Mermaid on a toilet roll dispenser

Help this man's need to have plastic cows filling his home

I think we should all probably support this.

Now we are one

This is a picture of a small penguin who waited for two weeks for his mate to return from the sea to share egg sitting duties with him. Finally, hunger and desperation took over and he abandoned his beloved egg and headed off to save himself. Thank you, Big Picture, God dammit.

Small hairless three legged one eyed dog, dies.

Gus, the world's ugliest dog, is dead after a battle with cancer. I catsat the cat version of this dog last year, in Prospect heights. This dog looks considerably more appealing. But the one-eyed aspect reminds me of a cat acquaintance of mine once, called, predictably enough, One Eye. She was the queen of the feral neighbourhood in Portobello, Dublin.

Rest in peace, Gus.

Mother and child, London

Away we go

The edge of Chelsea

Tiny man takes the train

One of those Freddy's moments

More tales from tuesday night

What Carrie Dashow found on the night of November 4th.

Some days

Everyone's terribly excited

A Guardian-run flickr stream where anyone is invited to contribute a message for Obama. Here is a small curated view.

Have you seen these?

Barack Obama's photostream on Flickr (thanks, Andrew). Some candid shots of the core team on election night. Notice the lack of people milling about. Notice the calm air. The lack of booze. A few bottles of water on the table. Muted.

The transitional government website is change.gov and it's an interesting spot to have a dig around.

Meanwhile it feels tribal around here. Obama! I call. Obama! they call back.

His journey here

This is a half hour documentary about Barack Obama's life, with interviews from school and collegemates, colleagues, family and friends. Some great pictures, too. There is an audio download option.

It's difficult not to love this guy.

Election night outside Freddy's

Hot damn

It was only about a half hour after Obama was elected that I noticed it. There was just sheer jubilant joy in Brooklyn last night. We just celebrated all night long. It was so beautiful. Every passing car, every passing person, cheered and beeped as we danced together. What a night to be in America.

We cheered the cabs, they cheered back. We cheered the people passing by the corner of Freddy's. They cheered back. They joined us. We danced. People swung from lampposts. We cheered the department of sanitation truck. They cheered back. We cheered the NYPD (well, I did). They ooh ooh ooh'd back. Every time anybody said yaaaaaaay, the room lit up, alive, yaaaaaaying back.

We sang, we danced, we played, we danced, it was a wreck of jubilation, I am covered in glitter dust today, we kissed and hugged strangers, no one was a stranger last night. Today I hear the same sounds of New York outside this corner house and they sound softer, chirpier. Of course, the jackhammers are back, across the street. This house is a confluence of streetcorners, one of them being one of the busiest thoroughfares in Brooklyn. There are always jackhammers around.

This was no mere Democrat victory, mark that. Last night, something reached deeply into people's hearts and set them free. Last night, the word OBAMA meant love. Something extraordinary happened in America's soul last night. This is how it was, here in Brooklyn, on Dean street.

OBAMA

YYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. Hallelujah. Sleep well, folks. You can, tonight.

Today

It's festive around here, there's no two ways about it.

Tick tick tick

It's november 4th. Good morning.

The Day After

But you know, it is highly unlikely that Obama will actually turn into the little baby Jesus on November 5th, so there is likely to be tears and disappointment regardless.

The Day Before

New York: good place to be if he wins.
New York: good place to be if he loses.

Black Watch review

We went to see Black Watch at St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO on friday. Jesus I love DUMBO, my heart beats faster as I walk down Clark street. It was a crisp, clear afternoon, and we drank coffee as we walked under the Manhattan Bridge (the one I am in love with) and went to join the audience scene in the theatre.

