Happy Birthday to a Brilliant Bloom

Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly are an artistic couple, he is always dreaming and scheming to get her onstage, writing sketches, stealing operas, arranging concerts in which she appears. They fell in love over Lord Byron's poetry whose book of poems Bloom gave Molly while they were first courting. Molly mistakenly thought he was a poet because he dressed like one, a deception she's never quite forgiven him for. It is their love for and frustration with each other that keeps this novel stitched together. There is even a book entitled The Chronicle of Leopold and Molly Bloom that imagines their relationship in greater detail inspired by textual clues from Ulysses. You know that old Irish saying, in Molly's heart, a flower Blooms. Today is the birthday of my own personal Leopold Bloom in residence, the Obie award winning theatrical impresario, director and actor Aaron Beall. He first played Bloom onstage at Symphony Space in 2004 for the centennial celebration and has appeared in every Radio Bloomsday I have directed since.

In honor of Aaron's birthday, here in an excerpt from last years Radio Bloomsday directed by and starring Aaron Beall as Bloom with the fantastic actresses Nicole Wiesner and Tara Bahna James as the bitchy sopranos Miss Douce and Miss Kennedy from The Sirens episode of Ulysses.

All Spirits - Dead and Alive

Still raining here in Manhattan as I work on the rundown for this year's Radio Bloomsday, our seven hour broadcast of excerpts from James Joyce's Ulysses. When I first started working on creating epic Bloomsday celebrations about a decade ago, I would frequently convene planning meetings and rehearsals at bars and beer gardens. One of my favorite locations was the backgarden at Rudy's in midtown Manhattan where you can still get a picture of watery beer for under ten dollars. That year, we scored and staged the Cyclops episode of the novel which of course takes place in a bar and ends famously with the one-eyed fenian, The Citizen, dinging a biscuit tin in the direction of Bloom's head because Bloom dared to list Jesus, Mercadante and Spinoza among famous world changing Jews. Frank McCourt played the narrator, Malachy McCourt was the citizen and Aaron Beall played Bloom.

Alas, my bar rehearsals are no more and I fully admit to being a failed hedonist. Recently, I have traded one sort of spirits for another and have started meditating to focus my energy and calm my mind. With that in mind, I have been particularly enjoying all of the metaphysical references in the novel from Bloom's meditation on the decomposing body in Hades to Molly's questioning of the meaning of metempsychosis, the movement of the soul to another body once its host body dies, at the top of the Calypso episode. The novelist Anne Enright and the playwright Wallace Shawn will be performing that episode in its entirety around 8pm on June 16. The Victorians were very into seances and the occult and Joyce riffs on this both in theme and writing style. There is a hilarious parody of a description of a seance in the Cyclops episode that the lovely actress Judy Graubart performed last year.

Another favorite excerpts from last year's broadcast was the vocal acrobat Zeroboy performing an excerpt from the Hades episode of the Ulysses. The scene takes place at Paddy Dignam's funeral, which is of course the purported main event of Bloom's day and leads to all sorts of thinking about this life and the next. You can hear an excerpt from Zeroboy's performance in the video above. Zeroboy will be performing a new excerpt for us this year. Don't forget to tune in this June 16th, to hear him live. Special Thanks to the wonderful website www.joyceimages.com for their help with this video.

A Recent Visitation of Jupiter Pluvius

New York is feeling much like Dublin today. Thundershowers, wet winds and drenched socks took hold of the city during "a recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius," this mid May morning. The rain has stopped, the trees are washed but the pavement is still dark with damp. As Joyce writes in one of his early poems about the rain: " Rain has fallen all the day./ O come among the laden trees:/ The leaves lie thick upon the way/ Of memories." Performer Marc Singer describes Dublin in similar circumstances as Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom walk home after a rain shower on Radio Bloomsday this June 16, less than a month away!

Water is almost a character in Ulysses as well it might be given the typical wet and rainy Irish climate. Of course, Ireland much like Manhattan, is an island surrounded by water, and its writers talk often of the sea.

