How grand we are this morning!
June 16, 2012 7:05 AM Subscribe
Oh, and the show mentioned this picture of Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses.
posted by feckless at 7:28 AM on June 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by feckless at 7:28 AM on June 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
On the topic of Golden Age Hollywood stars reading Ulysses, one of the coolest letters in Groucho Marx's collected letters is his letter to Peter Lorre thanking him for the gift of Stuart Gilbert's Understanding Ulysses. (He suggests that he now needs another book about how to understand Gilbert's book!)
posted by Sidhedevil at 7:32 AM on June 16, 2012
posted by Sidhedevil at 7:32 AM on June 16, 2012
BBC is dramatizing Ulysses today on Radio 4
posted by snaparapans at 7:45 AM on June 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by snaparapans at 7:45 AM on June 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
Joyce reading from Finnegans Wake (with subtitles)
posted by snaparapans at 7:52 AM on June 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by snaparapans at 7:52 AM on June 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
I hate living in Dublin on Bloomsday. Bunch of annoying entitled older people lining the pathways so you can't get into the shop/chemist, getting pissed off their faces. I avoid my lovely little town on Bloomsday, since it's just thick with hatted drunks.
posted by piearray at 8:07 AM on June 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by piearray at 8:07 AM on June 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
Oh it's worse than that.
Now they've gone and littered Bloomsday all over lovely little MetaFilter.
posted by notyou at 8:22 AM on June 16, 2012
Now they've gone and littered Bloomsday all over lovely little MetaFilter.
posted by notyou at 8:22 AM on June 16, 2012
piearray: Oh, my. sorry to hear, had not thought of that angle, but it makes sense... any excuse to drunk..
tourists? Or is it the locals?
posted by snaparapans at 8:24 AM on June 16, 2012
tourists? Or is it the locals?
posted by snaparapans at 8:24 AM on June 16, 2012
It's also the first Bloomsday where Joyce's works are in the public domain: "Copyright in Joyce's writings expired at the end of 2011, 70 years after the author's death, giving fans the opportunity to host public readings, performances and even new interpretations of the author's works without fear of reprisals from the Joyce estate."
posted by radiomayonnaise at 8:25 AM on June 16, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by radiomayonnaise at 8:25 AM on June 16, 2012 [3 favorites]
radio mayonnaise: It's also the first Bloomsday where Joyce's works are in the public domain: Yea!
posted by snaparapans at 8:29 AM on June 16, 2012
posted by snaparapans at 8:29 AM on June 16, 2012
How can I combine this with Captain Picard Day? I think I'll cut out some paper dolls with my craft scissors while wearing a hat.
posted by emyd at 8:47 AM on June 16, 2012
posted by emyd at 8:47 AM on June 16, 2012
Time to listen to some Minutemen! (Even though this is an instrumental, Mike Watt has stated more than once that this song is about Ulysses.)
posted by heurtebise at 9:09 AM on June 16, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by heurtebise at 9:09 AM on June 16, 2012 [3 favorites]
Happy Bloomsday! The Dublin Guide to Ulysses app was launched on iTunes yesterday by JoyceWays {kickstater page}.
posted by peacay at 9:15 AM on June 16, 2012
posted by peacay at 9:15 AM on June 16, 2012
I wish that Superman had been defeated by Bloomsday, perhaps a dapper gentleman who defeated the Son of Krypton with complex prose. A yellow sun's no protection from a poet, after all!
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:15 AM on June 16, 2012
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:15 AM on June 16, 2012
tourists? Or is it the locals?
Both. But the locals make it 20x worse. Same people out doing same things every year. My only consolation is that this year, the weather is shite. Unfortunately, I have to pop down to the shops to get stuff for dinner. Or make the kids eat bread and water. Tempting....
posted by piearray at 9:30 AM on June 16, 2012
Both. But the locals make it 20x worse. Same people out doing same things every year. My only consolation is that this year, the weather is shite. Unfortunately, I have to pop down to the shops to get stuff for dinner. Or make the kids eat bread and water. Tempting....
posted by piearray at 9:30 AM on June 16, 2012
freshwatties and boasterdes!
posted by clavdivs at 9:52 AM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 9:52 AM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Downloadable mp3s of the dramatised elements of the Radio 4 shindig here. Well performed/produced and a bit of a treat if you've a few hours to spare. Not sure how accessible/downloadable this is outside UK domain.
