Free Joyce

January 13th 2012 is the 70th anniversary of James Joyce's death. That means his writing is no longer protected by European copyright law so expect an explosion of new productions and adaptions .
Joyce was a notoriously slow writer.  There's many variations of this legendary anecdote, here's one...
     "Productive day today Mr Joyce?"
     " . . . Yes, I completed three sentences."

And I've just come across this one.
     "So, what did you do during the war, Mr Joyce?"
     " . . . I wrote Ulysses. What did you do?"

Happy Bloomsday

June 16 is Bloomsday. It celebrates Leopold Bloom, the main character in James Joyce's Ulysses. The story takes place takes place in Dublin on a single day: June 16th 1904 - the day on which (we believe) Joyce first went out with his future wife, Nora Barnacle. Ulysses follows the life and thoughts of Leopold Bloom and a host of other characters – real and fictional – from 8am through to the early hours of the following morning.  Here's a few events I've been able to locate... USA nationally  Radio Bloomsday will be broadcast live from 7pm to 2am ]on the Pacifica Radio Network, wbai 99.5FM in New York City, KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles and online at www.wbai.org anywhere in the world. This year's broadcast includes artist from New York, Los Angeles, Dublin and London. Dublin  Bloomsday Celebrations hosted by the Irish Writers' Centre in the Garden of Remembrance from 12-3pm with Finnegan's Wake: A Traditional Irish Wake Celebrating Life, Death and Everything in Between. This traditional Irish 'wake' will both commemorate the work of Ireland's late, great writers and provide a platform to admire the wonderful writing being created in modern Ireland. Lots also happening at The James Joyce Cente. Events include a breakfast, readings, Joycean tours around the city, songs and poetry readings, and actors wandering the streets dressed as characters from "Ulysses." And when the day is done, a quiz at the Great Hiberian Metropolis.

Los Angeles: Machine Project's Bloomsday Silent Read-A-Thon. Starting at 8 a.m. and going on until 3 p.m.

The first Bloomsday celebrations were held in France in June 1929 (only a few years after it was first published...in France.) The first Bloomsday to be celebrated in Ireland, however, had to wait to the fiftieth anniversary in 1954, but it must have been a pretty special day. The writers Patrick Kavanagh and Flann O’Brien visited locations like the Martello Tower at Sandycove, Davy Byrne’s pub and 7 Eccles Street, reading parts of Ulysses as they went. And drinking too...

What links James Joyce and Gordon Brown?

Although I realise I'm in danger of sounding like a pub quiz or the Saturday edition of The Guardian,  I just had to share this nugget of information. Did you know that James Joyce's pen name was Gordon Brown? He used it as a token of respect for Giordano Bruno.  

Born in 16th century Naples, Bruno was a monk who left the monastery to travel and philosophise about the nature of the universe (apparently he came to England in 1580 and may have met Shakespeare). Like Copernicus and Galileo, he was in danger from the Inquisition, but unlike them he refused to moderate his views or keep quiet. After eight years in prison, he was tortured and executed. When he was sentenced to death for declaring that the earth could not be the centre of the solar system, he said: 

"Perhaps you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it." 

Happy Bloomsday

A present for June 16th Bloomsday - a quote from THE book 

Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.

And a wonderful textorised picture of James Joyce using an extract from Ulysses by someone called Max. it is licensed under creative commons and if you click on the title of this post you can go to his flcker account. Enjoy.