It was quite a show. Very energetic, beautifully choreographed, and the first piece of theatre that I have seen that addresses the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict from the perspective of some of the soldiers from the Black Watch brigade, a 300 year old Scottish institution largely formed from Tayside working class men, who have fought "30 bloody Cullodens" in various warzones throughout the world, and how this one was different. The show was staged in traverse, ie. audience on either side of the performing area, which was a great idea for the dance sequences, but pretty terrible for the more intimate moments. They seemed to be using actual footage from the shock and awe raids, and at times the actors seemed tired, not surprisingly, given their extraordinary performance schedules on this show.

To be honest, the publicity for the show is a bit ridiculously heavy handed, but it is the kind of theatre that reconnects with one of theatre's lifeblood functions: to delve into the current affairs of our time, bring news stories to life, vividly, in ways that television or even film just cannot. There is a poetic licence available in theatre that is entirely particular to the stage, and a kind of language is created within the best productions, within which audience, actors and all can take off together and fly.

I am also some kind of a sucker for non-showyoffy men singing in groups, and there was plenty of singing in this show. The show has been running for two years all over the world, and this run in St. Ann's is being billed as the last New York city performances. If you care about theatre, you probably just have to go.

A subway serenade

Today I became a Clusterflocker

I wonder what comes next?

Turning beauty

McCain the slave legacy today

Here's the too short video.

These Absences

It has been so long since I have posted here regularly. There are endless things I can say. Lately it seems to be about this New York city reality that I have been living again this past 10 days. I have been busy with small things and thinking around the corners of big things. And real actual things getting done, also, which Takes Up Time. I do a lot of things, a lot of different stuff, and so sometimes this blog is a regular part of my routine, a regular mode of communication, and sometimes it is not. I still love it, though. And that has nothing to do with my stats, which vary wildly from time to time, depending on who is linking to me, and how often my regulars show up. This is not a one topic blog either, so it's a bit like showing up for coffee in your friend's flat, and having a chat, getting jiggy on a topic, around here, or getting outright talked at about something Lucy Feels Passionate About.

I hope you keep showing up. But whether you do or not, I am still here.

The last time I saw Richard

Richard I know you were here yesterday and I just want to tell you that well, goddammit.

My old man can turn on the stove

He has reinvented Prometheus for a new generation.

Insight

Here, 2

We're listening to Amy Winehouse Back to Black. The wine tastes of blackberries. It's the first freezing night since I got back to Brooklyn. This neighbourhood is familiar to me now, this house is familiar to me now, this man is familiar to me now, but there's an intimacy that is getting quieter, that seems to be wearing something in me out, slowly and quietly. New York still excites the living bollocks out of me but this time it is a low pulse, a far cry from the insatiable pull Manhattan had on me when I first came here.

You get what you get, even when what you get is not what your heart desires. Isn't that amazing?

With all of its complication

I am very happy to be here.

Immigration

I'm blogging from the boarding area of Shannon airport, after clearing immigration with a pretty cool South American woman officer. These things can, and have, in my experience, been intense. Last year I was interrogated for over an hour, before they let me through. This time, she asked some straight up questions, I gave her some straight up answers, she looked at my 'story' on her big database, stamped me up straight off, and vigorously. It's a nice sound, the stamping of a passport by immigration officials. But sitting in that little corridor for the second time, I really wasn't in the humour for all that bollocks all over again, so I'm really glad it was short and sweet.

I have had so many epiphanies in this departure lounge. It's a strange environment for an epiphany. A real, literal holding area. After last november's grilling, I sat here and vibrated until they opened the plane and I got into pretzel mode. This time, I've forgotten to order the Indian vegan option (apparently it's great) but otherwise the epiphany is muted. Thoughtful. This departure lounge needs an art project, something softening, engaging, drawing in. That corridor also needs an art project, to soothe freaked out people trying to get their story together.

So, it is going to be one of those long afternoons today. I love those. It's the best kind of jetlag.

Sheesh

Interactivity.

Here is ... This is Where

Finally, my two still movies, Milla and Rose from the This is Where series, are online.

This is what they look like.

