How will you celebrate Bloomsday this year??

[TahitiNut]

Poll question: How will you celebrate Bloomsday this year??

For some, this is almost a religious experience while for others it's just another day.

[supernova]

1. Huh? What is Bloomsday?

Some sort of commemoration of The Bloomsbury Group? :shrug:

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. Bloomsday celebrates the 24-hour travels of Leopold Bloom....

the protagonist of James Joyce's novel "Ulysses".

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1237280,00.html

[TahitiNut]

4. Ahhh, yes. I sorta knew I could count on you, luv!

:silly:

Leopold - a man's man. My anti-hero!

Hoist a few for me! :loveya:

[greatauntoftriplets]

7. I'll be happy to.

Hope Jameson's is okay. Never Bushmills in this house!

[TahitiNut]

11. That'd be consistent with my taste when once I imbibed.

Sláinte!

[greatauntoftriplets]

20. Excellent taste then!

Slainte!

[jeff30997]

6. Woa ! For a minute i thought it was...

A day in honor of Michael Bloomberg!!!:shrug:

[berry]

21. by following your link, I found a nice Joyce quiz

perfect for celebrating the day:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/quiz/questions/1,5957,507048,00.html?

<<James Joyce's Ulysses is set in Dublin on June 16, 1904 - 'Bloomsday', for the novel's everyman anti-hero, Leopold Bloom, who wanders the city. The Bloomsday tradition began in 1954 when a group of Dublin writers set out to visit all the landmarks mentioned in the book, reconstruct its events and down a few pints.

Early verdicts on modernism's greatest achievement were not always enthusiastic: "a vomit spilled by a delicate child whose stomach has been overloaded with sweetmeats" (Henry Miller), "a turgid welter of pornography (the rudest schoolboy kind)" (Edith Wharton - imagine those two agreeing!)

Today Ulysses is celebrated - if not always finished - the world over. Test your knowledge of the author who once spent an entire day rearranging the words in two sentences.>>

I scored an undistinguished 6 out of 13. But learned some things and enjoyed it. Who knew what Joyce called "the English 'Ulysses'"?

Also, there's a review linked--to the Naxos audiotape of 'Ulysses'. I'm hoping my library has it--it's pricy but apparently wonderful. The reviewer says you can stuff mushrooms while listening.

[smirkymonkey]

25. I also thought is was the day that Joyce

met his wife, Nora Barnacle.

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. Drink some Irish.

And remember my visit to James Joyce's Tower. No, I stayed away from Forty-Foot Beach.

Bloom's diet makes me ill, and the other suggestions are out of the question for various reasons: I am a straight female; neighbors way too close; my ass would get canned if I eschewed punctuation.

[TahitiNut]

5. And to think some do it by running.

Heretics. :silly:

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. Here I thought this was a gardening thread! n/t

[TahitiNut]

9. Only if your garden is used as a urinal.

:silly:

[fudge stripe cookays]

13. well, Fargo finds it quite useful for that, but I have to keep him out

of my pretty beds.

HE gets the part of the yard i haven't started on yet. =)

[punpirate]

10. Sleep...

... with my head at the foot of the bed....

Leopold Bloom is a nice man, unlike some of our recent presidents....

[TahitiNut]

12. Ohhhh... that's one I missed!

A good one, too! Sláinte!

[punpirate]

15. Well, I took a Joyce course in the `70s...

... from a woman whose father used to compete with Joyce in singing competitions in Dublin. I guess I got a fairly rigid indoctrination to Joyce. :)

[Maeve]

14. Re-read the book

Or maybe just watch the film version...

My Irish datebook actually lists the day; so I can remember this year!

[TahitiNut]

16. It's really an amazing read.

I read it first, many years ago, while under the residual influence of an herbal inhalent and found the somewhat passive experience near-psychedelic. It's almost unique in my experience reading prose ... a very right-brained reading experience akin to reading e.e.cummings. It's not reading about but more like being Leopold - surrendering to that alternative consciousness. (It's not something one can do while reading with one's fingertip.)

[Maeve]

17. A local arts columnist tried to read it a while back

Couldn't manage it and quit--he never got the experiencial quality of the book. You have to go with the flow to "get it" (sorry to used that hackneyed phrase, but it does fit!)

I admit to using Cliff Notes to understand parts of it the first time thru, however.

[TahitiNut]

18. "go with the flow" works for me.

I think of it as a near-dream-state ... surrendering one's conscious control to the "stream" and permitting the prose to evoke the experience. I found that there was no analytical piece that offered comprehension... and that only after read it could I even relate such left-brained nonsense to the book.

It's like the "you have to be a member to join" paradox -- a little like "Being John Malkovich" without the visuals.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

19. I thought this might have something to do with Berke Breathed

See how well read I am?

[markses]

22. With a heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit

;-)

Bloody Kinch!

They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell on earth, and Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of an unholy boast, born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, flayed and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose again from the bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till further orders whence he shall come to drudge for a living and be paid.

[TahitiNut]

23. (giggle) The Liturgy of Leopold.

Divine are they who labor for their lords and ask for naught but bread and water thinketh the good citizen. :eyes:

[TahitiNut]

24. For those who can read electronically ...

Ulysses by James Joyce for your reading pleasure.