The upcoming auction at Sotheby’s is making
me nauseous. I want to purchase James Joyce’s
spectacles. I can’t get them out of my head.
I wrote a poem about them last night. The
auction estimate for them is 3,000 – 5,000
pounds. Can I afford that? No!! I’m unem-
ployed but it isn’t an impossible amount like
50,000. I could try to find a lender and promise
interest and timely payments. I could buy lottery
tickets. I’d only have to match four numbers or
so to get 5,000. I could resort to petty crime.
Devise some internet scheme. Write papers
for grad students. Rob a small bank.

There is something so sexy and endearing about
glasses. If you love someone, and they wear
glasses,when they take them off, one is filled
with an enormous sense of desire and tenderness,
a deadly combination. James Joyce’s spectacles.
Oh my.

Love Letter Found

In Ellman’s biography of Joyce he writes "Joyce's
letter of 1 December 1909 has not survived".

That letter has been found “discovered tucked
into a book among an almost painfully personal
collection of relics linked to the author”. The
collection is owned by the family of Stanislaus Joyce.

An article in the Guardian about the find,
does not mention when or if the contents of the
letter will be published. It’s an important letter,
written during Joyce’s visit to Dublin in 1909,
a time of jealousy and insecurity for him, and
one that produced some of the most beautiful
and erotic love letters ever written.

The letter will be auctioned at Sotheby's in July.

Bloomsday meeting tonight. My McHomey, and
main ally, Michael, will not be there. Damn.

Here's what I'm working on for the Men's Choir:

Remember how on Joyce's first night in Trieste,
he left Nora on a park bench and went off to find
lodging - not coming back for many hours?

He had come across a group of British sailors
in the midst of a disagreement with the local
police. Joyce tried to intervene and ended up in
jail with them.

So the Men's Choir will be these sailors,
reminiscing about Joyce and their time together
as cell mates. One of the sailors won't be able
to remember this experience and he will be
reminded that he was with a different ship at the
time, docked in New York, flirting with NY Girls.

Which will lead into the song O, You New York
Girls, Can't You Dance the Polka, a song about
a sailor on shore leave who gets taken by a
prostitute. Joyce referenced this song in
Finnegans Wake.

Joyce's days accurately represent last week for me:

Moanday
Tearsday
Wailsday
Thumpday
Frightday
Shatterday

Saturday actually wasn't so bad. And Thursday
was okay because I missed the Bloomsday
meeting. This Thursday I won't be able to avoid
it so it will be Thumpday for sure.

These meetings are taking the joy out of Joyce.

Here’s an article (excerpt below) about the James
Joyce Ramble. I don’t understand why people do
things like this. What does running have to do
with James Joyce? If James Joyce were ever to
attend such an event he would be sitting on the
sidelines under a large beach umbrella with a
cold glass of chardonnay in his hands, not
jogging. Dedham isn’t the only town to hold a
Joyce run. Spokane does it, so does Seattle and
I imagine other misguided towns.

The James Joyce Ramble:
"Dressed in early 20th-century costume, actors
read from ''The Dead," ''Ulysses," and ''Finnegans
Wake" during the ramble, a 10K race
that combines organizer Martin Hanley's love
for running, Joyce, and acting.

Some actors worried that onlookers were more
interested in the running than the reading. But
participant Kate Carney, 69, managed to get the
full attention of several young children as she read
a passage from 'Finnegans Wake' about two
gossiping wash women cleaning the linen of a
cheating husband."

A very depressing Bloomsday meeting
last Thursday. One member of our
committee wants the entire evening
based on a Joyce party, with Joyce &
friends present and individual episodes
stemming from the party itself.

Another person, our founder, stated that
he feels very uneasy about this idea and
actually has a bad feeling in his stomach
whenever he thinks about it. His concerns
weren't really addressed.

There's more to it than this, but basically
I think there isn't time to do the party idea
unless it is done as a scene unto itself, rather
than being interspersed throughout the
evening.

But, who knows what will happen at this
point.

U of V, Charlottesville held a marathon reading
of Ulysses last weekend. Students and teachers
read for ten minutes each, then passed the
podium on to someone else. Scheduled to last
24 hours, the reading ended up taking 30 hours
instead. Check out the entire article at the
Cavalier Daily.

