Say yes I will yes to Bloomsday

Even his lapels are filthy.

Today, the 16th of June, is Bloomsday: the annual celebration of the life and work of James Joyce in general, and of his landmark Modernist novel Ulysses in particular. It’s a landmark in the literary sense and also in the geographical sense, a dauntingly huge and dense wodge of cellulose. If ever a book was better read weightlessly as an e-book, Ulysses is it. June 16th 1904 is the Dublin day described in hyperreal detail by the book’s protagonist Leopold Bloom, and re-enacted by Joyce fanatics every year since 1954.

The 16th of June was also significant as the date of Joyce’s first outing with the woman who would become his beloved wife, Nora Barnacle. So why don’t you celebrate Bloomsday by starting on Ulysses if you haven’t already? To be honest you might regret it and give up in frustration as many have done before, but you definitely won’t regret trying. But first, how about this:

IT’S ONLY THE BEST COMPLETEST MOST BROWNSEXFUL PAGE OF SHEER FILTH WRITTEN BY JAMES JOYCE TO HIS WIFE ON THE WHOLE BLOODY INTERNET.

https://adoxoblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/fμckbird-and-jim-james-joyces-letters-to-nora-barnacle

It’s been linked from Tumblr, Reddit and even by those depraved little naughty farties at The Telegraph. The readership counts for the page are already predictably massive, as they are every year on this day.

And of course there’s also Kate Bush’s magnificent and typically loopy-sexy tribute to Ulysses: The Sensual World. A few years ago she finally released the song as originally intended, with quotes from Joyce. These had been forbidden by the Joyce estate in the late 80s. But I still prefer this version, if only because I don’t think there are enough pastiches of Joycean prose in the world. I think it’s more fun and more in the spirit of Joyce to make it up– as Bush was forced to– than to just quote it.

Look! Kate’s raided the costume box at the local amateur dramatic society again, now she’s sashaying through a forest fire and hopping around like a scary crow and being all sexy and whatnot. Not pictured: police search team and duty psychiatrist.

Happy Bloomsday my hot little boys and girls, you brownarsed blackguards, you whores of the hedge.

Update: Here’s a reading of the original Molly Bloom soliloquy from Ulysses, to which Kate Bush was referring.

Bloomsday: The anal celebration of James Joyce

James Joyce: Get your freak on, get your freak on, get your get your get your get your freak on.

Today, the 16th of June, is Bloomsday. Bloomsday is the annual celebration of James Joyce’s life and work inspired by his massive infuriating brilliant overrated underrated rambling scrambled inspiring behemoth of a novel that swirls around the thoughts and the person of Leopold Bloom in Dublin on the 16th of June 1904: Ulysses.

It’s probably a wee bit too late to start reading Ulysses if you want to be done by the end of today, but you can easily get through (and get off on, should you be so inclined) Joyce’s unfathomably dirty, somewhat terrifying and occasionally, unwittingly hilarious sex letters to his Mrs, the magnificently monikered Nora Barnacle.

Whatever else- or whoever else- you do on Bloomsday I hope you enjoy reading this vintage smut, my sweet naughty little fuckbirds. Hint / warning: the title of this post is not a typo.

Smutty Letters of James Joyce: Stephen Hawking Version

"YOU KNOW HOW TO GIVE ME A COCKSTAND."

I definitely don’t think that people with disabilities are funny or that Stephen Hawking is laughable.

However, hearing James Joyce’s sexy, obscene letters to his Mrs read out in a robot/Hawking voice is hilarious. Try it. If you have a Mac I suggest using the voice called Fred, AKA the Radiohead ‘Paranoid Android’ voice. Select the text you want to hear, go to the Services menu and choose Speech>Start speaking text.

It’s probably the most profoundly unarousing thing you will hear all week, although having said that I’m sure that rule 34 of the internet applies as much in this instance as it does in every other case. I’ve no doubt whatsoever that somewhere out there are Hawking cosplayers and slash writers, or perverts who get off on the idea of a randy but terminally bored Dalek with Tourette’s Syndrome, which is what the Mac’s Fred voice sounds like when he/it delivers deadpan readings of lines such as “my little whore tells me she wants me to roger her arseways and wants me to fuck her mouth and wants to unbutton me and pull out my mickey and suck it off like a teat.”

Yes, I did spend most of Sunday afternoon listening to dirty talk from a century ago being read out in a robot voice… and laughing, a lot. LET ROBOT JIM COME INTO YOUR SWEET WHORISH EARS, YOU DIRTY LITTLE BLACKGUARDS.

Fμckbird and Jim: James Joyce’s letters to Nora Barnacle

SEXY BEAST: Just look at this fine ensemble. Like a louche waiter on a very stylish pirate ship. Filthy lapels. Dashing face topiary.

The letters below were originally presented on my main site as part of the background research material for a new episode in my performance lecture series; this one was to be called ‘One-Eyed Monster’ and explore the posthumous ownership and exposure of artists’ private lives, focusing on James Joyce. Although this project is on hold for the moment, the evident interest of both scholars and perverts in James Joyce’s smutty letters and the difficulty of obtaining access to them has persuaded me to maintain the material here.

‘One-Eyed Monster’ was inspired by the ongoing public fascination with the private lives of famous writers, artists, musicians and performers. I’m particularly interested in the ways that a person who achieves any significant measure of success or recognition in the arts can expect to have absolutely every aspect of their private life exposed and analysed upon their death or at some point after a “decent” period has elapsed. Rejected or unfinished works and prosaic notes about tedious domestic matters become valuable relics to be snapped up by collectors and hoarded; meanwhile everything else about the artist becomes in a sense public property.