Emcee Colum McCann kept things running smoothly, no small feat with the amount of readers participating, Guinness in hand.
Larry Kirwan, of Black 47, who’s been to every Bloomsday celebration at this venue since its inception (and I was at the first one as well!). Kirwan always reads the Gertie passage. It’s a hoot. He said, by way of introduction, “I am the world’s foremost male interpreter of Gertie.”
The table where Therese and I sat, my book on the right, hers on the left. She is my Bloomsday buddy! We’ve gone to this event, we think, three times now? Four?
I did not catch this man’s name but he brought down the house. Or, the alley. He recited – nay, acted the shit out of – the Citizen’s confrontation with Leopold Bloom – from memory. And he didn’t just recite. He became all of these different characters, and you could really feel how that interaction escalated into something vicious and ugly in a flash. At one point, he, as the Citizen, was chanting over and over, “SINN FEIN SINN FEIN SINN FEIN”, followed by some more bellowing about “ISRAEL” and Therese and I cracked up at what that must have sounded like a couple blocks away to people who didn’t know what was going on. Some rabid political rally. He got a standing ovation. It was extraordinary.
A song.
Where we were. And at the bar at the far end of the alley was a group of people, a crowd, watching the World Cup and occasionally ROARING into sound. It was exciting, a great counterpoint.
Even the trashcans are nerdy.
Had a wonderful time with Therese, got to read a bit from the Scylla and Charybdis section, had a blast listening to the other readers and singers, and met some new nice people, in particular Jonathan and Satish. There was a funny moment between the four of us having to do with the infamous big “dot” in Ulysses, and Therese and I have different versions of the book, mine with the nice big dot, and hers with the dot too small. Satish had looked at both of our books and pointed at mine, “I like that one because the dot is big.” Only Ulysses fans would even know what he was talking about. I flipped to the page to find the dot. Satish gestured at Therese’s copy – “I had that copy but I didn’t like it because the dot was too small.”
We all nodded, agreeing. Then, the best button of the moment was Therese opening her copy to the “dot” page to show how she had made the dot larger herself, coloring it in to a bigger size. I’m still laughing/crying about the beauty of the moment: it was one of those moments where you feel, you know, that you can totally be yourself. Nobody was like, “You people are insane” or “Get a life” or “Who cares what size the dot is?” or “What’s Bloomsday?”
These may be people I hadn’t met before, but they are people I know. You see the same faces year to year. You say, “Hi, how’ve you been!” It’s relaxed, it’s humorous, it’s occasionally quite moving. It’s one of my favorite days in New York. I also attended the Symphony Space celebration one year, an all-day event, and it was very interesting but a little bit more formal, and I did tell Jonathan that by the time Fionnula Flanagan took the stage at 1 in the morning to start Molly Bloom, I felt like I had been “waterboarded all day.” I prefer the one at the Ulysses bar down in the financial district, sitting at picnic tables in an alley, food, drink, a microphone, lots of people singing, lots of talkback, a great warm crazy little community. I’ve been going for 10 years now. It’s wonderful.
A brilliant time was had by all, evidently, and the weather cooperated.
The Citizen scene from memory, and acted out well — that really is extraordinary.
An English prof in college said the big dot answered the last Ithaca question
“Where?” as right here, the ink on the page — another sly joke. Made sense then and now.
But how about a shout-out to “the one down in the financial district” that puts on this wonderful celebration?
I’ve only been there once (not on the day itself, a few years ago), and was impressed that the $20 brunch included as many oysters as one could do on a Sunday morning (a great deal anywhere, much less Manhattan), and that much of the decor inside was appropriately Joycean.
BTW, big Black 47 fan here, seen them a dozen times or so. “All we want to do is be rockin’ the Bronx.”
Yes, you’re right – Ulysses Folk House! I was there at its opening celebration – Bloomsday, its first year. I love it down there and this is definitely my favorite Bloomsday celebration I’ve ever gone to.
Black 47 is awesome – I have all their stuff – so to hear Larry read that purple-prosed Gertie passage and literally BECOME Gertie pulling up her skirt, and showing her bloomers, and having that fantasy moment with the peeping Tom Bloom as the fireworks go off and orgasms are had by all … I mean, it’s a highlight of the event. I’ve seen him do it every year and it’s always wonderful.
He finishes here: “That was their secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and there was none to know or tell save the little bat that flew so softly through the evening to and fro and little bats don’t tell.”
Oh, and here’s a fun and informative piece in the Paris Review by Jonathan – one of the guys I met yesterday through Therese.
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/06/13/bloomsday-explained/
For those of us who live nowhere close to a Bloomsday celebration, this means a lot. Thank you so much. With Bloomsday and the World Cup it is finally beginning to feel like summer. Have a great week.
Luis – you’re welcome! It’s always a really fun day, never disappoints. A great crowd.
And yes, summer!
Hearing the ROARS down the alley about the World Cup – and suddenly people chanting “U S A!! U S A!!” was awesome. Moments like that make me love New York. New York is about the people in it. It was fun.
You have a great week, too!
So good to see you and Therese there. Your blog never fails to amaze me. My wife and I feel the way you do — you are hanging with a group of people from all walks of life united by a common love of Joyce and all things literary. Hope to see you next year as well.
Forrest!! It was so wonderful to see you again – we will definitely be there next year as well.
Thank you so much for stopping by.
Hi Sheila,
Great spending a few minutes on Bloomsday with you. Thanks for the shout out Jonathan
Jonathan – so nice meeting you as well! Such a good time! Hope to see you there next year.