BS: Bloom's Day festivities

Subject: Bloom's Day festivities
From: paddymac
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 06:59 AM

Bloom's day is nigh upon us, which set me to wondering what kinds of events happen in your town to celebrate the day. The day takes its name from a character in James Joyce's "Ulysses". Acclaimed the best bovel ever written in the English language, all the action transpires on a single day, 16 June 1904. The first "Bloom's Day" celebration occured in Dublin in 1954, and such celebrations now happen in many cities & towns around the world. Aside from some sort of a pub crawl, which seems to be standard fare for the celebrations, what other activities (more or less organized) go on where you live?

Subject: RE: BS: Bloom's Day festivities
From: paddymac
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 07:04 AM

Damn. Some day I'll accept the fact that I shouldn't try to type unless I have either a cup of joe or a pint close at hand. The word "bovel" should, of course, be "novel."

Subject: RE: BS: Bloom's Day festivities
From: donal
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 07:06 AM

I prefer the idea of a bovel......very Joycean !!!

D

Subject: RE: BS: Bloom's Day festivities
From: Suffet
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 07:07 AM

Mudcatter 2 in harmony always celebrates Bloom's Day as her birthday, which it is. Different year, however.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Bloom's Day festivities
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 07:21 AM

The Irish Theatre Group here in Brussels used to put on a light-hearted production which usually included a short play or excerpt, some comedy and a bit of music. Then the whole outfit got terribly serious and would-be professional, "Bloomsnight" was abandoned and now there's nothing that I know of to take its place.

So we'll just have to go out to the James Joyce (as this town's oldest and most trad-music-friendly pub is called) and crown our vale of sorrels in a bovel of bevvies.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloom's Day festivities
From: paddymac
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 01:19 PM

I have found "Bloom's Day" to be a good sales pitch for bunch of gigs. It just happens that it's in the summer doldrums of the local hospitality industry, so when I pitched a week long celebration the local joints jumped on it. But the time to do the selling is in April.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloom's Day festivities
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 02:43 PM

My daughter's birthday.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloom's Day festivities
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 02:53 PM

there is a great pub here in Cleveland, that has the best Guiness in town, called Nighttown, that for years put on a great Bloomsday spread, until the owner finally decided that most of the regulars were there for the free food and drink, and not for the love of Joyce, so it sadly is no more. Though the day is still unofficially celebrated by many of us in our own way, no really connected gathering. Should try to start something, though the idea of the somewhat commercialized Dublin celebrations kind of make me gag.

BTW, any news updates on the Guiness company changing the formula to make a quicker draught? Read about it somewhere, and it is an outrage, an abomination unto the lord, I would even say, to tamper with the sterling of stouts, if you can't wait a few minutes for it, you don't f***ing deserve it. I hope Guiness see the error of their way here.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloom's Day festivities
From: GUEST,Allan Dennehy
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 07:01 PM

Theres a Pub here in Copenhagen called Bloomsdays. Its Irish/English owned and they put on a good afternoon bash with music and a local Irish poet who is always dressed up like James Joyce the whole year around! Hes good.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloom's Day festivities
From: Blues=Life
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 11:39 PM

It's held on the wrong day, but Spokane, Washington has 50,000 runners come out every year for the Lilac Bloomsday Race:

"Where does the name "Lilac Bloomsday Run" come from? Founder Don Kardong chose the name, which is a joining of Spokane's favorite flower to the word James Joyce scholars use to describe the day events in the novel "Ulysses" take place. Confused? Intrigued? Read on...

According to Kardong, a road race is an odyssey, not unlike the one Ulysses endured in his return to Ithaca after the Trojan War, a journey described in great detail by the Greek poet Homer. In 1917 James Joyce wrote "Ulysses" about one day in the life of a man (Leopold Bloom) in Dublin, Ireland. Bloom spends the day wandering through the streets of Dublin in a rough parallel of his Greek counterpart Ulysses, and that day (June 16) has become known to Joyce scholars and aficionados as "Bloomsday."

The 7-1/2-mile odyssey through the streets of Spokane was dubbed The Lilac Bloomsday Run, combining Spokane's moniker "The Lilac City" with the premise of Joyce's novel, which is that ordinary people are involved in unassuming and yet heroic journeys every day of their lives. A citizen who travels 7-1/2 miles on the first Sunday of May encounters trials, hazards and monsters during his or her odyssey through the Lilac City before ending up back home."

It's quite a show.

Blues