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anne maree barry says hi

I started this blog in 2007. No one had heard of The Wire and I was making experimental films that a select few saw. My initial tagline for this blog was: 'I write concisely. always. I'm trying to improve this - however, sometimes few words work better'. Then I found Twitter. However, I still post here once a week, so feel free to comment or just to simply say hii.
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Thursday, August 9, 2007 @ 11:02 AM
tourist in your own city
I have never celebrated Bloomsday however this year I went on one of the James Joyce walking tours of Dublin. The tour visited James Joyce's Volta cinema (opened 1909 as Ireland's very first dedicated picture house) as well as other sites. The Volta cinema is now a Pennys Store (cheap clothes even cheaper labour).Other buildings that were cinemas on O' Connell Street are now fast food restaurants or banks. It is hard to believe that O' Connell St was once called Cinema Land - with over 30 cinemas on its avenue. The remains of some picture houses is still evident whilst the Savoy is the only building that is staying true to its beginnings.
The most interesting thing about this tour was a feeling of displacement from where I live. I was in Glasgow recently and noticed a building with a ship style shape acting as a balcony for the top floor apartments. My friend never noticed it and we discussed that being a tourist you are constantly looking at your new surroundings. On the tour in Dublin a fast food restaurant with its garish lights took on a whole new meaning - people used to frequent these buildings to be entertained and I imagined people inside the cinema getting hosed down with watered perfume through a giant syringe (it used to get quite hot in these buildings, capacity was around 3000 - and was quite sweaty).This didnt last as whilst we were looking at a former cinema site (some people in the tour were pointing) people in the mcdonalds started waving at us. I dont know who was sadder.



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