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  • In this episode, Dara wants to know what vulnerability looks like. He talks about his own sense of feeling vulnerable at this time in his life and tries to contextualise that feeling in terms of age, time spent, and time left. He also reflects on fear, threat identification, and the conviction that one can be 'got'.


    Having started watching the provocative 2019 series Euphoria, Dara recognises that spending time in the company of beautiful people doesn't do much for his sense of vitality and relevance, but he has a lot of time for the central performance of Zendaya. In spite of her excellence, he wonders about the next generation of Hollywood actors and whether they're all that.


    Responding to the scenes of debauchery played out in Euphoria, Dara thinks about parenting fears and what dangers lie in wait for his daughter a few years from now. He shares his approach to preparing for those threats and hopes he isn't kidding himself. He also mentions a recent viewing experience with his daughter that was less than perfect.


    At the end of the episode, Dara reads something he has just written in response to a very enjoyable photoshoot he took part in with the excellent Sharon Smith. Sometimes, things just work out beautifully.


    Find Sharon's work here: https://hippyandbloom.ie/


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  • In this episode, Dara is looking at life stories. Prompted by a project of his own that he is working on, he acknowledges the difficulties he finds himself facing before discussing several different lives that he has just consumed in artistic form.


    Before he gets into that, he spares a happy thought for the Oscar success of Cillian Murphy, rewarded for his turn as Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan's eponymous film, and recalls seeing the actor in a stunning stage production over 25 years ago. For the benefit of non-Irish listeners, he attempts to break down the unique character and confidence of Cork people.


    The character studies that Dara looks at in some detail are mostly biopics, but there is also one documentary and a theatre piece. He shares his opinion about how successful or not he found them, and gives his reasons why. The people in question are as follows:

    Leonard Bernstein in Bradley Cooper's Maestro

    Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann's Ferrari

    Danny O'Mahony in Brokentalkers' Bellow

    Jon Batiste in the documentary American Symphony

    Rudolf Hoss in Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest


    Five very different approaches to capturing a life or a life's work, or simply a key moment in a life. All very definite and considered, each with its own particular flavour. No spoilers, so feel free to listen if you haven't seen the works in question.


    Also, Dara's favourite 'brother moment' from a movie...


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  • In this episode, Dara is scratching his head over the idea of brotherhood. One of four sons, he feels he has a reasonably reliable perspective on his own experience of brotherhood, one he admits was not, nor continues to be, straightforward.


    In the online space at least, 'bro culture' seems to be thriving, and certainly in the world of podcasting there is a prolific number of shows hosted by male friends and featuring largely male guests. Many of these shows are extremely popular and successful in a market that is over-supplied with options, but in spite of that success, or perhaps because of it, bros and their shows are dismissed with sneering condescension.


    Some of that criticism comes from female voices, and Dara wonders if this is a point in history when it has never been more acceptable for women to express their anger, justified or not, at the opposite sex. He argues that the world is changing fast, but that many women of a certain generation have warranted historical anger towards men and patriarchal injustices.


    Dara lays out his theory of healthy brotherhood, rooting it in pre-conditions of safety and non-judgement. He believes many men thrive in environments where they feel validated, unthreatened, and free to be open and vulnerable without shame. He proposes that men who can access safe spaces where they can express their fears and struggles and be supported by other men, will be far less likely to take out their anger on their loved ones or the world around them.


    He refers to different television and movie iterations of brotherhood, both good and bad, and gives special mention to Sean Durkin's The Iron Claw (2023), which he believes to be one of the most beautiful depictions of brotherhood ever put on screen.


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  • In this episode, Dara is rolling over some recent themes. He is convinced that cultivated internal calmness is a key part of responding healthily to the chaos of the world. When he talks about the importance of a 'proportional response' to whatever afflicts us, he acknowledges the connection of that idea to the philosophy of traditional martial arts practice. The implication of control is central to that idea and it is why Dara doesn't have a lot of love for UFC competition, where that restraint is often disregarded.


