A shot of the living room in the Marilyn Monroe-themed house in Dublin currently up for sale.
 
If your dream has ever been to move to Ireland and live in a house that was once owned by Marilyn Monroe’s number one fan, then you may finally get to live out that very strange and oddly specific fantasy. Nearly every wall of the 1,200 square foot, three-bedroom, one bathroom house at 44 Harelawn Drive in Clondalkin, Dublin is covered in images of Marilyn and has been painted in blinding pop-art style colors.

To say that the home is tasteless would be an understatement—just looking at the photos included in the listing nearly gave me a seizure. And everywhere I look, I see Marilyn’s famous mug looking right back at me. According to the listing, the decor inside this little slice of heaven is described as “quirky.” But since the home is located so close to the pleasant-sounding Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, I’m sure someone will express interest in making this their new digs. But will they keep this zany decor? And while it may seem like a deal to some people, the current asking price is around $230,000 USD (or €185,000). I’ve posted images of the Marilyn Monroe house of horrors below.
 

The plain, rather normal looking exterior of the Marilyn Monroe house.
 

This room is purple. Very, very purple.
 

The stairway leading to the second floor of the Marilyn house.
 
More Marilyn after the jump…

 
Today is Bloomsday—the day that commemorates and celebrates the life and works of James Joyce across the world.

Bloomsday is the day on which the events of Joyce’s most famous novel Ulysses take place, June 16th, 1904. This is also the date on which Joyce first stepped out with his future wife, Nora Barnacle, to stroll around the city of Dublin.

To celebrate Bloomsday, here is James Joyce reading Episode Seven: “Aeolus” from Ulysses. This recording was made in 1924, on the insistence of Sylvia Beach, proprietor of the Parisian bookshop Shakespeare & Co. and publisher of Joyce’s Ulysses. As the recording is rather basic, a transcription of the extract is been included of below.

He began.

— Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration in listening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a moment since by my learned friend. It seemed to me that I had been transported into a country far away from this country, into an age remote from this age, that I stood in ancient Egypt and that I was listening to the speech of some highpriest of that land addressed to the youthful Moses.
His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smoke ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech. And let our crooked smokes. Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand at it yourself?
— And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I heard his words and their meaning was revealed to me.

FROM THE FATHERS

It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet are corrupted which neither if they were supremely good nor unless they were good could be corrupted. Ah, curse you! That’s saint Augustine.
— Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen; we are a mighty people. You have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity and our galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise furrow the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged from primitive conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a polity.
Nile.
Child, man, effigy.
By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supple in combat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone.
— You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel is weak and few are her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles at our name.
A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above it boldly:
— But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to and accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will and bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never have brought the chosen people out of their house of bondage nor followed the pillar of the cloud by day. He would never have spoken with the Eternal amid lightnings on Sinai’s mountaintop nor ever have come down with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the tables of the law, graven in the language of the outlaw.

Download James Joyce reading from Ulysses here.
 

 
Bonus audio of Joyce reading from ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ plus documentary ‘A Stroll Through Ulysses,’ after the jump…
 

 
I Am The Cosmos was the title of a beautiful and groundbreaking album by Chris Bell, originally recorded in the mid-1970s, but not released until 1992 - fourteen years after Bell’s death in a freak automobile accident. While I Am The Cosmos is now recognized as a cult classic - the name I Am The Cosmos is now fast becoming more associated with a brilliantly talented duo from Dublin, Ross Turner and Cian Murphy.

Since their formation in 2010, I Am The Cosmos have been making considerable impression with their music. From their first release “Dislocate”, they have been cautiously producing material of such quality and originality that it promised I Am The Cosmos would one day release a masterwork. And now it would appear this day has come early, with the release of their sublime debut album Monochrome. I contacted I Am The Cosmos to find out more about Ross and Cian, theri backgrounds, what brought them together, and how they wrote and recorded their brilliant debut Monochrome.

Paul Gallagher:  How did you first meet and what drew you together as musicians?

Cian Murphy: ‘Ross [Turner] is a drummer by trade and was involved in the Dublin music scene from quite an early age, so I was a fan of bands he played with long before we started making music together. We would meet at gigs, or he would come into where I worked and buy records and we would talk about music. There was always a mutual interest in what the other was up to musically.

‘When it comes to making music, I think even though the desired outcome is the same, we do have different approaches. I would tend to be a little more gung-ho with my ideas while Ross is more restrained. There are times when Ross will tell me to keep it simple and not throw so much at a song, and he’s always right! Wherever that balance is struck - that’s usually where the good ideas are. There are similarities too though - we both love a good melody and wanted to explore the notion of songs being quite melodic while still being something people can dance to.’

Ross Turner: ‘Cian [Murphy] and I had mutual friends growing up when we were teenagers - we lived pretty close to each other on the outskirts of Dublin. Usually bumping into each other at parties or in “discos”, spending most of our time talking about very similar tastes in music.  Time passed along and some growing up took place before we actually did anything together, although I think we had always wanted to do something together musically. I was gifted the amazing opportunity to work out of and run a great studio space in Dublin, the owners had moved away for a short spell. When this came up I got in touch with Cian straight away to see if he wanted to come along and mess around with some music I was working on. Just previous to this Cian had done a remix of a very early version of “Look Me In The Eye” under the name Leisure Wear. I really liked what he did with the song, so I was eager to develop something after that.

‘The fact that our tastes are so similar we moved quite quickly into a process of putting tracks together.’
 