(Also viewable on the vimeo page, where they are a bit larger. Bear in mind that these works are intended for large sized projected installations. Feel free to purchase a dvd where you can view them in the comfort of your own sofa, on your lovely flatscreen telly.)

My day

I got a filling today and the anaesthetic injection contained adrenaline. At least that's what they say, I don't know, it was intense. Also, I got a puncture in town and had to get a taxi home. Now it is 12:35 am and I am about to put the first undercoat (already primed, last night) of paint on the hallway walls. It's going to be a long night.

Get your arse in the kitchen

with this.

Please forgive this momentary need for endless repetition

but seriously, cloud cuckooland. Cloud cuckooland. Cloud Cuckooland.

How Sheep Shit Made My Blog Mega

Ok it is an attention-grabbing headline, but I have to say that google brings visitors from all over the world to LUCY TAKES OFF to read and understand sheep shit better. I would say that currently, 5 % of my traffic comes from this source. I will shortly dedicate a full and in-depth post to the topic.

New Projects

I am working on assembling a few new projects from the ideas files, that I'm interested in diving into over the next few weeks. Dude. I have 28 immediately pressing minimised files on my dock right now, and I've just started looking through a whole new place I've been keeping ideas lately. Lucy Inhales Deeply.

Pedro

When I was 18, part of my extended scene included a dude called Pedro. He was about our age, probably 20, and he was homeless, living by selling and taking drugs, knocking on his clients and friends’ doors at 2 in the morning, asking if he could sleep on the couch. He was a friend of Tadhg, who shared a flat with Caroline and me.

I remember him calling and asking me to just look at his eyes, as he looked up to the light, his pupils huge and wide and black. Six tabs, I’ve just taken six tabs of acid, he said. I kicked him out. He stayed for a game of Trivial Pursuit once and I remember being amazed by his ability to answer every question and take the game comfortably. I hope he got hip to "Who wants to be a millionaire?" when it came around. Pedro. I met him on Grafton Street, or maybe it was Camden street, about 3 years ago, in 2005. I was so surprised to see him, even more surprised that I recognised him, I hadn't thought of him even once since then. Pedro! I shouted, and went to greet him. He looked at me with horror. Don’t call me by that name. That’s not my name anymore. My name is Peter.

Slice o' life

So I find myself in a village where the local small shop is dying slowly from a trade that has turned away from shopping local (what's that?) to once a week car treks to the 24 hour Dunnes Stores, where they buy Everything. The local small shop used to be run exclusively by a single old dude, but he seems to have mostly retired now, and a female relative runs the shop.

But she's not there all the time because the sheer living reality of operating a slowly dying business is probably squeezing the life out of her, and so she hires this teenager to take care of things on the weekends. This teenager is cool you know, we have a chat of some sort whenever I go in, it's part of the appeal of nipping down to the shop, the whole casual blah blah of it all.

So I bring Stinky Yappy (what a charmer) for a walk down to get some Donegal Catch haddock fillets, and while I'm there, the old man comes into the shop and is kind of spruced up and cheery and he makes a bee line for the teenager. As my attention is drawn to the cola bottles it seems to me that dude is pretty delighted that teenager is around and wants to ask her questions and you know, be around her. Now, dude is like, 85 years old. Teenager is like, oh I suppose 19. She responds by shutting down and shutting up. It's a really common Irish teenaged response to weirdy old men. I did it myself sister, exactly the same way. And you know, he's never going to try to do something physically to her, and he probably won't even say anything explicitly freaky to her, but it's just all about the way he vibes in her presence, and the way she is clearly wondering why the fuck she has to cope with this shit for ten euros an hour.

Brought me back.

The beautiful beautiful Tube

Boots at Bacon

Here's Grace!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Alert

Anyone who hasn't yet taken the whippet tour, I strongly recommend it. Opportunities will be available after the tour, for forms to be filled in where you can testify to how the whippets have changed your life, etc. Please wait patiently while we process your testimony.