    Kenneth Branagh's 'Belfast' garnered a lot of attention and Oscars buzz when it was released in 2021. Having just watched it, Dara offers his own opinion on what does and doesn't work about it. He wonders if the Troubles in Northern Ireland are simply too dark and tragic to be softened by a romantic childhood reverie. He accepts though that it is both Branagh's vision and his life, and he is entitled to represent what he wants.


    That idea of representing a life is currently at the forefront of Dara's mind as he is working on a written project that has him looking back at his own childhood. He tries to grasp what is needed to make sense of a life in terms of context, reflection, and intersection.


    Also - yet another rainy day, garden-traversing chickens, Colin Farrell brilliance, and the survival of the core self.


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  • In this episode Dara tries to understand the connection between the advancement of AI-generated images and his desire for the simplicity and austerity of certain places and practices. There is something about the ornate and ostentatious perfection of AI images that reminds him of the roots of the Protestant movement as a response to the grotesque greed and riches of the Catholic Church.


    Thinking of the aesthetics of traditional Protestantism puts Dara in mind of the stripped-back design of karate dojos and martial arts training halls. He sees a connection also in the empty spaces of theatres. These spaces accommodate human endeavour and creativity and vibrate with the energy of that collective effort and yearning to make the ideal tangible. AI has no such vibration.


    Dara starts the episode with thoughts on the death of Alexei Navalny and the desire of Vladimir Putin to silence his critics. He's not sure how Putin's strong man politics will connect to his critique of AI, but the connection reveals itself before he signs off.


    Amongst other things touched on are the honesty of a punch, the benefits of occupying your own space, being a lone traveller in the universe, shark hunts, and trying to move thoughtfully through life.


    Article on sea swimming and the vagus nerve by psychotherapist Conor O'Leary: https://conoroleary.ie/sea-swimming-a-refreshing-dive-into-well-being/


    Shark Drunk, the book about life, seafaring, and hunting sharks: https://booksfromnorway.com/books/130-shark-drunk


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  • In this episode, Dara reflects on a few days spent at a writers' retreat and his attempts to slip into a writing flow. Among other things, he talks about identifying his preferred voice, the subject matter he finds himself drawn to, and trusting that his own process would reveal to him what he should be trying to write. He describes as luxurious the gifts of headspace and optimal conditions for creativity.


    While away, Dara rewatched for the first time in many years 1968's royal melodrama, The Lion In Winter. A hysterical and historical account of a family Christmas going to hell, it features two fantastic performances from Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn, as well as stalwart turns from Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton and others in their earliest screen roles. But what is it about Hepburn and O'Toole's raging husband and wife that reminds Dara of his own parents?


    Also touched on - Valentine's Day thoughts, vagus nerve topicality, departing guinea pigs, Ireland problems, men giving nothing away, and the return of The Receptive Mind!


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  • This episode does exactly what it says on the tin. Dara settles in to discuss a film he just watched, a concert he just attended, and a theatre production he recently saw.


    The film was Paul Thomas Anderson's underappreciated 2002 dark comedy, Punch-Drunk Love, which was notable at the time for giving Adam Sandler a leading dramatic role. Upon rewatching, Dara realised how much like a musical it was, and also a layered love letter to other movies and genres. Having a male protagonist who can barely control his emotional distress and lifelong anguish was part of the appeal, as was Philip Seymour Hoffman's unforgettable mattress salesman.


    The concert was the 2024 Peace Proms, a once-a-year touring event that Dara's daughter was participating in as a member of a 2,000-person children's choir, singing alongside the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland. Dragging himself reluctantly to the RDS in Dublin to 'be supportive', Dara was blown away by what he experienced. He couldn't have been more wrong about what was on offer.


    The show was Dublin's Gaiety Theatre pantomime, which this season was Cinderella. A family outing, the palpable buzz and connection between the performers and the audience was like electricity in the air. Dara can only conclude that there was something similar at work to the Peace Proms - a total absence of cynicism, and an enthusiastic revelling in that absence.