 
Previously on Dangerous MInds

I Am The Cosmos: EXCLUSIVE premiere of their album track ‘Lost Rhythm’

 
With thanks to I Am The Cosmos and John Kowalski
 
More from I Am The Cosmos and ‘Monochrome’, after the jump…
 

 
After a couple of years of “hanging out, sizing up, and rigorous sound/soul searching” musicians and artists Simon Cullen and Sorca McGrath have brought their talents together to form Ships, a collaborative synth project, which is winning considerable attention at home, in Ireland, and across the water.

Cullen is a former member of Les Bien, the core of Lasertom and The Blast Crew, and a pivotal member of the arts/music/film/video collective Synth Eastwood. McGrath is a singer/songwriter formerly with Palomine. Having established themselves as independent artists and performers, McGrath and Cullen brought their shared interest in Fleetwood Mac, Prince and Moloko (together with “honorary” member Cian Murphy of I Am The Cosmos), to create their upbeat, emotive and fruitful collaboration Ships. They have already released 2 singles, “You’re Gonna Feel It” (which was part of a release with I Am The Cosmos) and “Two Hearts”.

Now, here is Dangerous Minds’ exclusive premiere of Ships’ latest track “Places”.
 

 
Bonus tracks from Ships, after the jump…
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
The idea of Brendan Behan eventually became greater than the man himself. No one knew this better than the Roaring Boy, who played up to the image of “a drinker with a writing problem”. By the early sixties Behan was the toast of the West End, the toast of Broadway, the toast of every-effing-where, but his best works, The Quare Fellow, The Hostage, and his biography Borstal Boy, were all behind him, and his confidence had been battered through working with the firebrand director, Joan Littlewood, who had turned the English version of The Hostage into a “Knees Up Mrs Brown”. Unable to stay focussed long enough to put pen to paper, Behan was forced to record his last works (rambling travelogs of New York and Dublin, the play Richard’s Cork Leg) onto tape-recorder for others to transcribe. It was a terrible waste, and of course there’ll be those who’ll say a lesson of sorts, but so what, as his fall form grace didn’t stop the great man’s legend form soaring.

Two years after the Behan’s death, Irish producer / director Norman Cohen (later best known the film version of Spike Milligan‘s Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall and the Confessions of…. comedy porn series) made Brendan Behan’s Dublin, a travelog of the Irish capital based on the playwright’s memoirs, anecdotes and writing of the city by Carolyn Swift, and narrated by Ray McAnally as Behan. The Dubliners supplied the soundtrack.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Key Writers: Photos of writers and their typewriters

Phil Lynott statue on Dublin’s Grafton St (toy monkey not included)

You’ll have seen the other Thin Lizzy posts that we’ve put up on DM by now, right? Big up to Paul and Marc for the Phil Lynott-loving that has been going on here - Lizzy are an under-appreciated band, who to my knowledge never really broke through in America. Of all the rock act Ireland has ever produced though, Thin Lizzy are by far the best, and most of that legacy rests with the cool, charismatic and incredibly talented Phil Lynott himself.

The Phil Lynott Story goes further than other Thin Lizzy-based docs to explore Lynott’s background, from his teenage mother’s escape from the work houses of wartime Northern England to Phil’s growing up as a black man in the vastly white1960s Dublin, and from his fledgling career as a psychedelic folk-rocker to his post-Lizzy years and his decent into heavy drug use and eventual, untimely death. It’s a fascinating story, packed to the gills with drama, drugs, scandal and lots of great music. It would make an amazing biopic, but who would play Phil?

This BBC-produced documentary is essential listening for anyone with a vague interest in rock’n'roll - you don’t need to be a fan to find this fascinating. But if you are a fan and don’t know the full story, be prepared to be amazed at some of the anecdotes and the background information supplied by Lynott’s incredible mother Philomena. Here’s a little bonus too - a video for the Lynott solo single “Old Town” (co-produced with Midge Ure and one of the greatest synth-pop tracks of all time IMO) with Phil strolling around early 80s Dublin and fooling around on his native Grafton St and Ha’Penny Bridge:

Phil Lynott - “Old Town”
 

 
The Phil Lynott Story Part 1
 

 
Parts 2-7 after the jump…

Previously on DM
‘Bad Reputation’ excellent Thin Lizzy documentary
Thin Lizzy: Live Rock Palast 1981

 
Phil Lynott was always something special - a hugely loved and respected musician, an iconic figure who was “the original Dublin rock’n’roller and arguably a bigger natural star than any of those that followed in his footsteps.”

As The Philip Lynott Exhibition returns to Dublin, here is Phil leading his band Thin Lizzy through a sensational performance on Rock Palast, at Lorelei, Germany, in 1981.

Thin Lizzy:

Phil Lynott - Bass, Lead Vocals
Brian Downey - Drums
Scott Gorham - Guitar
Snowy White - Guitar
Darren Wharton - Keyboards

Track Listing:

01. “Are You Ready?”
02. “Genocide”
03. “Waiting For an Alibi”
04. “Jailbreak”
05. “Trouble Boys”
06. “Don’t Believe a Word”
07. “Memory Pain”
08. “Got To Give It Up”
09. “Chinatown”
10. “Hollywood”
11. “Cowboy Song”
12. “The Boys Are Back In Town”
13. “Suicide”
14. “Black Rose”
15. “Sugar Blues”
16. “Baby Drive Me Crazy”
17. “Rosalie”
18. “Disaster” (“Angel OF Death”)
19. “Emerald”
 

 
Previously on DM

Thin Lizzy vs. The Pixies - ‘The Boys Are Back In Heaven’