Several chapters of Ulysses take place by the Sea. "Thalatta! Thalatta!" The novel begins in the Martello Tower as Dedalus watches Buck Mulligan shave and take a bath in the ocean. Stephen refuses to swim, and admits to being a hydrophobe, or at least that is what he tells Bloom at the end of the novel in the Ithaca episode, explaining why he doesn't want to wash his hands. Later in Proteus, he walks on the beach thinking of his past and imagining his future. You will hear the poet Paul Muldoon perform an excerpt from the second half of this chapter on Radio Bloomsday.

Even Bloom has his moment by the sea. In the Nausicaa episode, we return again to the Atlantic Ocean as Bloom watches the fireworks and the girls playing in the sand. I also love the end of Lotus Eaters episode which also sets Bloom in a body of water, the bath: " He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower.

Yesterday, I was discussing Ulysses with the charismatic actor, Jim Fletcher, who recently played the title character in Gatz, Elevator Repairs Service's unforgettable performance of the complete text of The Great Gatsby. He will be performing John Milton's poem about a shipwreck Lycidas on Radio Bloomsday, which is referenced several times throughout Ulysses by the students in the Nestor episode and by Dedalus in Proteus as he walks along the strand. Milton wrote the poem about his college friend, another aspiring writer, who died in a shipwreck off the coast of Ireland. It is obviously a favorite poem of Stephen's. He has emerged alive from the shipwreck of his life, not to be romantized as the poet who could have been but challenged to become the writer of his dreams. Can he do it? Even if his snarky friends keep him from being published in their literary journal. Who will help Stephen find his place on the literary landscape that is his destiny? No one offers to help him, it seems except Bloom, and Bloom can barely get Molly a singing gig once a year.

But Bloom has ulterior motives. He sees Stephen as a possible suitor for his daughter Milly. His wife Molly has her own designs on the young poet, however. As she says during her monologue fantasizing about being the muse of the handsome writer:

they all write about some woman in their poetry
well I suppose he wont find many like me
where softly sighs of love the light guitar
where poetry is in the air
the blue sea and the moon shining so beautifully
coming back on the nightboat from Tarifa
the lighthouse at Europa point
the guitar that fellow played was so expressive
will I ever go back there again
all new faces
two glancing eyes a lattice hid
Ill sing that for him
theyre my eyes
if hes anything of a poet
two eyes as darkly bright as loves own star
arent those beautiful words
as loves young star
itll be a change the Lord knows
to have an intelligent person to talk to about yourself
not always listening to him and Billy Prescotts ad
and Keyess ad and Tom the Devils ad
then if anything goes wrong in their business we have to suffer
Im sure hes very distinguished
Id like to meet a man like that
God not those other ruck
besides hes young

Tune in on Thursday, June 16th at 7pm to hear Stephen, Bloom, Molly and more on WBAI in NYC and KPFK in Los Angeles and on wbai.org from anywhere in the world!

One Month Til Bloomsday!

Today is Monday, May 16 - one month to go until Radio Bloomsday 2011 is broadcast live on WBAI 99.5FM in NYC and on KPFK in Los Angeles. Preparations are well underway on both coasts and several countries. In addition to our live performances, we have several pre-recorded segments as well. Last week, we recorded three fantastic actors at the KPFK studios in Los Angeles. Actor Marc Singer makes his Radio Bloomsday debut this year. Marc performs an excerpt from the Eumeus episode as a drunken Leopold Bloom supports an even drunker Stephen Dedalus through the streets of Dublin on their way home after a wild night. Bloom and Dedalus have spent the night carousing in a whorehouse where all of Blooms scatological fantasies were realized. He does a wickedly funny turn narrating the end of this very long day. Last years listeners will remember hearing Charles Busch perform the infamous Madame Bella Cohen practicing her sadomasochism on our heros.

