There are few things more synonymous with Ireland as a creamy, rich pint of Guinness. Plenty of time has been spent on James Joyce’s relationship with the black stuff, yet few have really considered just how much of a role Guinness plays in Finnegans Wake. Through dozens of allusions, references, and cunning puns, the pride of St. James’s Gate bears out an outsized presence through the dream-life of HC Earwicker, and for this special New Years Eve episode, Toby and TJ take a break from reading the Wake to clean a glass, pour to the harp, let it settle, top it off, then try to split the G. Our hearts are full, and our glasses are too: let’s raise a glass to Joyce, the Wake, and a potential future Guinness sponsorship for the podcast! Sláinte!  

This week’s readers: Toby Malone, TJ Young

References:

FWEET: http://www.fweet.org/cgi-bin/fw_grep.cgi?srch=guinness&cake=&icase=1&accent=1&beauty=1&hilight=1&escope=1&rscope=1&dist=4&ndist=4&fontsz=100&shorth=0 

Peter Chrisp on Joyce and Guinness: https://peterchrisp.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-frothy-freshener-james-joyces.html 

Dannen, Catherine Gubernatis. “The Facts and Fiction Behind ‘the Free, the Flow, the Frothy Freshener’: The Guinness Company and the Story of Joyce’s Lost Ad.” James Joyce Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 4, 2011, pp. 711–26. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24598886. Accessed 20 Dec. 2024.

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

Break out Mr. Tunney the grocer’s Christmas almanac, clear your schedule for Edwin Hamilton's Christmas pantaloonade and the Christmas pantomime Sinbad the Sailor, it’s time for a twelfth night feast dance with the Morkan Sisters, with the chrism for the christmass: in other words, it’s the WAKE Christmas episode! As we take a break on the reading for the holiday period, Toby spends a little bit of time considering how James Joyce approached Christmas in all four of his major works, through the eyes of wistful schoolboys, red-faced drunken uncles, dreamers and roamers, with quaintly underwhelming gifts, half-hearted sobriety pledges, and epiphanies on mortality. Happy holidays from everyone at WAKE: we hope you get your holly and ivy for him and for Christmas!

This week's chatters: Toby Malone

References

Peter Chrisp: https://peterchrisp.blogspot.com/2022/12/james-joyces-christmas-eve-1904.html 

Mark Wallace: https://thevictoriansage.wordpress.com/2023/12/21/james-joyce-at-christmas-the-dead-1913/

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

It’s always a treat when your smartest friend can join you for a chat: especially when it's the kind of smartest friend who makes you feel smarter yourself. Yes, award-winning visionary Neil Wechsler is back with us again to read a part of 3.3, roll past the 500 page mark, and to get deep into the weeds on meaning, immersion, expectation, and whether or not it’s actually a bad thing to be pretentious. It’s likely a good thing that we gave ourselves a pass on pretentiousness, because then we immediately get right into name-checking Socrates, Freud, Borges, Albee, Camus, and Lorde as we consider what it looks like as denizens at ‘the middle’ of the Wake. Come listen to our exagmination of the facts “thus being reduced to nothing,” and then, when all is said and done, stop to consider what it all would sound like... underwater.

This week's readers: Neil Wechsler, Toby Malone, TJ Young

Progress: 516 pages complete, 112 pages to go; 82.17% read.

Contextual Notes:

Neil on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wechslerprojects/

Zinzin, the business: https://www.zinzin.com/our-story/our-name/

Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress (1929): 

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

Under a full moon and with a pint of Guinness in hand, WAKE welcomes our very first Dublin-based reader, as correctly-accented Sarah Kane joins Toby and TJ to kick off Chapter 3.3. Sarah tells us all about participating in Bloomsday as a neophyte Joycean (“a lifeguard that can’t swim”), slips into a Joyce fugue state regardless of best laid plans, and reminds us that a cold read is really just what the kids nowadays call Rawdogging. With the glorious Irishness of it all to bring us through, we discuss Joyce reading groups, Sweny’s Pharmacy, Anthony Burgess, and, in a bombshell twist none of you saw coming, TJ's authentic Irish heritage.

This week's readers: Sarah Kane, Toby Malone, TJ Young

Progress: 496 pages complete, 132 pages to go; 78.98% read.

Contextual Notes

Sarah Kane on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/bloodonyourshoe/

Bloomsday in Dublin: https://www.bloomsdayfestival.ie/

Sweny’s Pharmacy: https://www.sweny.ie/

Sweny’s on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swenyspharmacydublin/

Anthony Burgess’s A Shorter Finnegans Wake: https://www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/a-shorter-finnegans-wake-editing-an-epic/

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

Grab your torches and buffs, it's time for another episode of Survivor: Finnegans Wake edition... Experts say that the best way to manage unprocessed trauma is to talk it through, to normalise what you've experienced. Here at WAKE we are all about offering all angles and perspectives on Finnegans Wake: and it was only a matter of time until we interviewed someone who did not enjoy the experience! Fascinating polyglot Ana Dahlberg is a professed lover of Joyce, a participant in Bloomsday festivities, and is a certified member of an extremely exclusive club: she has survived finishing Finnigans Wake. Today, we talk to Ana about her experience, which ran the gamut of emotions, from frustration to exasperation to bewilderment to rage, and all the way back again, in such a fashion that the only way she could describe it was to suggest Morrissey write a song about her and the book that just doesn't care what she thinks. In this delightful, non-reading episode, join Toby and TJ with Ana, with the rarest of insights about how it feels to actually finish the Wake (spoiler: not as satisfying as you'd hope).