Obsession

I noticed something today. I often check
the index in Ellman’s Joyce bio to see if
Joyce has been through a similar exper-
ience to my own. Part of that is blog
related – wanting to write about something
I’m currently interested in but relating it
to Joyce. But today I remembered those
WWJD people . “What Would Jesus do?”
Could I be doing the same thing, but with
Joyce? Could I be obsessed?

I searched Google for a quiz titled “Are
you Obsessed” but all the quizzes were
topic specific, e.g. Are you obsessed with…
Clay Aiken, physical appearances, weblog
hits, sex.

Finally I found a Harry Potter quiz that
I thought I might be able to use, tweaking
the questions a bit to fit James Joyce.
Some of them were perfect as is:

10. Do you own more than one copy of
the books? Yes

18. Did you wear a costume? Twice

20. Do you find one of the characters
oddly attractive? Absolutely (Bloom)

21. Have you talked your friends into
reading the books? Yes

92. Do you participate in groups dedicated to
stopping such censorship? Yes

96. Have you ever bought overpriced
merchandise from e-bay? Yes

My score was 40% which qualified me as an
obsessed fan, though to my credit, there
were three higher categories that were more
obsessed than I. And actually, my plan is to
end this blog after Bloomsday this year.

No Bloomsday meeting this week due to several
committee members being out of town. I have
been working on the music. Tentatively plans
include: O, You New York Girls, Can't You
Dance the Polka (for the men's choir), Eileen
Aroon, maybe A Nation Once Again if I can get
my British neighbor with the great voice to do it.

I'm considering the Girls Choir making an ap-
pearance but if we go with the party-for-joyce
theme for the whole night I'm not sure how to
fit them in, at least, not in the way I have
planned.

Dylan had the idea to make the entire evening a
skit of a party for Joyce, featuring himself and his
friends and admirers. I like the idea but it puts a
damper on our usual method of everyone develop-
ing and presenting a separate thing, be it poem,
reading, scene or song. Maybe we could have only
the second half be the Joyce party. Hmmm.

Hope we get things settled soon. Time's a wastin'.

Joyce's letter to Heineman (see entry below)
sold for $59,000 at Christies ...

Joyce Auction Tomorrow

The Quentin Keynes Collection of Books and
Manuscripts will be auctioned off tomorrow
and Thursday by Christies’s of London.
Rueters calls this “One of the most significant
collections of manuscripts, books and draw-
ings relating to James Joyce “…One item that’s
expected to bring in big bucks is an early letter
of Joyce’s. Written on September 23, 1905 to a
W. Heinemann offering up Dubliners for
publication. Heinemann passed.

Joyce wrote in the letter: “The book is not a
collection of tourist impressions but an attempt
to represent certain aspects of the life of one of
the European capitals.”

The auction is expected to be quite pricey. For
thenon-millionaires out there, remember: I still
have a rare copy of the limited edition James
Joyce Yearbook for sale. Buddenbrooks is selling
their copy for $800. I’d take half that.

So our first meeting went well. Held at the lovely
Latimer home over a meal of duck and wild rice,
all were in good spirits and everyone got along fine.

There was a good, if muddled, idea of staging a
scene from Joyce's birthday party in 1922 - also
the day he received his first copy of Ulysses - and
having all our Bloomsday pieces evolve from that
event. It was believed that there was a festive
party on that day. I think it was actually a small
dinner celebration at a restaurant but need to
look into it with Mr. Ellman.

Talk also of doing the opening Martello Tower
scene. We meet again next Thursday.

Our first Bloomsday meeting for 2004 will be
this Wednesday evening. I'm looking forward to
it mostly..... I just hope we can keep things civil
and not let egos get in the way.

I've become less tolerant of egomaniacs
lately.

So, I haven't given a lot of thought yet to
the music. I'd like to do a scene featuring
Croppy Boy interspersed with Bloom's lunch
thoughts but not sure how that would come
across.

I usually use songs from all of Joyce's works
but may stick to Ulysses this year in honor
of the 100th anniversary. I'll decide after
I see what the others on the committee
have in mind.