Paul Dooley and Bob Odenkirk who both performed Bloom monologues last year, joined forces brilliantly this year to record several of the Questions and Answers from the Ithaca chapter of Ulysses. Written in the style of Catholic Catechism, this penultimate chapter of Ulysses consists of 309 questions and answers about the main characters in particular and the universe in general. This episode, known for its relentless details, pinpoints Bloom and Molly's location with lattitude and longitude, and includes an extremely long list of men who might have slept with Molly.

The poetic quality of Ithaca is impossible to ignore, however, in spite of its Catechetical format. It is in this chapter, that Bloom and Stephen stepping outside for a piss look up at the sky and see, "The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit" and a more detailed description of dueling streams of urine you would be hard pressed to find anywhere. Bob as Bloom compares women to the moon. Paul as Bloom remembers his favorite memories of his daughter Milly before kissing "the plump yellow smellow melons" of Molly's rump, a touching gesture that so enrages his wife as we will hear during her following two and a half monologue, performed in its entirety one month from today.

But first, I will leave you with Molly's outrage as another amazing actor, Radio Bloomsday regular, Jim Fletcher is on his way over for a rehearsal.

any man thatd kiss a womans bottom

Id throw my hat at him after that
hed kiss anything unnatural
where we havent 1 atom of any kind of expression in us
all of us the same
2 lumps of lard
before ever Id do that to a man
pfooh the dirty brutes

Spicey Books

On February 2, 1922, James Joyce's 40th birthday, his publisher Sylvia Beach, gave him the most wonderful present, one he had been dreaming about for many years. She gave him his first printed copy of Ulysses, together with bunches of blue and white hydrangeas matching the color scheme of the novel’s cover – the national colors of Ireland and Israel. Later that year, the Egoist Press published a run of 2000 copies, 500 of which were burned by the US Postal Service. In 1923, the Egoist published 500 copies in a third printing – 499 of which were confiscated by English Customs. It quickly developed a reputation for being a dirty book. In fact Sylvia Beach says of one of her patrons, "And of course its reputation as a banned book helped the sales. It was saddening, however, to see such a work listed in catalogues of erotica alongside Fanny Hill, The Perfumed Garden and that everlasting Casanova, not to speak of plain pornography like Raped on the Rail. An Irish priest, purchasing Ulysses asked me, “Any other spicey books?”

Like Beach's customer the priest, the novel's heroine, Molly Bloom is a fan of spicey books. In fact, in the Calypso episode of Ulysses, where we first meet the Blooms, Molly is reading just such a book by the improbably named Paul de Kock. Bloom stares at the cover and thinks to himself, "Ruby: the Pride of the Ring. Hello. Illustration. Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the floor naked. Sheet kindly lent." During this year's broadcast, The Calypso chapter will be heard in its entirety narrated by one of my favorite writers, the Booker Prize winning novelist Anne Enright. The fantastic playwright and performer Wallace Shawn reads Bloom in a performance that is sure to be unforgettable by all who listen in on June 16th.

During this episode, we discover that Molly has finished her book and demands another. Even though Bloom knows that Molly will be reenacting her own erotic scene in their bedroom with Blazes Boylan later that afternoon, he agrees. Later in the Wandering Rocks episode of Ulysses, we see him at a porn shop dutifully carrying out his errand. In the bookstore with its onion breathed proprietor and dingy curtain, Bloom chooses Sweets of Sin for Molly. The brilliant comedian Marc Maron, host of the WTF podcast, will describe Bloom perusing the merchandise in this the tenth chapter of the book.

Later, while lying in bed thinking about her day, Molly Bloom critics one of the dirty books purportedly written by priest, perhaps Sylvia Beach's customer coming to check out the competition. Molly says "cant be true a thing like that like some of those books he brings me the works of Master Francois Somebody supposed to be a priest about a child born out of her ear because her bumgut fell out a nice word for any priest to write and her a--e as if any fool wouldnt know what that meant." The complete two and a half hour Molly monologue will be performed live in its entirety at the end of our Radio Bloomsday broadcast by Galway native, Caraid O'Brien.

What is Radio Bloomsday?

