I hope I’m never enough of a jet setter to get over the strangeness of waking up in one country and going to bed in another. Home from the Galway Arts Festival in Galway City, Ireland, where I saw the Waterboys, Kila, James Grant, and the extraordinary Junebug Symphony, a blending of dance, acrobatics and slapstick visual humor (appropriately, as the principal cast member is Charlie Chaplin’s grandson). Would have liked to have squeezed in more, but I had a little presentation of my own to give, which turned out to be astonishingly well attended — sold out completely, in a venue that holds 350 officially, and I think we crammed a few more in on top of that (and still had to turn people away), and this in a country in which my work does not even appear. Talk was well received, from what I could tell — laughter in mostly the right places, and many questions during the q-and-a, and afterwards I sold out a large stack of posters that I’d brought with me, thinking I was bringing far too many.
Other highlights: some sightseeing in the countryside one afternoon… a couple of hours spent in a hotel bar with a man named Kevin McClory, who the James Bond buffs among you may recognize as the co-author of Thunderball, as well as the (oft-challenged) owner of rights to same, who came to the show and wanted to interview me but mostly ended up being interviewed by me…and many, many late hours in the Festival’s after hours club, drinking many a Guiness. All in all, well worth the time, so big thanks to everyone who made it possible, especially Rose, whose idea it was to bring me to Ireland in the first place, and Cathal, who got me to and from the Shannon airport on time, and Aileen the fabulous artist’s minder, and Claire the stage manager, and of course Eamon and Adam and the rest of the tech crew, and, well, everyone else whose names I’m forgetting. And a shout out to my pal Sebastian the builder’s lad, and the rest of you’s at De Burgos. Slainte!