Loving Tar

I am currently in a deep quiet slow love with an old alpha male black german shepherd, called Tar. I've had a tough history with Tar. He tried to eat me the last time I was charged with taking care of him alone. There was no aggression in him, just simple desire to satisfy his appetite. So I carried this huge black wolf dog by the scruff of the neck an acre down the field, my heart beating intense and wide, and threw him into a kennel, where I more or less kept him for the rest of the week. That was 2 years ago.

Lately we've been having gentler times, I've been helping him with his ears. He has a tough time with his ears. I squirt some squirty stuff in there and get massaging. He makes these sounds. They reach into me. I feel the soothing. I feel it.

And this week, starting slowly, I've been taking him for walks, and playing with him, rubbing his head, getting friendly with him. The way he looks at me when I bring him for walks. He doesn't usually get out for long walks like this, not since they retired him in the police service, which is how he got back here. I love this dog. I love him. I am thrilled when I see his eyes light up. I love him.

£2 each person

Dude

Family picnic at Stansted airport, between the departure lounge and the gates, in the smoking cubicle

Oh. This

rocks.

Ok something keeps coming back to me since the debate

like a piece of undigested mouse viscerum. And it is Obama's answer to a question which quoted Ronald Reagan's framing of Russia as 'evil'. Do you think Russia is evil? he was asked. And he replied that no, he didn't think Russia was evil, but that it had done an evil behaviour. Jesus. Jesus.

Here

where I am alone, where it is pouring pouring rain, where the yappy one is quiet, where I have spent the day crying, where I don't know my own heart, where I am listening to Gillian Welch who can soothe the really out of the way bits like I can soothe Tar's ears just to hear the sounds of relief and bliss he makes when I do that, where I discover in a moment of crazy serendipity that this video was uploaded by Phil, the Clusterflocker, a blog I've been hanging around in lately, where I feel a flash of warmth that says hey, psst, it's here! It's here! It's here.

Self portrait in Hoxton Square

Where I fell in love again

Talkin, 2

So the biggest sleaze that McCain threw at Obama on tuesday was the $3 million overhead projector he tried to secure for a planetarium in Chicago, but apparently failed, depressingly. My ears perked up at the mention of this overhead projector. I've been using overhead projectors lately, and I would love to explore the possibilities afforded by one that cost 3 million dollars. I bet it rocks. I find it interesting that nobody in America seems to find it bizarre and disturbing that McCain would strip back all public funding except for the care of returned veterans. Seriously, do you not find this incredibly bizarre? From a European perspective, this is nuts. From a Scandinavian perspective, I think it is hardly comprehensible.

So this little weak bit of rhetoric exposed more about his own value system than Obama's. Overhead projector for kids and adults to learn about the cosmos in a planetarium? I certainly fucking hope so.

And while we're on the subject, all this talk about bringing soldiers home "in glory and not defeat" - does this not creep the fuck out of any human being who is not bloodthirsty? I mean, jesus.

I am a Brooklyn-bound L train

You know, I was never one for either The Smiths or Radiohead, though I have had my moments with Radiohead, but this song is captivating. Anyone know what it's called?

Bizarrely enough, the very first song I ever busked was Creep, belting it out on the Bedford L platform while my guitar-playing French dude friend did his best to be heard above all the machine noise. Waves and waves of indifference. It kind of rocked, in a very weird way. So it was Creep and there was one other song I can't remember right now, this was 5 years ago in new york, and the other song I only knew one verse of, but it rocked, and I figured that people would be gone by the time the verse was over. Those L trains were sparse though, so pretty fast we moved into town. We'd start playing on the beat of the doors opening. I can't remember what that one-verse song was, now. Dude.

I bought my ticket last night. I fly to New York on the 17th.

Talkin

Somebody needs to send an email to both teams in this election, explaining what the word 'oversight' actually means. Oh, and also if they could please finally drop the cute undergrad little 'wall street main street' thing, that would be cool. Thanks.