This week's chatters: Ana Dahlberg, Toby Malone, TJ Young

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

No one ever likes to WAKE alone, but sometimes the occasion calls for it. On a dark day in WAKE-world, Toby takes the reins solo to deal with the apuckalips, or at least what feels like it. Along the way, Jaun's entirely inappropriate conversation with Issy provides a distraction, tempered by side discussions of chaos theory, John Cage, Idiocracy, and hope for the future.

This week's readers: Toby Malone

Progress: 473 pages complete, 155 pages to go; 75.32% read.

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

Before today's episode, Toby and TJ had never heard the word "stramash", but now we can't stop saying it! Scottish musician, editor, author, and all-rounder Tommy MacKay joins the WAKE fold, not only to teach us this ever-so useful Scottish term for chaos, but also to discuss his amazing Joyce-music 'stramashups', the pitfalls of adaptation, pioneering punk music, creepy death masks, and the things that may or may not be appropriate to say to a younger sister. Yes, Shaun is up to all sorts of trouble this time around, lecturing Issy and her classmates in a mansplainy way that has shades of Laertes and Ophelia, but way filthier. It's an accessible, rollicking chapter, and the only one so far that features Denti Alligator, so everyone wins.

This week's readers: Tommy MacKay, TJ Young, Toby Malone

Progress: 448 pages complete, 180 pages to go; 71.34% read.

Contextual Notes:

The Daily Reckless: https://www.dailyreckless.com/

Finnegans Dreams: https://www.dailyreckless.com/2024/08/15/finnegans-dreams/

Cunstuntonoplies (Patrick Horgan vs. They Might Be Giants) https://www.dailyreckless.com/2024/10/22/cunstuntonoplies/

Thunderwords! https://www.dailyreckless.com/2024/09/16/thunderwords/

James Joyce’s death mask: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/james-joyce-death-mask-1941/TQGMVB7smSO0JA?hl=en

Tommy MacKay on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tommy.mackay/

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

The hundred-letter 'thunderwords' are arguably the most enduring, well-known, and mystifying feature of Finnegans Wake, jumbles of letters cobbling together words from far-flung languages to create a word salad of difficulty that seems to stand as emblematic of the overall challenges of the Wake. In this bonus episode, we spend a few minutes considering all ten thunderwords, their 1001 letters, and the insight of eminent Wake scholars including Marshall McLuhan, Eric McLuhan, and Bernard Benstock. Now that WAKE has spoken all ten thunderwords, we have mashed them all together, in case you've ever desperately wanted to hear what they all sound like, entirely butchered, in chronological order, with no breaks. What more could you want?

This week's personnel: Toby Malone

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

Hooraymost! It’s the dirtiest chapter featuring insect erotica in all of literature, so grab your doodlers and bungholes, we’re going spizzing! Best of all, beloved Wakexpert Lucy Brazier finds room on her fagroaster to get down to some Clowntalkin about the savage rivalry between Shaun and his brother as we cover chapter 3.1! We wonder about narrative-minded donkeys, ponder what it would take to have the smell of an old woman come off you, name-check Monty Python, and plan a letter-based tourist trap, all ahead of the one thunderword that has 101 letters, just to prove a point. It’s a pervy, raucous episode of WAKE, and we couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

(Apologies for the sound quality on Toby's mic, it's an ongoing problem that will be fixed)

This week's readers: Lucy Brazier, TJ Young, Toby Malone

Progress: 428 pages complete, 200 pages to go; 68.15% read.

Contextual Notes:

Lucy Brazier’s website https://portergirl.com/

Finnegans What?: Finnegans Wake - A guide by an idiothttps://www.amazon.ca/Finnegans-What-Wake-guide-idiot/dp/1092156100/

Ulysses! Sex, Soap & a Lucky Potato: (It’s Ulysses. But For Normal People)https://www.amazon.ca/Ulysses-Sex-Soap-Lucky-Potato/dp/B096LWKB43

Lucy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/brazierlucy/

Lucy on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/@lucybrazierauthor/

Lucy on Twitter https://twitter.com/@portergirl100/

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

We find ourselves at the end of Book Two, and you know what that means: another ever-popular recap episode! Using the mind-bending brilliance of the László Moholy-Nagy Finnegans Wake Diagram as a jumping-off point, Toby and TJ try to rank the chapters of Book 2, nostalgically reconsider Night Lessons, and compare the text to a disparate collection of cultural touchstones. Topics may include, to varying levels of detail: JJ Abrams, Luigi Pirandello, Riverdale, The Master and Margarita, the Berliner Ensemble, Punchdrunk's Sleep No More, Passing Strange, ChatGPT, andThe Sound and the Fury. Join us in the temporary high that is generated when two readers assume that hubris isn't really a thing, and that surely they're well past the hardest part now...

(Apologies for the sound quality on Toby's mic, it's an ongoing problem that will be fixed)

This week's chatters: Toby Malone, TJ Young

Progress: 399 pages complete, 229 pages to go; 63.54% read.

Contextual Notes:

Toby on the New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/38306/toby-malone

TJ on the New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/9739/tj-young

László Moholy-Nagy's visual representation of Finnegans Wake

https://signalvnoise.com/posts/633-lszl-moholy-nagys-visual-representation-of-finnegans-wake

real_finnegans_wake on the chart https://www.instagram.com/p/CRkpUlXs5YT/

real_finnegans_wake on the graph https://www.instagram.com/p/Ci4aO_8sh0f/

S. by Doug Dorst and JJ Abrams https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/j-j-abrams/s/9780316201643/?lens=mulholland-books

Sleep No More: https://mckittrickhotel.com/events/sleep-no-more/

Passing Strange: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V7jjjshvBE

Shakespeare’s Sonnets, at the Berliner Ensemble: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnCvotmFtYM

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!