It's Bloomsday again, and whether you're in New York or anywhere with an Internet connection, here are a few ways to mark the event: attend a reading at Symphony Space in New York (95th and Broadway) at 7 pm, listen to its live webcast, tune in to WBAI (99.5 FM) in New York for its offering of Joyce readings, or listen to its live webcast, from 7 pm to 4 am. This program will also be heard on many Pacifica-affiliated radio stations. The New York Times describes the events as follows (read the full article for why the theater and radio productions are going their separate ways this year).
In the Symphony Space production Stephen Colbert and Frank and Malachy McCourt will read from the novel’s Ithaca episode. Then after a musical interlude by the soprano Judith Kellock, the event will conclude with a reading by Fionnula Flanagan of the book’s ending episode, Molly Bloom’s drifting nighttime thoughts.
WBAI’s broadcast will also feature the Molly Bloom monologue, read by the Irish actress Caraid O’Brien. Other performers will include Alec Baldwin and Anne Meara. The radio production will present a range of works by Joyce but concentrate on what its producers called “the holy trinity of characters in ‘Ulysses’: Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife, Molly.”
Or watch the abbreviated version of Ulysses I wrote about last year and couldn't resist posting again. To show Joyce in a rare moment of underconfidence, here's the note he wrote to Nora Barnacle, his future wife whom he first walked out with on July 16, 1904, after she had once stood him up:
60 Shelbourne Road
I may be blind. I looked for a long time at a head of reddish-brown hair and decided it was not yours. I went home quite dejected. I would like to make an appointment but it might not suit you. I hope you will be kind enough to make one with me — if you have not forgotten me!
James A Joyce
15 June 1904
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