Dogherding update

We have been joined by another pigdog: pigdog 3. Pigdog 3 is yappy most of the time, unlike pigdogs 1 and 2, who are yappy only some of the time. It is an unfortunate turn of events.

Curated LUCY TAKES OFF whippet surf

For the casual visitor who has arrived at LUCY TAKES OFF today courtesy of a 'pumping udders' google search, or for those of you who have recently discovered this shindig, I highly recommend a peep through the LUCY TAKES OFF archives, beginning with a search for 'whippet'. You might want to look at, for instance...

Epithalamion for a pair of Brooklyn whippets

Romance

Ode to a fire escape

Whippet love: the musical

The whippet love series starts here, but you really don't want to miss any of it, there are lots.

There is a lot of posts devoted to the whippet in this blog.

Not to put too fine a point on it

Somebody just farted. I think it was pigdog number two. But then, you're on the internet. You can't tell if I'm lying.

First there are kisses, then there are sighs

Jesus, now I'm blogging lousy Boy George videos, but really, isn't this song amazing?

I really don't think very much about Boy George but

his just-flat voice is just-flat in a really haunting kind of way. Anyway, I saw a few minutes of the current incarnation of this dude in the 15 minutes of telly I watched here yesterday (what can I say, it's satellite tv, it's a novelty) and today every time I go into the kitchen and see Ivy and Daisy the pure-black sweet wide eyed german shepherds staring at me, I have been singing the chorus to this song. Nothing on youtube captures the gorgeousness of the single line I have been singing: it's the way he bends the note on the last "make me cryyyyyyyy".

It is rocking my mind right now.

Cool article on the Great American Election Chessboard

by Michael Tomasky, who is pretty much running the Guardian coverage of the US Presidential elections. It's short, it's straight, it's simple.

Poochie mama

This week, I am a dogherdess, an animal husband, poochiemama to 9 dogs and 3 cats, 5 of whom are big high energied german shepherds. I have a favourite, she sleeps with me in my bed at night, but she's leaving tomorrow. Last night, she laid in my arms, on her back, her short legs sort of dangling in the air, as she rested her head on my chest. She is playing me like a fool. Here she is. Meet Dolly.

The problem with Obama

The problem with Obama is that he might only last four years, if he does get in. Unless he starts turning water to wine PRETTY FUCKING FAST after getting into the Oval office, people are going to be very, very disappointed.

A curated youtube surf

So we start here,

then we take a left,

go straight up for a bit,

then stop

and mosh suddenly.

Stop, listen to the heart beating.

It says, fly.

And then suddenly, we fall into the sea.

Last night as I lay dreaming...

So last night I dreamt of the Clintons. Bill AND Hillary.

Bill and I met somewhere, and ended up in his apartment suite in the basement of some large old house somewhere in New York. We talked a lot. I talked a lot with both Clintons. They did most of the talking. But with Bill, it was more like talking around. Specifically, around this incredible sexual chemistry that was happening in the room. God, I have rarely felt anything like this, and he was a figment of my imagination. Maybe that figures, really...

So it was intense, and his energy was intense, and I remember thinking that he was acting like a king who was used to his demands being satisfied by eager courtiers. I wasn't feeling like a courtier. I wanted to be woo'd. But the vibe was getting more and more intense, more and more difficult to resist. Fabulous. Eventually he had to leave to go somewhere, and I went to the bathroom.

Then Hillary showed up. She was totally unmoved by the presence of a young woman in her husband's New York apartment, and didn't ask for any explanations. I didn't really have any to give anyway, I didn't know why I was there, and thus far, nobody had had sex with anybody. I was hoping it wouldn't be with Hillary.