Sean Walsh, Director of the Irish movie
“Bloom” has begun working with Paragon
Film Group to distribute the film (which
has just been nominated for four Irish
Academy Awards). Paragon is looking to contact
universities, museums and Bloomsday presenters
throughout the US in hopes of getting the film
showed in June 2004. If you or your group is
interested contact Scott Bedno at 818-845-7148.
email : info@paragonfilmgroup.com
You can also contact him through the mail at :
Paragon Film Group, LLC
209 East Alameda, #103
Burbank, CA
91502

There's a link to the Bloom website in
my links section.

HIP-HOP JOYCE

Hip-Hop writer CHZA likens Notorious B.I.G.
to James Joyce in his column. You can find it
at Filter Magazine.

“...one astounding, irrevocable truth: That
Biggie Smalls was the modern, Black rein-
carnation of James Joyce.”

CHZA insightfully sums up Mr. B.I.G. (and
Mr. Joyce) with a Sly and the Family Stone
reference: “He’s everyday people documenting
the everyday struggle”.

I don’t know much about B.I.G., but CHZA
and JAJ are off da chain.

I spoke with a friend from Chico's Bloomsday
committee yesterday. She is working on a script
for the opening scene of Ulysses - the tower
scene - which she thinks would be a good scene
for us to do this year.

I think so too, though the three gentlemen she
has in mind to perform are all in their mid-30s
or above. Stephen was 22 in Ulysses.

We'll have our first Bloomsday meeting later this
month. I vascillate between looking forward to it
and dreading it. The meetings can sometimes get
heated and confrontational due to egos. I hate
that part of it.

Damn the Times. I found a great article I’d like
to link to for you or even read myself but the
Times is subscription only.

The title begins:
Stephen Joyce: Protective grandson who
refuses to ...

The article, which ran on Feb 14, 2004, reads:
... his grandson called a press conference in a
pub in Zurich. While most Joyceans celebrate
the author on June 16 — Bloomsday — Stephen
Joyce insists that ...

You have to register AND PAY MONEY
to read the whole article

Starting to think about Bloomsday 2004 in Chico.
Today I took a look at 2002’s list of song possibilities .

* indicates songs I ended up using

Bloomsday possibilities:

Girls choir: Rings on fingers*-fw or harrigan-fw

Mens choir-mcnamara’s band-fw
i’m a rambling wreck (son of a Gombolier)-fw

Kelly
cruiskeen lawn-u/fw

KB - little brown jug-fw

Kim -sweet rosie o grady *-p/fw

???
ballynure ballad
all around my hat
bonny labouring boy-fw
croppy boy-u
de profundis-fw
dixie-u/fw
for he’s a jolly good fellow-d/dead/fw
goodnight ladies-fw
marble halls-d
o you new york girls, can you dance the polka-fw
molly brannigan - u/fw/j
toot toot tootsie*-fw
turkey in the straw-fw
yes we have no banana- fw

Calico is the name of the cotton which was
sometimes used to tie the wrists of those
who are taken off to mental institutions.

Calico is also the name of a new play written
by Michael Hastings. Currently playing in
London, here’s a brief description from
a ticket selling website

“Calico...

By Michael Hastings,
Directed by Edward Hall

1928 - The Paris apartment of James Joyce and
his family. A world of secret lives and secret
dreams.

A young student named Samuel Beckett arrives
and an unusual love begins.

CALICO is a fictional story inspired by fact. It is
a captivating and exuberant play about a family
in crisis. Scrupulously researched, Calico mixes
sadness and great compassion to explore love
almost to the brink of insanity.”

I have to decide by March 1st if I will be
attending the James Joyce Conference in
Dublin this year. I’m supposed to present
at the conference (New York State of Mind:
James Joyce and the Music of Tin Pan Alley),
something that made me feel quite proud.
But I’m entering my third month of
unemployment and haven’t the funds to
pay for the necessities of life, much less a
week in Dublin. So I’m adjusting to the
fact that unless a miracle happens, I won’t
be going. Just another ripple in my
depression pond.

My current state of mind has led me to
thoughts of Joyce and depression. I think
the worst years for him were his later years
in Zurich. His eyes were getting progress-
ively worse, the reaction to Finnegans Wake
was not what he had hoped and it looked
like Lucia would have to spend the rest of her
days in an institution.

I guess I shouldn’t complain.