Monday, October 23, 2006

Here's an interesting review of The
Departed which discusses the film's minor Joyce
connection.

An excerpt:


" Second, one of the key secondary characters
in the film, played by Mark Wahlberg, is named
Dignam. As befitting an ironic literary allusion,
Dignam, whose funeral is one of the central plot
points of Joyce’s Ulysses, turns out in The
Departed to essentially be the last man standing..
... Aside from the theme of losing one’s soul (or
the secular equivalent), the only connection
between “The Dead” and The Departed seems to be
that everyone is very Irish. Either Monahan wanted
to re-imagine Finnegans Wake as an American crime
epic, or he mistook James Joyce for James Ellroy."

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

"I cited the Book of Joshua because
of the grotesque thirst for blood of
our own Old Testament deity--far
uglier than anything in the Koran
(which is simply stream-of-
consciousness nonsense--Mohammed
should sue James Joyce for
plagiarism). 


A Quote from retired Army Lt.
Colonel Ralph Peters in a 911
Symposium that can be found
here, if one wanted to read such
a thing.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Finn's Hotel

Joyce considered "Finn's Hotel" as a
title for Finnegans Wake. Finn's was
the hotel where Nora worked as a
chambermaid when James Joyce first
made her acquaintance. Finn's Hotel
still stands in Dublin. (Photo here thanks
to The Modern Word)

Monday, August 07, 2006

A big day to day in legal history. It’s
the day that the case of United States
vs. One Book Entitled Ulysses by James
Joyce
was found not to be obscene by the
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
(Judge Manton dissenting). For those of
you with Westlaw of Lexis access, here’s
the citation: 72 F.2d 705 (1934)

For those of you without, here’s
a bit more information and an excerpt:

But many passages show the trained hand
of an artist, who can at one moment
adapt to perfection the style of an
ancient chronicler,and at another become
a veritable personification of Thomas
Carlyle. In numerous places there are
found originality, beauty, and distinc-
tion. The book as a whole is not porno-
graphic, and,while in not a few spots it
is coarse, blasphemous, and obscene, it
does not, our opinion, tend to promote
lust.

Monday, July 17, 2006

There's an interesting article here
that addresses (AGAIN) the ongoing troubles
with Joyce copyright, particularly as involves
Stephen Joyce. Excerpt below:

In 1994, Stephen learned that Carol Shloss, an
English professor at Stanford, was working on a
biography of James Joyce's mentally ill daughter -
Stephen's aunt Lucia - who died in 1982. Shloss
was exploring the theory that there was a link
between Lucia's madness and the language of
Finnegans Wake - and was also probing possible
unsavoury explanations for Lucia's condition.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Th 20th International James Joyce Symposium
is being held in Hungary this year. In
honor of that event the Ujilpotvarosi
Klub Galeria
is having a Joyce exhibit with the
translated title of "James Joyce - Tender Exhibition".
Isn't that lovely?

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

WHAT TO DO??

My second Bloomsday out of California is coming
up and I'm looking for suggestions as to how
to spend the big day. After ten years as music
director of the Chico Bloomsday, I ended up
going to Portland last year. One of my favorite
people in the world lives there and it ended up
being a good distraction. But this year...what
to do? Can't make it here.


Your input is welcome

Monday, May 08, 2006

Irish Copyright Act foils Stephen Joyce

The Republic of Ireland's Copyright Act was
(hastily) introduced when James Joyce's
grandson, Stephen Joyce, objected to the
Irish Government's intention to display 500
sheets of the famous author's written work -
which they had purchased in 2001 - in the
National Library's Ulysses exhibition, as
the Joyce family still held the copyright
to James's work and that would be in breach.
This 2004 Act now allows the Government to
exhibit James Joyce's work without legal problems.

Read the whole thing here.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

The National Library of Ireland acquired
new Joyce papers this month. Among them, the
handwritten beginnings of what would become
Finnegans Wake. Read more here.
After a hiatus of a few months, I tried to post
last month in honor of Joyce's birthday.

I was prevented from doing so by technical
problems with my host server.

So a belated Joyce birthday greetings to
all. Nice to have access again

Thursday, February 02, 2006

test

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Birthday Alert



Joyce's birthday is coming up this Thursday
(Feb 2). Must think of something special to do
that day to celebrate ... Call in sick perhaps?
Input welcome.

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