Christmas Day Swim

Proudly took part in my third Christmas Day swim at Blackrock in my home of Salthill, Galway, with my uncle Joe (on the right) and my brother in law Mark (on the left) and my cousin Joe (Jr.) (far left). A photo of the four of us made the online Galway City Tribune. Here is a very short clip of me talking to some stranger about the Santa Claus hat given to me by the Cope Galway charity, one of the charities that organizes the event. (Thanks, mum, even if it was inadvertent!)

While in Galway I picked up a remaindered copy of Flann O'Brien: A Portrait of the Artists as a Young Post-modernist, by Keith Miller. The book was re-issued in hardback, with a new cover (featuring René Magritte's painting, Not To Be Reproduced), by Cork University Press in 2009. It has a new introduction by the famous UC Irvine professor J. Hillis Miller.

The book was published in 1995. I was the first person to review the book, in ROPES: Review of Postgraduate Studies, in 1995. In the review, entitled "Was Flann O'Brien a Postmodernist?," I argued that, contrary to Miller's claims, O'Brien was not a postmodernist. The journal included a reply to my review by Miller.

I was very happy to see that my review was quoted on the dust jacket of the second edition. They used the most complementary lines from the review, of course.

It was good to spend the Christmas break in Galway and see most of my family. It's a great town.

I did, however, want to make it back to New York for New Year's Eve. I went with friends to my favorite restaurant, Perry St., in the West Village, and then to a bar, the Art Bar, that is a favorite of mine, which is nearby. I stayed at the W on Lexington Avenue.

The following morning, after a trip to MoMA, I made it down to Time Square to inspect the aftermath of the big party. There I took some photos of myself using the front camera on my iPhone 4. Then I made my way to the cinema off Time Square, to watch Mission Impossible IV: The Ghost Protocol. I unknowingly bought a ticket for the IMAX screening. It was one of the best movie-viewing experiences I have ever had. The movie itself was not bad. Tom Cruise ages terribly well, the bastard.