Courtesy of jonathanshipley.blogspot.com
Bloomsday is one of those rare opportunities in life where you can have your cake and eat it too. It is, in fact, a holiday celebrating a book and one of the greatest expressions of nerdliness that exists on the planet, however, it does offer the redemption of literary sophistication that May the Fourth (be with you) and Star Trek conventions generally lack.
For those not familiar with the holiday—undoubtedly almost anyone who wasn’t a literature major at university—it is derived from James Joyce’s literary masterpiece Ulysses. The entire novel (a casual read at nearly 1,100 pages) takes place on one day, 16 June 1904, the day he started dating Nora Barnacle, his future common-law wife. The name comes from the main protagonist, Leopold Bloom. Every year this is marked with various celebrations from the not-for-the-feint-of-heart marathon readings of the entire novel (be prepared for over 13 hours), to the awesome—tours of Dublin tracing the steps of Leopold Bloom, with no shortage of pubs on the itinerary—to the more moderate celebrations like the alliterative Bloomsday Breakfast in Bryant Park and Radio Bloomsday. Following is a list of just some of the festivities being held this year, but there are more happening all over the world so check into what your city is doing tomorrow, even if it is not listed here.
- Radio Bloomsday- This is the easiest way to get in on the Bloomsday action, available to anyone with a computer, or a radio if you live in the New York or Los Angeles broadcast areas. Broadcast over the Pacifica Radio Network (wbai 99.5 FM in NYC, KPFK 90.7 FM in LA, and wbai.org) Radio Bloomsday will feature readings from Ulysses as performed at celebrations in Dublin, Los Angeles, New York, and London. http://radiobloomsday.blogspot.com/
- Rosenbach Museum and Library- For those of you in Philadelphia, the Rosenbach Museum and Library is hosting a couple events around Bloomsday, including an introduction to Ulysses and James Joyce at Fergie’s Irish Pub on Tuesday night and a program on James Joyce and other Irish Authors being held Sunday June 19 and Wednesday June 22 at 3 PM. However, the focal piece will be an outdoor reading of Ulysses starting at noon on Bloomsday itself. http://www.rosenbach.org/bloomsday
- Bryant Park Bloomsday Breakfast- Free if your RSVP to bloomsday@imagineireland.ie this will feature an Irish breakfast, readings from the book along with musical and dance performances. Runs from 8-10 AM. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179760615411516
- s@11ysse – This special twitter account had followers attempt to summarize episodes of the novel into the 140 characters or less format of this social networking site. On Thursday, they will use selected submissions to broadcast the story of this day in Leopold Bloom’s life through tweets. http://twitter.com/#!/11ysses
- Staten Island OutLoud- A reading of Ulysses will be held at ETG Book Café on Staten Island, starts at 7:30 PM. http://statenislandoutloud.org/upcomingevents.aspx
