Happy Bloomsday

"...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses, 1954.

Thanks, GC. HuffPo has pictures of Bloomsday being celebrated around the world.

Why I haven't blogged in a week

An expected series of unfortunate events has rendered me unable to blog in the past couple of days. First, my good friend, Chris Hentzen, died suddenly of heart failure, which prompted a trip home to Kansas City. Upon returning to the Dirty Durham, I was dismayed to sense the beginnings of a serious cold, which has made my first day at the library in a week little more than a prolonged and uncomfortable nap.

As unhappy it is to have to bury a friend, especially a young one, my trip back to the City of Fountains wasn't without its upsides. For one, it was nice to be with my old friends, reminiscing about the old days, going through old photos, and watching hours of (painful) videos from high school parties. I was also fortunate that my unexpected trip brought me into to town for Bloomsday, which I spent at the always delightful Bloomsday Books, where I sat and listened, appropriately enough, to a reading of the "Hades" episode. I also picked up a John Banville novel, which I am very much looking forward to reading. And in blog news, my friend Jack Barry alerted me to the existence of a blog named Phoneless Cord, written by our friend Rachel, which I will be stealing content from soon.

More content to come once my body heals itself.

Bloomsday foods

We're just days away from Bloomsday, and that means that this is the best (and only) time of year to see the culinary oddities from Ulysses making their appearance in the real world.

For example, at the Greenmarket in New York, you can get your hands on "Bloomsday cheese."
(It's not the food that just most readily to mind from the book, but Bloom does eat a cheese sandwich in "Lestrygonians.")

Here's a short article from 2002 (in pdf) of someone who ate a Bloomsday diet for two weeks, including Leopold Bloom's famous pork liver breakfast cooked in butter.

Some events worth seeing, if you find yourself in one of these cities:

Kansas City -- Bloomsday Books. They don't have any of the info for this year's festivities on line, but in years past they have done a multifaceted event with reading, performances, and lots of drinking.

New York -- The New York James Joyce Society has a celebration every year where they read the entirety of Ulysses. I think they get famous people to do it. Anyways, it's in Manhattan, and supposed to be a really fabulous time.

Austin, TX - The University of Austin is hosting this year's North American James Joyce Conference, which I attended a few years ago. What's nice about this kind of event is that it's an academic conference with the levity and wit of a night at the pub. (If anyone is going to this, I'd like a conference poster!)

Philadelphia -- This is another big celebration, like New York, with signing, reading, etc. It's held at the Rosenbach Museum, which houses one of the best manuscripts of Ulysses.