bloomsday QT Tomorrow is the centenary of Bloomsday, June 16, 2004, the day in Dublin that is the focus of Joyce's Ulysses. In celebration, presented here is the final sentence of Molly Bloom's soliloquy with which Ulysses ends: 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. 040615 ... QT Sorry. Bloomsday was June 16, 1904. 040615 ... silentbob Stately Plump Buck Mulligan 040915 ... (z) (been reading it in honor of the day. i do every year) 040915 ... epitome of incomprehensibility All of it, in a day? Wow. And I didn't remember this was on red blather as well, until I saw it underlined yesterday. To recap somewhat what I said on the blue page, yesterday I went to a talk at a bookstore about moving from Ireland to Montreal and about Bloomsday in particular. Chris Joyce, the grandson of James Joyce's brother, who's a couple of years older than me and works here in TV production, was a featured speaker. He told funny stories, plus answered some serious questions, such as if he feels intimidated about doing artistic things given his dead-famous-writer relative. He said something like, "Well, I haven't read Ulysses yet, so it might be complete garbage!" - although he must know something of it from helping to organize the festival this year - but then, "Yes, yes, it can be a bit intimidating; I think, well, after James Joyce... what the hell can I do?" Hey, it didn't stop Justin Trudeau. Or George W. Bush, Anita and Kiran Desai, Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli... You see? People in the same family can be good at the same sort of thing. Invading Iraq, for example. That takes talent! Oh yes, and he signed my copy of Ulysses, with something like, "Hope you had a blooming good day." I thought that was nice, even if he found me a bit daft. I also heard a story about a guy who moved from Ireland to Montreal who was nicknamed [blank] Dog Malloy - Plaid Dog, Bad Dog, Mad Dog, Sad Dog - at different times, but I missed the beginning part. Also, to my surprise, I saw the woman I'd met in the library a couple of weeks ago - see "library" - the person with the red gloves who'd called me a "chic young lady" and talked about nuclear physics. She used to be a ballet dancer too, apparently. She'd heard about the Bloomsday events through the McGill summer lecture program for seniors, and brought a friend who was a bit younger and also seemed to know a lot about different things. You'd think, maybe, that in inter-generational encounters it's the older people who are supposed to be out of touch, but I'm pretty sure I filled that role quite well. For instance, saying that Jane Austen had more of a female "fanbase" than Joyce, as if Jane Austen were My Little Pony, and not knowing who Baryshnikov was. No, it wasn't Baryshnikov, but another ballet director who was equally famous. Anyway. It was nine o'clock when I left, and I didn't go to the pub even though some of the Bloomsdayers had migrated there. I'd had a free glass of wine at the bookstore, plus some food, and I felt (besides not wanting to spend money) that I shouldn't have more than one drink at once. Self-promise, for reasons that upset me to say. (Well, the first out of two times being drunk was amusing: I panicked because my face felt numb. I could feel my fingers on its skin, see, but it felt numb INSIDE. Note to self - don't try acid! Or effing Vyvanse again, either - grown-up Ritalin, glorified caffeine pill - pah. Not worth it.) On the way back, since I had Ulysses with me, I read some of the first chapter. On blue yesterday I'd written that Stephen D. got made fun of in it, and that he, being a pretentious snot, deserved it - but my rereading took a different angle: in the first chapter, what's brought to the forefront is that Stephen's still mourning his dead mother and his friend Buck Mulligan's being an insensitive ass about it. Buck (Malachi) Mulligan isn't all bad. On a meta-something level he wants to be a sitcom-like goofy sidekick. And he cannot. No, you cannot; you're in Ulysses, goddammit, not Family Guy! Show some respect! 140617 what's it to you? who go blather from