Blooms & Barnacles

Do you have the address of Henry Gibson?

Kelly and Dermot welcome special guest Paul Ringo to Blooms & Barnacles. Topics include Joyce’s love of Henrik Ibsen, Paul’s love of Finnegans Wake via the stage, Joyce’s study of Norwegian, realism as seen in the works of Joyce and Ibsen, the artist as a conduit for the world’s filth, Joyce’s dream to Europeanize Ireland, the search for Henry Gibson, Joyce’s attempt to introduce Ibsen to Ireland, Joyce’s letter to Ibsen on his birthday, Joyce’s review of When We Dead Awaken, Hedda Gabler’s influence onUlysses, gender roles in the works of Joyce and Ibsen, Ibsen’s self-imposed exile, A Doll’s House’s influence on “The Dead”, the influence of Peer Gynt on Ulysses, Stanislaus Joyce and My Brother’s Keeper, A Brilliant Career, Lou Reed, Laugh In, and who Paul would like to play in Hedda Gabler.

https://paulringo.blogspot.com/

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The Worst Man in Dublin.

Topics in this episode include begrudgery, so much Dublin geography, mourning customs, buildings found on Great Brunswick (Pearse) St., jarvies and the hazard, the Invincibles, the Antient Concert Rooms, Joyce’s music career, John McCormack and J.C. Doyle, Dermot’s history with the erstwhile Antient Concert Rooms’ building, St. Mark’s Church, Bloom’s strange alibi, Blazes Boylan, Books Upstairs, St. Mark’s church on Pearse St., a tale of graverobbery, Sir Philip Crampton’s memorial fountain bust, the difficulties of historical preservation in Dublin, Molly’s concert tour, Bloom’s side quest to Co. Clare, dipsomania, William Smith O’Brien, identities encoded in hats, Felix O’Callaghan, snuff at a wake, Molly’s routine, “La Ci Darem La Mano,” and Bloom’s broken heart.

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What kind of person has a picnic party in a funeral carriage?

Topics in this episode include a heartfelt thank you, cats that hate technology, the name Poldy, Eton suits, the Blooms’ middle class pretensions, Rudy’s conception, Raymond Terrace and the cease to do evil, Milly Bloom, crustcrumbs and picnic parties, Milly’s trip to Lough Owel, M’Coy, “Grace”, Joe Hynes, incubism, unpaid debts, the Grand Canal, cures for whooping cough, duchas.ie, Athos the dog, Rudolph Bloom’s suicide note, Argos the dog, the immensity of Tom Kernan, the uncertainty of the weather in Ireland, correspondences, “The Croppy Boy”, the 1798 Rebellion, the Peake from Crosbie and Alleyne’s, “Counterparts”, and the real life inspiration for Alleyne in “Counterparts”.

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I’ll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me!

Topics include Ulysses tarot cards, incubism, the system of correspondences found in Ulysses, Martin Cunningham, Mr Power, Simon Dedalus, armstraps, caring for corpses, women’s role in caring for the dead, hats as identities, economic incubism, Bloom’s outsider status, Irish funeral customs, embalming, why Dignam’s widow doesn’t attend his funeral, keening, Rudy, 9 Newbridge Avenue, circulation and the heart, Dublin through a corpse-eye-view, funerals traveling through the center of town, Six Feet Under, an anonymous Englishman, kippers, Bloom as a defier of custom, fidus Achates, hat etiquette, Strumpet City, a wild Stephen appears, Latin Quarter hat, Richie Goulding, Bright’s disease, Simon Dedalus’ way with words, Ignatius Gallaher, “A Little Cloud,” the incubus of alcohol, Simon’s hatred of Buck Mulligan, Elizabethan insults, and the Joyce family’s connection to Clery’s.

Incubism

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Shakespeare is in the eye of the beholder.

Topics in this episode include the real-world inspiration for Paddy’s Dignam’s funeral, Matthew Kane, the funeral cortège to Glasnevin, attendees to Matthew Kane’s funeral, Martin Cunningham, Sisyphus, the short story “Grace,” the true story behind “Grace,” the Jesuits, Matthew Kane attending his own funeral, Matthew Kane’s appearance in “Ithaca,” Michael Hart, Tom Kernan, Matthew Kane’s appearance, Shakespeare in the eyes of his beholders, visiting Matthew Kane’s gravestone, zombie Shakespeare, Martin Cunningham’s wife and Matthew Kane’s wife, ghostly voices, the origin of the name Patrick Dignam, temperance or the lack thereof, the Patrick Dignam who lived near Leopold Bloom’s house, the reason for the crumby carriage seats in “Hades,” and Paddy Dignam’s alleged role in the Easter Rising.

Who Was the Real Paddy Dignam?

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The parallels between Bloom and Odysseus’ journeys to the Underworld.

Topics include a summary of Chapter XI of The Odyssey, Bloom as sideways Odysseus, the neighborhoods of Glasnevin and Sandymount, Paddy Dignam and his “apoplexy,” Elpenor, Martin Cunningham the Sisyphus of Dublin, Dublin’s waterways, Dublin’s Charon, coins for the eyes, psychopomps, Reuben J. Dodd, Corny Kelleher, Cerberus, Father Coffey, simnel cakes, Dublin’s Hades and Persephone, the Nekuia, Joycean Hercules, Agamemnon and Ajax, Robert Emmet as Tiresias, cricket, the number eleven, why Bloom goes to the Underworld in the morning, Viconian cycles, Richard Ellmann’s theory of cycles, Bloom’s non-denial of death, parallels of “Hades” and “Proteus,” the poetry of Al-Ma’arri, seadeath as the easiest death, and Bloom’s affirmation of life.

Ulysses & The Odyssey: Hades

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“Bantam” is an anagram of “Batman.” Coincidence?

Topics include the state of Bantam Lyons’ hygiene, horseracing, Conway’s pub, cat wrangling, the Ascot Gold Cup, Throwaway, Bloom’s accidental racing tip, Dublin geography, Bloom’s disinterest in gambling, lotuses, the fleshpots of Egypt, Dermot’s dad’s betting tips, Orientalism, the Lincoln Place baths, sports as a lotus, Joyce’s love of cricket, Turkish hammams, the Victorians’ love of baths, the morality of baths, the precarity of the middle class, Bloom’s bath-sturbation, Bloom’s unholy communion, magical soap, the bath as a womb, and the bath as a vagina.

Sweny the Alchemist

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Dermot and Kelly take to the streets of Dublin on Bloomsday 2022 with the goal to talk to as many people celebrating the occasion as possible. They talk to revelers at the Sandycove Martello Tower, Kennedy’s Pub in Lincoln Place, outside Sweny’s Pharmacy, and on Duke St. in the general vicinity of Davy Byrne’s.

Many, many thanks to all the delightful people that spoke to us!

Sweny's Patreon helps keep this marvelous Dublin landmark alive. Please subscribe!

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Kelly speaks with actress Aedín Moloney about playing Molly Bloom in her one-woman show, Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom.

http://www.aedinmoloney.com/

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Blooms & Barnacles chat with composer Benjamin Wenzeberg about his new, Ulysses-inspired opera NIGHTTTOWN.

Topics include adapting Ulysses for the stage, the process of writing an opera during Covid, gender politics and #metoo in Ulysses, gender-inclusive casting, Molly as a force of nature, the proper use of Italian, the symbolic power of musical notation, and Stephen Dedalus’ vulnerability.