    Peace Proms 2024 - https://peaceproms.com/peace-proms-2024-tickets-on-sale-from-1st-november/


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  • In this episode, Dara responds to a music podcast he found surprisingly moving by exploring the idea of connection. Why do certain things or people connect with us more powerfully than others? What is it that speaks to us about a particular individual, or their work? And what is it about music and musicians and movies and actors that can so enrapture us?


    Dara argues that it is all about relationships and a lot depends on when you meet and what's going on for you at that time. He turns his focus to three music icons that struck deep chords with him as a young person, and lays out how each one spoke to a different part of him. This connects to how he saw himself and also how he thought about the opposite sex.


    The power of the moving image in the world of cinema is another area of connection, but Dara realises he has always liked to consume life and the world visually, not just in movies. Movement, and the body in motion is a central part of this aesthetic dynamic, which may be part of Dara's attraction to martial arts.


    Also in this episode is a coda to last week's mental health-themed edition, as well as a review of Alexander Payne's The Holdovers.


    George Michael episode from '60 Songs That Explain The 90's': https://www.theringer.com/2024/1/24/24048661/60-songs-george-michael-freedom-90-podcast


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  • WARNING: The content of this episode may be confronting and/or triggering as it contains detailed references to suicidal ideation. The subject is treated respectfully and carefully, but unambiguously.


    In this very personal and occasionally difficult episode, Dara decides he can't not examine his near four-decade-old impulse to destroy himself. A follow-on from last week's episode in which he spoke more generally and euphemistically about a recent onset of anxiety-fuelled depression, this time he wants more transparency, more openness, more keeping it real. He understands that for some people this type of sharing gives them the 'ick', hence the title of the episode.


    In considering the motivation behind such public exploration of such a private experience, Dara concedes that it is part of how he processes and makes sense of the resultant discomfort and destabilisation. But he also makes clear that he is trying to demonstrate what he believes, which is that the sharing and examination of personal mental health crises can be extremely beneficial to those who may feel isolated in their suffering.


    Among other things, Dara talks about generational damage, projecting outward what we believe about ourselves, the connection between suicidal ideation and the collapse of self-worth, recovering from parenting fails, and the deep chords struck in him by the actions and words of his daughter.


    Relevant Irish services and charities:


    https://www.samaritans.org/ireland/samaritans-ireland/ - supporting individuals at risk of extreme duress and suicide


    https://www.pieta.ie/ - supporting those with suicidal thoughts, self-harming, or those bereaved from suicide


    https://grow.ie/ - support service for those dealing with mental health issues


    https://www.textaboutit.ie/ - text-based service for those encountering mental health struggles


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  • In this episode, Dara tries to remind himself of the existential power of understanding life as an unending path that leads to endless unknown destinations. In relation to a recent rough mental health episode, he is also happy to be reminded that the path of life will continue past the present moment, no matter how challenging it might be.


    Dara discusses destinations, end points, and arrivals in the context of conventional capitalist-materialist thinking. He wonders if we're not better off accepting that one place and one moment can only ever lead to the next place or moment. He argues that we are perpetually moving into empty spaces and empty moments in which we have very little true control.


    Citing Darren Aronofsky's 2017 nightmarish Mother!, Dara recounts his experience of having to deal with uninvited guests. He decides that though unwelcome, that these guests must have been invited after all. But what can be learned from such unpleasantness?


    Also, a couple of other podcast recommendations that Dara connected with, the independence of traumatised children when they grow up, and a cat in zen mode!


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  • Dara has just turned 50, and in this episode he lets his mind hover over the moment in an attempted stocktake. Even as he argues for gratitude, he acknowledges how challenging the world is right now. This leads him to consider whether enough weight is attached to softer impulses and emotions. In these times of fracture and isolation and estrangement, should we attach greater significance and worthiness to love and positivity and connection?


    Reflecting on his life to date, Dara talks about the importance he places on honour. But does trying to live an honourable life mean anything? Is it just a self-administered high-brow ego-boost?


