Bill's Notes

[Industrialblog, June 17, 2004]
Missed Bloomsday
Damn! And I meant to go to Dublin for the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday, the day that Leopold Bloom wandered around Dublin in James Joyce's Ulysses. Bloomsday was June 16, 1904; thus, the 100th anniversary was yesterday. Not only did I forget to go to Dublin, I forgot to do an anniversary post. Terribly sorry to all those loyal Joyceans.

BBC published a funny summary of Ulysses here. I've only made it one-quarter of the way through, and mostly I've been blown away by the language. Just knocked out by the technique. Which is a big part of the point: It's meant to be, as one person put it, all the possible ways of telling a story, and several quite impossible ways, too. The actual content is surprisingly warmhearted -- a cuckolded, socially awkward salesman wandering around Dublin can serve as a hero of an epic story just as well as an Ithacan king who contended with monsters and gods.


Harry (mail) (www):
Sheesh, I miss one night of checking your site and suddenly I'm four posts behind! Of course, if you had checked my Tuesday night post, you would've known that Wednesday was Bloomsday...
6.17.2004 10:11pm
Bill (mail) (www):
I scanned that entry, too, Harry. Too bad. I may have written something up. But I think the NY Times handled it pretty well today.

6.17.2004 11:02pm
mlaff (mail):

if I want to read about bowel movements and masturbation, Hustler takes less time.

j/k
6.18.2004 3:22pm
Bill (mail) (www):
LOL.

Yes, but Hustler never writes about the "snot-green sea", mlaff.


6.18.2004 4:48pm
Harry (mail) (www):
So then...Ulysses was just a precursor to Seinfeld? I've only read a little of the one and watched a little of the other, so this may be a crashingly unfunny observation.
6.18.2004 9:57pm
Bill (mail) (www):
How did you get that Ulysses is a precursor to Seinfeld. I'm missing something.
6.20.2004 10:15pm
Harry (mail) (www):
I gather that Joyce had a bit of a preoccupation with bodily functions. So did Seinfeld.

Next week on Ulysses...will our hero be master of his domain? Don't miss it!
6.21.2004 8:05am
Bill (mail) (www):
Aaah, I get it.
6.21.2004 8:57am
Bill (mail) (www):
That's a good observation, Harry, not crashingly unfunny. Probably a doctoral thesis, too.
6.21.2004 8:58am

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