Sin City

Posted on November 13, 2006
Filed Under architecture, characters, culture, death, history, money, music, photography, religion, winter | 1 Comment

Well fancy that! Imagine finding Cin on Coke Street! Actually it’s the Cinnamon Cafe in Smithfield as viewed from a cheeky angle.
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Another sin committed today was greed. I bought a couple of new CDs from CD-Wow and they were:

JOHN LEGEND	Once Again
JOANNA NEWSOM	Ys
QUEEN	The Platinum Collection
TOM WAITS	Orphans – Brawlers, Bawlers And Bastards

Once Again is John Legend’s second album. His first was really good so hopefully his form continues in this latest opus. The critics invariably seem to describe Joanna Newsom as uncatagorisable but, since they have to fill their column inches, they try anyway. Her voice is supposed to be enchanting and the music otherworldy. Or maybe it’s the other way around? Anyway, hope it’s more Brigid Boden than Enya.

I’m not a big fan of ‘rock’ rock music so I’ve never had reason to buy a Queen album (I just borrowed them from a friend). But â‚¬18 for a 3CD ~~best of~~ platinum collection is a bargain and therefore unresistable. Tom Waits’ CD was a bit pricey at â‚¬32 but again it’s a 3CD ‘best of‘ collection and he’s maybe the prescription for those melancholy Irish wintery evenings that are sure to descend on us soon.

This is a photo of the Matt Talbot statute I took early in the morning when the sunlight was weak. ‘The Venerable Matt Talbot (d. 1925) (wiki) was ‘an Irish Ascetic who is revered by many Catholics for his piety, charity and Mortification of the flesh‘.

He was an unskilled labourer who lived alone and his life would have gone unnoticed were it not for the cords and chains discovered on his body when he died suddenly on a Dublin street in 1925. He spent his life living a life of quiet prayer and poverty. He gave away most of his wages to those who were just as poor as he was.

It is perhaps unfortunate then, that behind the statue, is the International Financial Services Centre where billions of Euro are traded daily. Worse, he is facing a (now closed) arts centre that was also a nerve centre during the HIV crisis in that it dispensed advice and needles to HIV-positive people and drug addicts during the ’80′s.

Having said that, the bridge (out of picture) is named after him.

I don’t know if schadenfreude is the right word but, if they’d put the statue on the other side of the bridge, he would have been facing the Ulster Bank’s HQ and the historic Customs House would have been behind him.

Here’s a photo of the Customs House I took at the same time…