Every June 16th from 7pm to 2am, Radio Bloomsday brings together great artists from all over the world to record James Joyce's Ulysses and broadcast his words coast to coast on WBAI in New York City and on KPFK in Los Angeles. International listeners can hear us on wbai.org. This years celebration will include performers from New York, Los Angeles, London and Dublin. We reinterpret Joyce's words with contemporary voices to make his text accessible and exciting to modern audiences.

Joining us this year to throwdown with the master text monster are artists such as Garrison Keillor, Alec Baldwin, Anne Enright, Wallace Shawn, John Lithgow, Garrison Keiler, Bob Odenkirk, Paul Dooley, Marc Singer, Nick McDonell, Kate Valk, John O'Callaghan, Roma Downey, Con Horgan, Alec Baldwin, Marie-Louise Bowe, Aaron Beall, Shawnee Benton, Zeroboy, Conn Horgan, Janet Coleman, David Dozer, Mara McEwin, Mark Greenfield, Corey Carthew and Jim Fletcher among many others.

The evening ends with Caraid O'Brien performing the complete Molly Episode from 11.30 to 2am traditionally listened to by readers at home while tucked up in a bed.

More details to be announced daily via this blog.

The Music of Joyce

James Joyce's first dream was to be a professional singer, but after he placed second to the legendary tenor John McCormack in a school singing competition, he chose instead to focus on his writing. I like to think of the student Joyce mooning around Dublin, dreaming of being a famous singer while writing essays about Ibsen. He was not a man for whom second best was an option. He certainly draws from his musical training in his writing, however. The soprano Molly Bloom, with her gasping career and annual public performance, has as much in common with Joyce the singer as she does with his wife Nora Barnacle.

Readers often remark upon the musicality of his text and how it is infinitely more accessible once read aloud, not unlike the difference between hearing music and looking at a score. The Sirens episode of Ulysses is among his most musical and includes several musicians in repose including the sopranos, Miss Douce and Miss Kennedy, Molly's singing partner and lover: Blazes Boylan, Stephen Dedalus' father Simon, who was a great singer until his alcoholism destroyed his talent, Ben Dollard and several others. The chapter opens with list of sounds and phrases, the tap, tap of a blind man's cane, the impertinent snort of a bootboy, the shrill giggles of the sopranos, our hero's farts. It is an overture, whose excerpts are heard in context throughout the following pages. There is even a short musical score within the episode. Last year, Janet Coleman and David Dozer performed the overture followed by Aaron Beall, Tara Bahna James and Nicole Wiesner in a raucous scene from Sirens. Tara Bahna James also sung the traditional Irish revolutionary song The Night that Larry was Stretched.

In addition to presenting great artists interpreting Ulysses, every year we highlight different musicians, some Irish classics like the music of John McCormack, The Pogues and U2 as well as some completely new contemporary acts. When we recorded the great music lover Garrison Keillor last month he turned us on to the late singer Frank Harte (left), whom he performed with when he did A Prairie Home Companion in Dublin. We will be including some of Harte's songs in the broadcast this year.

We are also really excited to be playing for the first time on American radio the music of the fantastic new ensemble out of Dublin, Tarab. Their Arabic name refers to state of ecstasy one enters into as a listener and their members hail from Italy as well as Ireland. Tarab brings together traditional Irish music with Jazz and Moroccan influences to create a completely original sound. The group is only a few months old and already receiving rave reviews. Bloom fantasizes throughout the novel about the Far East and Tarab's music is the perfect accompaniment echoing Joyce's deeply Irish but truly international exotic imagination. In a four starred review in The Irish Times, a reviewer writes "Not perhaps since Andy Irvine’s celebrated East Wind in 1992 has there been such a convincing reorientation of the Irish tradition." You can watch them perform live in the video above but dont forget to tune in to Radio Bloomsday on Thursday, June 16 from 7pm to 2am to hear Frank Harte, Tarab, Garrison Keillor, Alec Baldwin, Jim Fletcher and more!