    Taking a photo at the weekend of an iconic figurine triggered something in Dara that returns him to his childhood. Perhaps he has been trying to emulate something that he first tapped into as a little boy...


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  • Dara reviews his year in watching on screens big and small over the last twelve months. Some of the obvious big 2023 releases are covered, including Oppenheimer, Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon and Anatomy of a Fall, but also mentioned are older movies that were watched during the year at home - Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr.Ripley, for example, or Paul Schrader's Hardcore.


    Dara also looks back at TV and documentaries he took in, as well as the considerable number of children's films he watched with his daughter, the most recent of which was Wonka. Did he prefer Timothee Chalamet's chocolate maker to Gene Wilder's? Listen to find out!


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  • Following the previous episode's last-minute production, Dara does another late night recording, this time in the wind and rain, with at least two interruptions from a sleeping dog. He's determined to maintain his line, and that means he refuses to put out another delayed episode.


    This week it's all about Maestro, Bradley Cooper's biopic of the American conductor and composer, Leonard Bernstein. Dara enjoyed the film so much he watched it back to back. He tries to explain why he found it so beguiling, but it is very much about the film's aesthetic pleasures, particularly how it sounds and how it is shot.


    He wonders if Cooper is trying to render them as a proxy first couple of American beauty and success, a la the White House Kennedys of Camelot.


    He also has thoughts on the weighting of female characters in movies like this, and the policy of an Irish supermarket on broken bottles of alcohol.


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  • In this hard-fought-for episode, Dara soldiers on alone to deliver this year's Christmas special.


    Coming in at the eleventh hour, Dara presents a brand new story that he completed only a day before recording. An old woman lies stricken on the floor of her hallway. Who will come to her aid, and will she welcome their assistance? A meeting of minds old and young that reveals an unexpected commonality, it is a nice alternative tale to more conventional fare. And also funny, although that depends on what you find funny...


    Dara's usual team on the special have been laid low by illness, so he has no Hashtag Blessed Christmas Recital to share. Stubbornly, and honourably overcoming his disappointment, he plays out the episode with a solo Christmas song - just one man, a voice, and a humble tilt at a festive windmill!


    Happy Christmas everyone, stay safe.


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  • In this episode, Dara jumps in feet first to Christmas tales of yore. Reading from a compendium of Yuletide tales, he selects two contrasting entries that brought some balance to proceedings. The first is A Christmas Inspiration, a sweet and somewhat sentimental tale by L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables) of a group of young women coming to the aid of a lonely cohabitant of their boarding house.


    The second moves as far and fast as it can in the opposite direction, depicting the bloodless revenge of a persona non grata on his over-privileged and self-indulgent relatives. Bertie's Christmas Eve by the great short story writer Saki is evocative of a time when the idle beneficiaries of the British Empire had very little to concern them other than the prospect of talking livestock.


    Finally, Dara includes a story of his own that, while not specifically connected to Christmas, seems to somehow fit with the general theme of rounding out the year. One On One takes the listener on a journey in a city where three very different people are each engaged in very particular activities that are uniquely connected.


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  • In this episode, Dara has further thoughts on the ongoing Middle East conflict after listening to the concerns of a good friend who has a certain amount of skin in the game. He wonders if a peaceful end will ever be possible when key combatants on both sides are so determined to eradicate each other. It raises the existential question of what value one human life has over any other.


    The deaths occurred in the last week of a great Irish songwriter and iconic performer, as well as a German-born US diplomat who was instrumental in shaping US foreign policy in the mid-20th century. Dara shares his thoughts on Shane MacGowan and Henry Kissinger, with particular focus on the former's Fairytale of New York and its recently acquired status as lightning rod for the culture wars and woke revisionism, and the latter's infamous directive in relation to the deployment of a relentless bombing campaign in Cambodia that began in 1969.


    Ending the episode on a lighter note, Dara argues that David Fincher's recently released 'The Killer' might be the best comedy of the year, with a Michael Fassbender's central performance embodying a jet-black humour that infects the entire film. He also review's Grant Singer's 'Reptile', a cop thriller that is distinguished mainly by an excellent Benicio Del Toro as the world-weary protagonist. He celebrates Fassbender and Del Toro's uniqueness as actors at a time when many American actors feel interchangeable.


