At any Bloomsday celebration, you will see yahoos wearing eye patches, in solidarity with the blind Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses, as well as with its mostly-blind creator, the great James Joyce. I own an eyepatch, because I am a douchebag.
It represents the “ineluctable modality of the visible.”
Ulysses is, as with most things Irish, tied up with my father, and I first read the book under his guidance, calling him up randomly: “Now, WHAT is going on here?” He always knew.
My big Bloomsday post is here.
I love today.
Bloomsday Toast for 2014
Here’s to –
Nora the barnacle goose –
Skin-the-Goat –
the giggle fit of bronze by gold –
the blind stripling piano tuner tap tap tapping along –
the dog’s rag of wolf’s tongue redpanting from his jaws-
Stephen deep in thought strolling on Sandymount Strand –
socks with skyblue clocks, jaunty –
Plumtree’s Potted Meats, which can make of each home an abode of bliss –
Rose of Castille and rows of cast steel –
met him pike hoses –
Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job –
On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins –
Private Carr and his escalating oath –
lame Gerty limping, a dreamer –
those lovely seaside girls –
the heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit –
Could a swim duck? Says I –
yes
The only answer is Yes, to JJ the “most positive word in the English language.”
:)
Thanks, Steve.
Happy bloomsday from Dublin. We did the Upysses walk and hoping to catch some readings at Temple Bar.
Ohhh, I wish I could teleport myself there! Have fun!!
Happy Bloomsday! (Everything I know about Joyce I’ve learned from you. thank you)
A belated Happy Bloomsday to the Dread Pirate Sheila.
“Ineluctable. You keep using that word, I do not think it means….”
I wish you happy memories of your dad.
Been an intense Dad week. Last week was his birthday, then Father’s Day, then Bloomsday.
Met a couple of guys yesterday at the Bloomsday celebration who first met in a Joyce class in undergrad – one of them now is a social worker, and the other is a professor of modernist literature who has written a couple of books on Joyce. They asked me how I “got into Joyce” and I told them about reading it with my Dad on speed dial, and it felt good to talk about him.
Thanks.