks to Michael Dwyer p
Arts

  • Greatest hits: essential Morricone

    Once Upon a Time in the West (BMG) To really appreciate Morricone you need to hear his soundtracks in their entirety. This, one of the most iconic scores in film history, is a good start. Cheyenne creates an eerie atmosphere with banjo and out-of-tune piano, while Man With a Harmonica is the most recognisable theme in the western genre. p

  • Freedom of Expression

    Gavin Friday has formulated his lifelong passion for German music, art, literature and film into a personal tribute show - with the help of a German beer, he tells Brian Boyd p

  • About Towne: the screenwriter on . . .

    Advice to young scriptwriters Do your damnedest to get involved with things and people that you really care about p

  • Abbey changes will sit comfortably

    Art Scape Deirdre Falvey The Abbey Theatre is to change its seating configuration early next year in a move to improve its auditorium for both audience and performers. p
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  • Then he took Manhattan

    Whether designing Dublin's docklands or creating the new World Trade Center, Daniel Libeskind lives up to his title of 'starchitect', writes Sean O'Driscoll p

  • Horizons

    Principles of permaculture If you're burning (in a non-polluting way) to know more about ecological self-sufficiency, enrol in the Introduction to Permaculture course offered by Cultivate. Featuring Graham Strouts, author and permaculture teacher at the Kinsale Further Education College, the course will inform about ethics and the principles of permaculture, the home garden, trees and woodlands and community responses to peak oil and resource depletion. p
Book ReviewsBack to Top

  • The diva and the damage

    Biography Was this the Peggy Lee I knew? Only my sunny disposition and saintly tolerance enable me to accept Peter Richmond's portrayal of her, all the way from 1920 to 2002, as quite authentic. Was she really such a demanding perfectionist, such a relentless "control freak"? p

  • The word hunters' quarry

    Poetry There is a moment in the final poem of Mary O'Malley's fine new collection, A Perfect V, when a hawk catches a plover in mid-air. The encounter is sudden and lethal and becomes the perfect metaphor for the act of writing: p

  • Taking it all in

    Poetry Marginal Economy takes up where recent collections in the Peppercanister series left off - in appraisal of the conditions of life and of how we should respond. First Night identifies the recurrent issue. As Kinsella settles into his room in Baggot Street, he meets a stranger who goes on about the early days, 1916 and the founding of the State, but ignores what actually happened thereafter. That failure is endemic. Having to interpret the past and assess the future is a unifying metaphor. p

  • A century of mistrust

    Iran At the end of his comprehensive book Iran Today, Dilip Hiro comes to the obvious conclusion that a major crisis over Iran's nuclear programme is inevitable. p

  • Second coming of a European master

    Fiction Alfred, the narrator, an aspiring geologist, has an ambition, to find a meteorite. It sounds simple but it isn't. On one, more immediate level, by locating a meteorite and taking a sample away with him will help him complete his thesis. The examiners will be impressed and his academic future will be secured. But there is also the laying to rest of the ghost of his scientist father, who fell to his death when Alfred was only seven years old. Alfred's life has been a sequence of disappointments. He has also wanted to be a musician. Although his mother does try to help him, she is an inhibiting presence. p

  • Credit where it's due

    Literary Criticism The journey of publisher-scholar Michael Adams, from his homeplace among the Fermanagh hills by way of Belfast and the groves of Dublin, where he was made an honorand by Trinity College last December, is one of flesh and blood and the passion of the mind, made manifest in this handsome festschriften assembled by his work colleagues. p

  • How Prague became important

    History The city of Prague was a particularly exciting and dangerous place to be at the end of the 16th century. In 1583, it once again became the seat of the Holy Roman Empire. p

  • Opportunity knocks twice in the arts

    Loose LeavesCaroline Walsh Two exciting new jobs opened up this week on the arts and literary front. With poet Pat Boran busy in other areas, including his job at the Dedalus Press, the post of Programme Director of the Dublin Writers Festival came up this week. p

  • Paperbacks

    The Irish Times reviews a selection of paperbacks p
Seen & HeardBack to Top

  • Get dirty with Diarmuid

    TV Review Fionola Meredith Garden makeover shows normally rely on the "ta-da!" moment when that barren patch of half-dead grass, last seen adorned with a couple of rusting toddler trikes and a wheelie bin, is suddenly transformed into a lush, tasteful urban oasis. Cue sighs of amazement and happiness from the delighted owners, who immediately invite all their friends over for a big showing-off session, while smugly quaffing Chardonnay beside the new water feature. p

  • Beirut and the Border

    Radio ReviewPaul Cullen War, unexpected and brutal, rained down on the radio schedules this week, filling the airwaves with eyewitness reports, punditry, analysis and fairly predictable side-taking. p
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