Happy Birthday Oscar!!

Here’s an excerpt from Ellman’s Joyce
bio regarding OW, pg 283:

“Joyce had been interested in Wilde for a
long time....”. He saw in Wilde “something
of what he was coming to regard as his
own personality, the miserable man who
sings of joy.”

Other related facts:

Joyce wrote an article about Wilde for the
Piccolo della Sera on March 24, 1909.

Joyce read The Portrait of Dorian Gray (in
Italian) in 1906 and complained that Wilde
had veiled the homosexual aspects of the
book.

In 1918, Joyce started a theatre troupe with
Claud Sykes. They chose The Importance of
Being Earnest for their first play. (The play
featured notorious prig Henry Carr who
caused a fuss after the play’s run was over).
At the intermission of a performance when
Joyce was being publicly congratulated,
followed by audience applause, Joyce yelled,
“Hurrah for Ireland! Poor Wilde was Irish and
so am I!”

I'm trying to dig up information on Joyce and Wilde.
I know Joyce was influenced by Wilde but I want details.
Joyce was in his teens when Oscar Wilde was sentenced
to two years hard labor; how could he not be influenced
by him. So I'm off to find out more and will present what
I find out in tomorrow's post (tomorrow is the anniver-
sary of Oscar Wilde's birth).

For now here's a Wilde quote which I'm sure Joyce
appreciated:

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral
book. Books are well written or badly written. That
is all".

The cover for the first edition of Ulysses was
printed in blue and white, something Joyce
insisted on. The color is a blue with a slight
greenish tinge and white lettering to suggest
both the ocean and the colors of the Greek
flag. I haven’t seen an actual copy, just a
copy of a copy in a rare books catalog.

Bloom’s Soliloquy

So everyone knows about Molly’s soliloquy.
Especially the ending when she remembers an
important afternoon on Howth Head with Bloom.
That’s as it should be. Not as many people know
that Bloom also has strong memories of that day,
found on page 144 of Ulysses and excerpted
below. I remember being so pleased when I first
read this part of Ulysses, that the afternoon on
Howth would have impacted Bloom as strongly
as it did Molly (maybe more).

“.......Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open,
kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in
my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed.
Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled
sweetsour of her spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy. Young
life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft warm
sticky gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take
me, willing eyes.....Screened under ferns she
laughed warmfolded......Wildly I lay on her,
kissed her: eyes, her lips, her stretched neck
beating, woman’s breasts full in her blouse of
nun’s veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued
her......She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding
she tossed my hair. Kisses, she kissed me.”

I'm in a pissy-ass mood. Almost quit my job
this morning. I hate working. I hate that I have
to keep this job to make rent and pay for a car
and damn food for my family and dogs. I have no
time for writing and when I do get a little time, I'm
so overwhelmed by all the things I need to do that
I sometimes just sit and do nothing, not even think.
I haven't published anything for months and haven't
worked on my book for weeks. Disgusting

But I can't quit right now. Bloomsday100 registration
is due next month. (Does one have to pay for registra-
tion if they are presenting? Probably yes) And after I
come up with the money for registration I have to save
for going to the conference in June. I figure 1000 for
air fare and 1000 to get me through the 7-10
days there. So far I have saved zip.zero.zello.

But enough about my bad mood. Here's a Joyce tidbit
for you, put together last night when I was in a much
better mood:

Naxos has taken on the Herculean task of
producing an audio recording of the entire
text of Ulysses. Read about it here or check
out the excerpt below:

"...But help is at hand for those afflicted with
guilt at not ploughing through to the ecstatic
end of Molly Bloom's 65-page soliloquy. If they
cannot get round to reading the book they can
now have someone read it to them. Bargain record
label Naxos has recorded Ulysses on 23 CDs, which
will be issued next year in time for the 100th
anniversary of the original "Bloomsday", June 16,
1904. Listening to the set will take about as long
as Leopold Bloom's day."

Christian Crumlish has a well thought
out article on blogging for non-profits
which might be of interest to some of
you. I work at two non-profits: one radio
station and one social service agency,
both of which could benefit from a blog.
Arts organizations should climb on board
the blogging train too. I'd love it if there
was a blog for Bloomsday 100.