Anyone sheen my hat??
posted by gallus at 9:52 AM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Anyone sheen my hat??
posted by gallus at 9:52 AM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
It's reassuring that, in this age of gadgets where the only big deals in the literary world are boy wizards and sexy vampires, we still commemorate a day from a great novel.
posted by Fritz Langwedge at 10:06 AM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Fritz Langwedge at 10:06 AM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Other things that happened today:
1779: Spain declares war on Great Britain, straining their military resources which were currently engaged with that pesky rebellion going on across the Atlantic.
1816: Lord Byron reads Fantasmagoriana (Tales of the Dead) to his four house guests at the Villa Diodati: Percy Shelley; Mary Shelley; Claire Clairmont; and John Polidori. This inspires his challenge that each guest write a ghost story, which culminated in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein, John Polidori writing the short story The Vampyre, and Byron writing the poem Darkness. It also inspired a really crappy movie.
1911: IBM is founded (originally named The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company).
1961: Rudolf Nureyev defects.
1967: The first Monterey Pop Festival takes place.
BORN:
Adam Smith (1723)
Geronimo (1829)
Stan Laurel (1890)
Enoch Powell (1912)
Arnold Vosloo (1962)
Tupac Shakur (1971)
DIED:
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1722)
Chick Webb (1939)
DuBose Heyward (1940)
Wernher Von Braun (1977)
Miguel Piñero (1988)
Screaming Lord Sutch (1999)
Empress Kōjun (2000)
Sherlock Holmes (2012)*
* OR DID HE?
posted by tzikeh at 10:16 AM on June 16, 2012
1779: Spain declares war on Great Britain, straining their military resources which were currently engaged with that pesky rebellion going on across the Atlantic.
1816: Lord Byron reads Fantasmagoriana (Tales of the Dead) to his four house guests at the Villa Diodati: Percy Shelley; Mary Shelley; Claire Clairmont; and John Polidori. This inspires his challenge that each guest write a ghost story, which culminated in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein, John Polidori writing the short story The Vampyre, and Byron writing the poem Darkness. It also inspired a really crappy movie.
1911: IBM is founded (originally named The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company).
1961: Rudolf Nureyev defects.
1967: The first Monterey Pop Festival takes place.
BORN:
Adam Smith (1723)
Geronimo (1829)
Stan Laurel (1890)
Enoch Powell (1912)
Arnold Vosloo (1962)
Tupac Shakur (1971)
DIED:
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1722)
Chick Webb (1939)
DuBose Heyward (1940)
Wernher Von Braun (1977)
Miguel Piñero (1988)
Screaming Lord Sutch (1999)
Empress Kōjun (2000)
Sherlock Holmes (2012)*
* OR DID HE?
posted by tzikeh at 10:16 AM on June 16, 2012
Oh, forgot one -
The Great Metafilter Enspousening of 2007! (original enspousening post; today's anniversary celebration post)
posted by tzikeh at 10:46 AM on June 16, 2012
The Great Metafilter Enspousening of 2007! (original enspousening post; today's anniversary celebration post)
posted by tzikeh at 10:46 AM on June 16, 2012
About that illustration, it's "I do not like that other world", not "that other word". Christ on a bike you think they'd get that right. Unless I've been trolled, in which case, fair play.
posted by tigrefacile at 12:24 PM on June 16, 2012
posted by tigrefacile at 12:24 PM on June 16, 2012
Let us celebrate with a viewing of Pitch ‘n’ Putt with Joyce ‘n’ Beckett…
posted by homunculus at 12:39 PM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 12:39 PM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
no Bloomsday post is complete without a Jorn link
posted by caddis at 1:52 PM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by caddis at 1:52 PM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium of connubial communion.fuck, in so many words..
posted by snaparapans at 2:09 PM on June 16, 2012
Bloomsday was a celebration in Buffalo, NY because the university's library had a significant Joyce collection. But the poor, blue collar town didn't know James Joyce from Jenna Jamison. The annual flop was always so amusing to me. A celebration with few celebrators.
posted by munchingzombie at 7:31 PM on June 16, 2012
posted by munchingzombie at 7:31 PM on June 16, 2012
Since it's now public domain, and available for free in iBooks, I downloaded it the other day and have been trying to read it...
