Monthly Archives: June 2012

The enthusiasm for Joyce’s Ulysses continues after Bloomsday 2012 over at the Modernist Versions Project. They are posting PDF versions of the 1922 edition and sponsoring monthly chats episode by episode. Check out their first effort on Episode 1 (Telemachiad) held last week. It’s readable in its entirey on Storify: http://storify.com/janineutell/yearofulysses-telemachiad

The free-form, episode-by-episode mode of tweeting James Joyce’s Ulysses on Bloomsday this year resulted in over 1000 tweets being posted or retweeted on 16 June, according to a rough initial count. In contrast, the “Ulysses Meets Twitter 2011” effort posted just 600 tweets. The most popular episode this year was “Cyclops,” the twelfth episode, followed closely by “Scylla and Charybdis,” the ninth episode. The list below shows the number of tweets per episode (in bold), the episode hashtag, and the episode name.

125 – #ulysses12 – Cyclops

111 – #ulysses9 – Scylla and Charybdis

89 – #ulysses8 – Lestrygonians

87 – #ulysses11 – Sirens

79 – #ulysses3 – Proteus

72 – #ulysses1 – Telemachus

65 – #ulysses10 – Wandering Rocks

60 – #ulysses15 – Circe

51 – #ulysses4 – Calypso

49 – #ulysses7 – Aeolus

47 – #ulysses14 – Oxen of the Sun

39 – #ulysses2 – Nestor

38 – #ulysses6 – Hades

37 – #ulysses5 – Lotus Eaters

31 – #ulysses18 – Penelope

30 – #ulysses13 – Nausicaa

20 – #ulysses16 – Eumaeus

13 – #ulysses17 – Ithaca

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DUBLIN, IRELAND — Here are 5 of the bronze plaques placed in the sidewalks of the Hibernian Metropolis to mark spots mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses where Leopold Bloom fictively trod. These were encountered during my perambulations around the city this past week, culminating in Bloomsday. Nice that these memories of Ulysses are viewable year round, any time of day or night, in all types of weather … if you but remember to cast your eyes down now and again. — Steve Cole, Baltimore, Md.

DUBLIN, IRELAND — This city’s Middle Abbey Street was tonight transformed into the infamous ‘Nighttown’ red light district in James Joyce’s Ulysses (the fifteenth episode, named Circe). The perpetrators behind this literary met-him-pike-hoses were the carnivalistic folks behind the Bloomsday Survival Kit, which made its maiden Bloomsday voyage this month. The action took place on the stage of the Twisted Pepper.

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SANDYCOVE, IRELAND — Nearly 50 fans of James Joyce’s Ulysses crowded around the gunrest atop the Martello Tower here this morning shortly after 8 am for the first Ulysses reading of the day, beginning with “STATELY PLUMP Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather …” The voices circled round and round the Tower under low clouds and spritz of rain until the opening chapter was exhausted. See for yourself (below).

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Leopold Bloom and Gerty MacDowell famously enjoy each other from afar on Sandymount Strand in James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses.’ Tara Prescott (UCLA Writing Programs) brings that scene from the Nausicaa episode to passionate life in this video made at the International James Joyce Symposium at Trinity College, Dublin, on 13 June 2012. Tara admires Gerty. Do you?

In Joyce’s Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus is often tired, depressed, and/or drunk — not an overall flattering Portrait. Ted Howell of Temple University recalls a favorite scene when Stephen really shows what he’s got. This interview was recorded at the International James Joyce Symposium in Dublin, 12 June 2012.)