Bloomsday Arrives!

It's the 16th of June, and any devout James Joyce reader knows what day this is: "Happy Bloomsday!"

Time to get that pint of Guinness and shot of Jameson and celebrate the words, and especially words that go against the status quo. Like James Joyce or not, he broke new ground, and that helps all of us, as artists.


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Today's The Writer's Almanac (American Public Media) notes, "Joyceans all over the world celebrate the day in 1904 that the events of Ulysses take place on. It's named for the novel's protagonist, Leopold Bloom. Joyce chose June 16, 1904, as the setting for the novel, to commemorate the day he went on his first date with Nora Barnacle, his future wife."


Via The Writer's Almanac (and public domain), Molly's soliloquy from the Penelope chapter of Ulysses:


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by James Joyce

"Molly's soliloquy ends, 'O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibralter as a girl where 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 Morrish 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.'"


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Work on the new Little Room continues, and it seems fitting to borrow once more from James Joyce's words, albeit in an entirely different context from the above, but with just as much feeling: "... His heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."


This is a day for "hearts going like mad," and the process of creating, and Little Rooms, wherever you are, wherever you create -- wherever your personal "safe place" is. Make it a good one.