I'm not succeeding very well.
posted by Windopaene at 10:21 PM on June 16, 2012
I'm not succeeding very well.
posted by Windopaene at 10:21 PM on June 16, 2012
I'm not succeeding very well.
You are not alone. Reading it is hard work and not many folk have the stamina for that much work for that many pages. However, some guy who goes by the moniker Iremonger has read the entire book for us and put it up on the internets. The book is much more easily digested when read aloud. The traditional way is to form a group and read it to each other (Bloomsday), but failing that Iremonger's reading is just grand.
posted by caddis at 4:08 AM on June 17, 2012
You are not alone. Reading it is hard work and not many folk have the stamina for that much work for that many pages. However, some guy who goes by the moniker Iremonger has read the entire book for us and put it up on the internets. The book is much more easily digested when read aloud. The traditional way is to form a group and read it to each other (Bloomsday), but failing that Iremonger's reading is just grand.
posted by caddis at 4:08 AM on June 17, 2012
I'm not succeeding very well.
First: have you read any Joyce before? It can help to have at least read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man previously, as it does a much better job of introducing both Joyce's uses of language, and the character of Stephen Dedalus. Ulysses was in fact my first Joyce ever, but I read it in a college class that went through it fairly slowly with lots of lectures, and the prof handed out a summary of the chapters. (I think, but am not sure, that he gave us the summaries from the book Re Joyce by Anthony Burgess.)
(There is also, of course, Stuart Gilbert's Ulysses, a Study which has tons more depth of explanation into all the various symbolism and structure going on, but for a first time reader it's total overkill.)
Also, word of caution: Chapter 3 is the hardest one in the whole damn book. ("Ineluctible modality of the visible...") It's all a monologue going on in Stephen's head, and the guy is too damned educated for his own good. Heh. If you find that chapter really tough going, don't let it stop you - everybody has a hard time with it. But the very next chapter introduces Bloom, and is tons easier to read, and you'll find the rest easier to follow from there.
(Whatever you do, don't give up before the Barney Kiernan's Pub chapter, which is great fun!)
posted by dnash at 7:52 AM on June 17, 2012
First: have you read any Joyce before? It can help to have at least read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man previously, as it does a much better job of introducing both Joyce's uses of language, and the character of Stephen Dedalus. Ulysses was in fact my first Joyce ever, but I read it in a college class that went through it fairly slowly with lots of lectures, and the prof handed out a summary of the chapters. (I think, but am not sure, that he gave us the summaries from the book Re Joyce by Anthony Burgess.)
(There is also, of course, Stuart Gilbert's Ulysses, a Study which has tons more depth of explanation into all the various symbolism and structure going on, but for a first time reader it's total overkill.)
Also, word of caution: Chapter 3 is the hardest one in the whole damn book. ("Ineluctible modality of the visible...") It's all a monologue going on in Stephen's head, and the guy is too damned educated for his own good. Heh. If you find that chapter really tough going, don't let it stop you - everybody has a hard time with it. But the very next chapter introduces Bloom, and is tons easier to read, and you'll find the rest easier to follow from there.
(Whatever you do, don't give up before the Barney Kiernan's Pub chapter, which is great fun!)
posted by dnash at 7:52 AM on June 17, 2012
snaparapans:
That sentence is a lot of fun to read aloud.
posted by minifigs at 12:41 AM on June 18, 2012
An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium of connubial communion.fuck, in so many words.."
