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Monday, June 07, 2004
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UD'S BLOOMSDAY COUNTDOWN
UD owns a mouse pad with James Joyce's face on it. She owns a sweatshirt with his face on it. She owns a teacup that has I Want to Write Like James Joyce written on it. She named her daughter Anna Livia. She performs all of the Samuel Barber songs set to the words of James Joyce ("I Hear an Army," "Nuvoletta," "Rain Has Fallen," "Sleep Now"). She has stood in the pouring rain along the Potomac River for lengthy Bloomsday readings of Ulysses. She has waited her turn at the doors of Dublin pubs to join drunks shouting out Molly Bloom's soliloquy. In short, if Roddy Doyle is right ("They'll be serving Joyce Happy Meals next."), then UD is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Yet UD does not consider her Joyce thing kitschy. She considers it winsome, retro, and, above all, harmless. In about a week, June 16 will be upon us; and to make matters more exciting, this is the Bloomsday centenary -- Ulysses takes place on June 16, 1904. For the next few days, along with her regular university-related postings, please bear with UD as she includes posts on events leading up to the big day all over the world (two hundred cities will celebrate Bloomsday). UD hopes both to cover various political, legal, and cultural controversies in Ireland swirling around the celebration, and to help you, the baffled reader, begin to comprehend this peculiar enthusiasm which UD shares with so many others. |