So Hillary and I went outside to a garden bench, and had a drink together, and chatted. She was good company, vivacious and mischievous. I wanted to tell her how great I thought she was, and it was a pity that this relaxed, funny side of her didn't come out much in the media. But there was an edge to it too, it was like a performance, a perfect performance. There was no way Hillary was thinking of this as a casual opportunity for friendliness and fun.

There is a website for this kind of stuff, you know. But BOTH Clintons? Have YOU ever dreamed of a Clinton?

Enniskillen: initial thoughts

I wrote this the day after the show opened, a few days ago...

So the show has opened in Enniskillen, at the old Portora Royal School, a 400 year old shindig that once educated the teenaged Sam Beckett and Oscar Wilde. It has been fun seeing today's teenaged boys - and a smattering of girls - interacting with the new rolling, low humming beast in their foyer. It is running there right now, and up to the 5th October, so if you happen to be in the viscinity, or feel like making a trip up there, Fermanagh is gorgeous, I recommend it, and Portora is a very special place.

And for what is basically a simple set-up of video projector and audio system, it's really been a lot of work, in fact three full days of work. I feel like I'm leaving it in good hands, to wend its way in this border town. There will be gigs in the evening, so adult humans will be exposed to it, too. But you know, I could really just hang out there chatting with the fourteen year olds like Ryan today, who is studying art, and who doesn't have exams this year, they just put him in a room, "say a word and we have to draw a picture. It's alright, like", and who hung around to watch the show, and dug the story. Or the two older boys who were vibrating with excitement at the whole thing, and who really dug the soundtrack with its purely analogue instrumentation and electronic feel. Or the very small kid who stormed into the middle of the foyer, hands on hips, and shouted, "What is THIS?" with some consternation. Or the boy who shouted to me, "did someone paint in the water?"

Or the teacher who asked, "can't it stay forever? I love it! I love that it can just be around, slowly infiltrating the boys' senses".

This is pretty far out stuff for kids of that age, so it's thrilling to see the few that seem to be inspired by it.

Generally, I found things friendly out there. Teachers have been keen to get involved and help out with turning the project on every day, and I have been made tea the last couple of days. I'd be into doing this kind of thing again, with perhaps even more interactivity between myself and the kids. This particular school is of course interesting to me, because when I was the age of these kids, I was reading about Oscar Wilde going to that school, about Sam Beckett who went there too, and kind of rocking out to the whole notion of wild creativity. I had no idea of what this arcane 400 year old institution, at that time for boarding boys, the children of the ruling and well to do classes really meant, or signified, or was ACTUALLY, or any of that shit.

And then I went to Trinity, where both of them went after that (am I right about that? I know Beckett went there, maybe Wilde went to Oxford?) and you know, when I made my application for rooms in college as I was entering my fourth year, I scrawled all over the pink application sheet all about the specific room, on the specific floor, in the specific location, as if they didn't already know that that had been Beckett's room when he was there. As it happened, it would have been very handy, because it was right by the college theatre, which I was very into at the time. But I didn't get rooms, that one or any other. But today, my work and Ross' soundtrack is being projected where those boys spent their teens a hundred years ago, and I see them running through the flickering light of the projector rays reaching across the foyer.

I have fallen in love with my work again. I have fallen in love with the business of bringing it from that endlessly in-love first process of pressing pen to paper watching the ink flowing until it is done, of taking the photograph, of receiving the idea - those sensual moments of happeningness - and now, through a five month process of moving shyly and excitedly toward each other, as I construct, edit, reconstruct, collaborate (with Ross Bonadonna, Brooklyn composer, producer and my squeeze) and make these things available for other people to see and interact with.

It has been fun.

They will be showing up on Here Comes Lucy very soon.

UPDATE: Lovely Clusterflocker Sheila has written a lovely note about this post here. Thanks, Sheila!

Dublin in shades of grey and blue

London

The very first crisp brown leaves were beginning to fall from the trees. Autumn was underway in London. In Enniskillen, the trees were just beginning to blush red and yellow. In Clare, the trees are still green.