Festival Season

July is a great time of year to be in Galway. The Film Fleadh is on right now, and the Arts Festival opens on the 14th. Last night Brendan and I went to Eyre Square to catch a free screening (actually, it was the world premiere) of Kíla: 'Once Upon A Time'. I hadn't heard of them before, though they've been a band for many years—made me wonder if I'd unwittingly been living under a rock. Before it started Brendan described Kíla as "psychadelic trad," which seemed pretty accurate to me. The funkiest part was when women in Rococo-style foufy white wigs and fancy garb were walking around the stage in stilts.

I sat on the grass and knit while Brendan danced like he was at a rave, and some loser (bottle of Buckfast in hand, of course) came up to him and asked for drugs. The dreaded bohemians smoking weed in the crowd don't bother me somehow—it's the lads who drink to get drunk, piddling in doorways and generally making total nuisances of themselves, who make me angry. That Brendan might have been dancing out of sheer enjoyment of the music never would have occurred to a guy like that. At any rate, it was really fun for me to sit there and watch him. I wish I'd brought my camera so you could see how happy he was.

So we walked through the city centre to get home, and the weekend revelers were out on Shop Street in full force, as usual. Like I said, I have very low tolerance when it comes to public intoxication, but every so often you come upon a truly entertaining drunk. Last night there was an overweight man dancing in the street outside Neachtain's without a shirt on, shimmying up to passersby while singing "Woo hoo, woo hoo hoo" (click here for clarification). And when I say "shimmying up," I mean he was jiggling his man-boobies in random women's faces. This was all mildly amusing, but what really clinched it for me was when one (sober) woman he accosted in this fashion replied (with facetious delight), "What a treat!"

Gosh, I love Galway.