Fireland held a sexiest sentence alive
contest and welcomed submissions. They put
together an interesting formula to judge the
sentences that was proven wrong by the
unsexiness of the winning sentence. One
person entered this Joyce sentence from
the Dead:

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow
falling faintly through the universe and faintly
falling, like the descent of their last end, upon
all the living and the dead."

A famous sentence, a beautiful sentence, but
sexy? The possibilities in Ulysses are many,
but even sticking to Dubliners one can find
sexier sentences than the Dead entry.

How about this from Araby:

" I had never spoken to her, except for
a few casual words. and yet her name
was like a summons to all my foolish
blood."

Larry Kirwin of Black 47 has a lovely
song on his solo album Kilroy Was Here.
It's called "Molly" and you can download it
here .

Kirwin is a huge Joyce fan and an all
around good guy. But I wish he'd never
visited Joyce's grave.

He details the experience on Black 47's
latest cd Trouble in the Land:

"I met a girl at the Kon Tiki
She was doin' the Mexican rumba
When I told her what was on my mind
She said 'no big deal, here's my number'
So I sat up on the bar of her bike
As she peddled to the cemetery
We drank Schnapps on James Joyce's grave
The next thing I know, the place is goin' insane
Three weeks later they threw me outta jail
But I got laid on James Joyce's grave
I can still feel the bruises
Lord have mercy on me"

Election day in my state and I find my
thoughts turning to becoming an expatriat.
But where to go? Trieste?
Paris ? Zurich? Would James Joyce have
chosen different cities if he had left
Dublin in 2004 instead of 1904? I never
realized what a risky step it was for him to
leave until I considered it myself today. I
don't see how I can leave. No money. But
he had no money and he left
anyway. Brave man.

James Joyce’s Favorite Comic Strip

Well, I suppose if Joyce were to be fond of
a comic strip Krazy kat would be the one he
would be drawn to. Krazy Kat ran from 1913
to the mid 40s. It is viewed as one
of the more poetic and inventive comic strips
ever to be written and featured a tragic love
triangle: Krazy Kat adores the mean spirited
Ignatz Mouse and Offissa Pupp loves Krazy
Kat. Krazy Kat was also admired by Picasso,
Hemingway and Kerouac.

Here’s a sample of the strip from 1922.

In an earlier post I took issue with Ellman’s
statement that Joyce had a weak tenor voice.
I’ve looked into that statement a little more
and believe the source to be James Joyce’s
aunt Mrs. Callanan who told Joyce even as a
child that he was “a weak tenor”.

The statement does not refer to the actual
strength of his tones but instead to his
range limits. After turning twenty, G was the
highest note Joyce could hit comfortably, or
with some work an A flat. (Most tenors can
hit a high C).

Note: Due to extended work hours (taken
on to help fund my trip to Bloomsday 100 in
Dublin) this blog will be switching from daily
posts to five days a week posting (M - F).

That Other Biography

I’m putting on a book sale/benefit this
weekend and have been working on it
all week. One of the books donated is
Herbert Gorman’s James Joyce, which
I already own but have not yet read. I’ve
heard varying opinions on it. Here’s one
from Staley’s Annotated Critical Biography
of James Joyce:

“Although Gorman’s work is not to be
discounted, it remains a biography
written by one loyal to the subject and
dependent upon him for access to
nearly all material...... Gorman had
both the advantages and disadvan-
tages of a close relationship with
Joyce and his book clearly reveals this..
... Gorman’s relationship with Joyce on
occasion was a detriment, for Joyce
actively interfered and at least once
exercised a veto over material to be
included.”

Happy October! I have great news. Great for me,
that is. I have been invited to speak at the
International James Joyce Symposium, aka
Bloomsday 100, next June. My topic of
presentation: New York State of Mind: James
Joyce and the Music of Tin Pan Alley.

I'm thrilled, thrilled I tell you.

Joyce’s Contributions to Physics

James Joyce is responsible for the quark.

