HAPPY BLOOMSDAY
Wed. June 16, 2004Categories: Abstract Dynamics
“…I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. ”
Is it me or has Bloomsday become a version of St Patrick’s Day for pseudo-literary types who’d rather drink a half of Guinness with green food coloring in it and maybe catch a one-man show off Broadway than actually read the damn book? See today’s New York Times for an example.
well yeah but did you wake up on the wrong side of bed today?
😉
Yeh, Nigel, Sean O’Hagan was saying just that in the Observer on Sunday — talking abt the Disneyfication of Irish culture.
Course, as O’Hagan points out, there’s a supreme irony abt Joyce being co-opted by the Oirish tourist industry, since, like Beckett, he spent most of his creative life in exile from Ireland and its ‘triple net’.
but it started years ago with O’Neills and other shite didn’t it so fair enuff, back to our brandy.
does anyone know anyone (i don’t, although plenty of mates have been to towns nearby in Slovenia) who’s been to/lived in/comes from, Trieste?
i’d be interested to see if the local tourist info office or whatnot there makes much play of their Joyce connections.
I read something abt this the other day, can’t remember where, though; they certainly do celebrate the connection.
The O’Hagan piece is here btw, for those who ain’t seen it….. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1237415,00.html
Thing is, what does it matter if it’s a Disneyfication? It’s wonderful to go to Dublin and see so austere and unashamedly literary a figure loom so large. You just can’t imagine it in England. We’ll probably have a statue of Nick Hornby and Nick Park soon….
oh yeah i dont mind the Disneyfication, for one.
the literary pub crawls thing, all that.
Dublin’s size (it’s gotta be smaller than Brum or Mcr; maybe also Lpool and Leeds for all i know) doesn’t hurt in this respect.
i mean you can go to one specific corner of Bankside and find enough on the Bard, but it doesn’t feel the same…