    Note: No chickens were harmed during the making of this podcast, but maybe they should have been!


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  • In this episode, Dara tries to get his head around the riots that took place in Dublin recently after a violent knife attack on young children outside their school in the middle of the day. The subsequent outpouring of shock and anger escalated into a night of destruction, rioting and looting in the city centre, fuelled by anti-immigrant rhetoric.


    Dara wonders about the bad actors involved in inciting the riot, the larger connection to the rise of populism and ultra-nationalism that seems to be prospering the world over, and the pre-existing conditions that lead to such a powder keg volatility amongst those who wreaked such wanton havoc.


    An assessment of the situation by online comic personality and musician, Garron Noone, was so impressive that Dara features part of it here. Clear-eyed, passionate and fair, Garron's thoughtfulness about what happened is a great contribution to a very complex subject.


    Finally, Dara looks at the socio-psychological implications of the rioters' actions. Where does that desire to lash out come from? What is the genesis of that violence and anger? Is it ultimately an indictment of generational and systemic neglect by Ireland's national institutions? Is it connected to a denial of dignity and pride? And is it possible to express love for swathes of angry men who tore apart the streets of Ireland's capital?


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  • In this episode Dara admits he didn't realise it was International Men's Day, and a tweet suggesting what men should be reflecting on for the big day triggered something defensive in him.


    Before examining that reaction, Dara talks about a recent night in with his cousin and their respective daughters that didn't go quite as he anticipated, but was arguably the better for it.


    In the context of sexual politics and the male perspective, Dara revisits and very much enjoys the 1971 Mike Nichols film Carnal Knowledge, which he argues has aged very well, conveying as it does a very believable depiction of how straight men relate to and talk about their objects of desire.


    The second half of the episode is an examination of the idea of atonement, which is Dara's response to the aforementioned tweet. He questions the value of atonement and wonders if anybody should be entitled to expect that of anybody else. Contrition, guilt, punishment and forgiveness are connected concepts that are also considered. But the real question is - what do we owe anybody?


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  • In this episode, Dara reflects on some Jewish insights into the Israel-Palestine conflict which he found both helpful and inspiring. He posits that in the act of dehumanising Palestinians, Israel ends up dehumanising itself, which is its own kind of tragedy.


    Dara considers the interpretations of the phrase 'our shared humanity'. He argues that it could be taken as good or bad, but explains how it informs his own essentially positive outlook. He connects it to the idea of where we allow our energy to be directed or absorbed, and cautions that we need to be very mindful of the places our energy can dwell.


    Having just watched the new Robbie Williams documentary, Dara draws comparisons between it and another recent TV appraisal of a 90s icon - David Beckham. He recalls living and studying in England in the mid-90s and how palpable the feelgood factor of the zeitgeist was. He identifies a connection between Robbie Williams and Israel that speaks to an originating wound that neither have found a way to successfully transcend, leaving both the pop star and the country in comparable states of denial.


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  • In this episode Dara reveals that he is unaccustomed to the comfort of pajamas. This fact is relevant to a very recent late-night incident that he shares. That same incident concluded with an inherent contradiction relating to the presence of both love and rejection.


    In acknowledging that tension, Dara begins to talk about romance as a form of idealism. He argues that the conscious demonstration of love, regardless of the recipient, is an act of romance that is tethered to an idealised concept of love.


    Romance has arguably fallen out of fashion at the movies, but Dara just watched two very accomplished romantic films and found himself moved in very different ways by each. The Tom Cruise vehicle Jerry Maguire (1996) and Celine Song's exquisite Past Lives (2023) may not seem to have much in common, but they are hugely successful love stories on their own terms.


    And what happens when love is not part of one's foundational experience? Ask Sylvester Stallone, who leaves no doubt as to where his deepest wound originated.


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