Sort of. Actually, Murray Gell-Mann had a lot
to do with it too. Gell-Mann, an American
physicist, was born in 1929. He won the
Nobel Prize in 1969 for his study of sub-
atomic particles. He, along with his associate
George Zweig, was responsible for the quark
theory which hypothesized that quarks are
the smallest particles of matter (quarks
being particles that carry fractional internal
linkelectric charges. Or to be more precise:

“quark (kwôrk, kwärk) noun
Any of a group of hypothetical elementary
particles having electric charges of magnitude
one-third or two-thirds that of the electron,
regarded as constituents of all hadrons.”

Gell-Mann named the quark after a passage in
Finnegans Wake: “Three quarks for Master Mark,
Sure he hasn’t got much of a bark, And sure any
he has it’s beside the mark.”

Gell-Mann wrote of this in a private letter of June
27, 1978, to the editor of the Oxford English
Dictionary, which said that he had actually been
influenced by Joyce's word in naming the particle.

Literary Saloon mentions Tom Stoppard's play
The Coast of Utopia today. They have a nice little
info page on him here.

Stoppard wrote the play Travesties after
he discovered the interesting fact that Lenin,
James Joyce and Tzara all lived in Zurich at
the same time.

I'm not sure where, why, or by whom
but Pirate Day was celebrated a week
or so ago. Someone brought James
Joyce into the festivities as seen here.

Age of Aquarius

I came across James Joyce's Natal Chart
on the internet. They use 6 am as the
time of birth, which is what astrologers
do if they don't have the birthtime. It
supposedly makes the chart less accurate
(ahem). I've looked in several sources and
can't find anything about what time of day
Joyce was born. If any of you know I'd
appreciate your emailing me. Here's a
breakdown of his planets:

Sun in Aquarius
Moon in Leo
Mars in Gemini
Venus in Aquarius
Mercury in Pisces
Jupiter in Taurus
Uranus in Virgo
Saturn in Taurus
Neptune in Taurus

I don't know a lot about astrology
but I believe Aquarius is known as
innovative and Taurus is stubborn.
Pisces is emotional & intuitive. Hmm.
There is a guy at the radio station
who is an astrologer. His show is right
before mine on Wednesdays. I'm going
to show this to him and see what he
thinks. Without telling him that it's
James Joyce. I'll let you know what he
says...

Crush

Something occurred to me as I carried clean
laundry into my daughter's room today. She
has a poster of Nsync on her wall. Silly young
girl. Then I carried the rest of the laundry to
my room and noticed the poster of James
Joyce on my wall. I have a crush on a dead
man.

It's a poster from one of our Bloomsday
events. It has that photo on it where Joyce
is sitting in a field or meadow, patch on his
eye, disconsolate.

Mrs. Svevo

As relayed in yesterday's post, Joyce helped Svevo
gain fame. He did the same for Svevo's wife, or at
least, for her hair. Joyce wrote to Svevo on Feb.
20, 1924 that he was making use of Signore Livia
Schmitz's name and hair for his newest heroine:
Anna Livia Purabelle. Joyce later was quoted :

"They say I have immortalized Svevo but I've also
immortalized the tresses of Signora Svevo. They
were long and reddish blond.... There is a river in
Dublin which passes dye-houses and its waters are
reddish, so I've enjoyed comparing these two things
in the book I'm writing...'

Below is the happy couple on their wedding day.

Svevo

Italo Svevo aka Ettore Schmidt, met James Joyce
in 1907, when he decided he needed English lessons.
The two men became friends and Svevo helped pull
Joyce out of a serious writing slump in 1909. Years
later, Joyce was equally helpful to Svevo, reading
the two novels he had written which had gone unno-
ticed by the public. Joyce read Svevo's novels,
admired them and helped to get Confessions of Zeno
published. Svevo wasn’t able to enjoy his delayed
success for long.

From Joyce’s letter to Harriet Weaver on September
20, 1928:

“ I have also bad news. Poor Italo Svevo was killed on
Thursday last in a motor accident. I have no details
yet only a line from his brother ... Somehow in the
case of Jews I always suspect suicide though
there was no reason in his case especially since
he came into fame...”

You can find a review of another Svevo title,
A Perfect Hoax, here.