That sentence is a lot of fun to read aloud.
posted by minifigs at 12:41 AM on June 18, 2012
I downloaded it the other day and have been trying to read it...I'm not succeeding very well.
On a trip to Ireland, I poked my nose in the James Joyce Center in Dublin (a sparsely-attended museum/study center/thing), run by one of Joyce's nephews. I was poking around, and the proprietor struck up a conversation with me, asking about whether I was a student or something. Then he asked if I'd ever read Ulysses. I said I'd started it a couple times but not finished, and he reassured me that "that's alright, lots of people find it rather dense to get through and no one gets through it all the first attempt." I admitted that yeah, but I'd given it four tries and still couldn't get through.
He burst out laughing, sighed and said "Ah, darlin', it took me TWELVE tries!"
(Actually, the Joyce center tipped me off to something that helped me finally get through it - I was getting too bogged down in the specificity of different things Joyce said, and trying to figure out why he was specifying this street or that avenue or whatever. But at the Center, I learned that the reason why Joyce picked June 16th, 1904 as the date to enshrine in the book was that it was the day of his first date with his wife Nora; I also learned that he used a lot of friends' names and apartments he and Nora had lived in as names and locations in the story. Learning that let me let go of things enough to assume that if there was a reference I wasn't getting, that it was probably an injoke between Joyce and Nora, and I wasn't supposed to understand anyway.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:51 AM on June 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
On a trip to Ireland, I poked my nose in the James Joyce Center in Dublin (a sparsely-attended museum/study center/thing), run by one of Joyce's nephews. I was poking around, and the proprietor struck up a conversation with me, asking about whether I was a student or something. Then he asked if I'd ever read Ulysses. I said I'd started it a couple times but not finished, and he reassured me that "that's alright, lots of people find it rather dense to get through and no one gets through it all the first attempt." I admitted that yeah, but I'd given it four tries and still couldn't get through.
He burst out laughing, sighed and said "Ah, darlin', it took me TWELVE tries!"
(Actually, the Joyce center tipped me off to something that helped me finally get through it - I was getting too bogged down in the specificity of different things Joyce said, and trying to figure out why he was specifying this street or that avenue or whatever. But at the Center, I learned that the reason why Joyce picked June 16th, 1904 as the date to enshrine in the book was that it was the day of his first date with his wife Nora; I also learned that he used a lot of friends' names and apartments he and Nora had lived in as names and locations in the story. Learning that let me let go of things enough to assume that if there was a reference I wasn't getting, that it was probably an injoke between Joyce and Nora, and I wasn't supposed to understand anyway.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:51 AM on June 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
I downloaded it the other day and have been trying to read it...I'm not succeeding very well.
I started it and put it down several times in my life.. not to mention the occasional random grazing..
I also downloaded it (project guttenberg), and am in the luxurious position of having to take a train ride, once a week, that has me sitting on a train, undisturbed, for close to six hours (round trip). Utter luxury to read and re-read passages, savoring the book in big regular chunks of time. I think having a set time to read on a regular basis is a great way to enjoy the book (and eventually get through it)
So far I am half way through, and will certainly finish it this time. I am actually looking forward to reading it a second time, once I finish it that is.
posted by snaparapans at 8:12 AM on June 18, 2012
I started it and put it down several times in my life.. not to mention the occasional random grazing..
I also downloaded it (project guttenberg), and am in the luxurious position of having to take a train ride, once a week, that has me sitting on a train, undisturbed, for close to six hours (round trip). Utter luxury to read and re-read passages, savoring the book in big regular chunks of time. I think having a set time to read on a regular basis is a great way to enjoy the book (and eventually get through it)
So far I am half way through, and will certainly finish it this time. I am actually looking forward to reading it a second time, once I finish it that is.
posted by snaparapans at 8:12 AM on June 18, 2012
Also the new "Remastered" James Gogan edition is available on kindle.. (not for free, but inexpensive)
posted by snaparapans at 8:19 AM on June 18, 2012
posted by snaparapans at 8:19 AM on June 18, 2012
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posted by feckless at 7:21 AM on June 16, 2012