WAKE: Cold Reading Finnegans Wake

Hray! This week TJ's fiancé Taylor Hoover joins us to close down the bar, avoid the insults, and drink up all the dregs left over! Find out just what disqualifies one from becoming a limousine lady, the logistics behind transcribing crowd noise, and the relationship between Joyce, Charles Marowitz, and Tron: Legacy. Don't hide, seek this week's episode of WAKE!

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

This week's readers: Taylor Hoover, Toby Malone, TJ Young

Progress: 382 pages complete, 246 pages to go; 60.83% read.

Contextual Notes

Tron Legacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron:_Legacy

In the Buginning is the Woid: Bartholomew Ryan and the Loafing Heroes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlVcmM2DUJ0

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!

Richard Harte is one of the world's preeminent interpreters of Joyce: a 25 year veteran of Bloomsday performances, and the undisputed star of One Little Goat Theatre Company's parallel (not competing) Finnegans Wake podcast, currently under development as a film and exhaustive live chronicle of the Earwicker clan. When Toby joined the audience to watch his old friend Richard perform 1.5 of the Wake at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library last week, he knew we had to get Richard on to talk about the Wake: and talk he did! In this joyful bonus episode, hear all about how many times Richard has read the Wake (the answer may surprise you!), the spiritual feeling of walking the Dublin locations of the book, the logistics of preparing the live readings, and plans for the future. It's a crossover episode, and we couldn't be happier to have Richard along with us.

This week's personnel: Richard Harte, TJ Young, 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!

WAKE buys you a third round and settles in for yet another Tale at the Inn, where we prominently feature multiple guns, KC Jowls and the little-known horror film Coach with the Six Insides. We bid welcome to another of Toby's former students, Ryan Benson Smith, for a lively discussion that includes a Wake-Ramones mashup, the Bluey theme song, and how media romanticises the Irish. Along the way, we enjoy a sparkling reading with the growing knowledge that everyone we're reading about is going to have a terrible headache tomorrow.

This week's readers: Ryan Benson Smith, TJ Young, Toby Malone

Progress: 370 pages complete, 258 pages to go; 58.92% read.

Contextual Notes

Tommy Mackay’s Finnegans Dreams: Ramones and Joyce project:

https://variousartists11.bandcamp.com/track/dont-go-earwicker 

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

Space Pirates of Planet Penzance: https://dgarverick78.wixsite.com/spacepiratespenzance

NYC Book Hoes Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-hoes-podcast/id1728444763

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!

As the whiskey and Guinness flow, the Tales at the Inn get all the more outlandish, Taff and Butt get out of hand, and a Russian general cops it. This week in WAKE, we geek out about geeking out with Carly Derderian, consider whether Thornton Wilder cribbed The Skin of Our Teeth from Finnegans Wake, relax our mouths enough to speak like a Newfoundlander and unlock the meaning of the language of the Beatles. And TJ is back!

This week's readers: Carly Derderian, TJ Young, Toby Malone

Progress: 354 pages complete, 274 pages to go; 52.87% read.

Contextual Notes

Nowe the Lost, streaming on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/nowe_the_lost

Carly on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlyann_dee/

Gontarski, S.E. “Wilder’s Joyce: Inspiration, Borrowing, Appropriation, Plagiarism.” ABEI Journal – The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies, v. 25, n. 1, 2023, pp. 29-46.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373008972_Wilder's_Joyce_Inspiration_Borrowing_Appropriation_Plagiarism

Gibbs, Walcott. Finnegans Teeth, The New Yorker. https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1942-12-26/flipbook/034/

Campbell, Joseph, and Henry Morton Robinson. "The Skin of Whose Teeth? The Strange Case of Mr. Wilder's New Play and Finnegans Wake". The Saturday Review. December 19, 1942. No link.

Come Together! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45cYwDMibGo

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 a milestone episode of WAKE, as we sail past the halfway point on an auspicious anniversary day for Toby. TJ is out sick this week, so we checked our list of dream interim co-hosts and came up with a winner: Toby's brilliant former dramaturgy student, K'hari Constantine! Toby and K'hari dive into the first part of Tales at the Inn, with the detailed story of the Norwegian Captain, and along the way consider how the Wake sounds in a sheriff's drawl, why it's important to let your tongue taste the words, how the text fits into the greater macrocosm, and, of course, why Joyce just isn't that into you.

This week's readers: K'hari Constantine, Toby Malone

Progress: 332 pages complete, 296 pages to go; 52.87% read.

Contextual Notes

K’hari on Voices.com:  https://www.voices.com/profile/khariconstantine

K’hari on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khari-constantine-370719238/

The BookTok girl: https://x.com/ineffablestring/status/1825021537667178588

TikToker sparks debate after asking why book ‘has so many words on the page’ (The Independent): https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/booktok-books-tiktok-debate-yannareads-b2598776.html

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!

Welcome to WAKE, where language is king! This week we reach the thrilling conclusion of the Night Lessons episode, and get into a little bit of analysis amidst the chaos that reigns when TJ's internet drops out mid-recording. We discuss Neil's ongoing beef against Cognitive Science and the laws of language, discover the benefits to earning knowledge, and establish all the reasons we should trust Joyce. After three weeks of column-based fun, this is the satisfying conclusion you were looking for, as we spit in the eye of all those purists who said that Night Lessons would be the chapter to break us.

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

Progress: 308 pages complete, 320 pages to go; 49.04% read.

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

Just like a well-ordered barndance, Toby, TJ, and Neil shuffle one step the right to find new dance partners, with all new takes on the mighty columns of Night Lessons! With footnotes that would make David Foster Wallace blush, Latin, French, and a parenthetical that spans five entire pages, Joyce is really making us work this week. Come sit in the back of the classroom, keep your spitballs to yourself, and try not to carve anything into the desks.

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

Progress: 292 pages complete, 336 pages to go; 46.5% read.

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

Grab your notebooks and start practicing your filthiest marginalia, it's Night Lessons time! When confronted with the most logistically challenging chapter of the Wake (columns! footnotes! diagrams! marginalia!), Toby and TJ sent out the Neil-Signal, and brought in our favourite purist-in-the-nicest sense, Neil Wechsler, to establish order. In this first part of three episodes reading this complex chapter, Toby, TJ and Neil inhabit the schooldesks of Shem, Shaun, and Issy, and have some fun navigating the minutiae.

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

Progress: 277 pages complete, 351 pages to go; 44.11% read.

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

The games are afoot on WAKE, but we are fortified and ready to cast our disapproving glances over the debauchery! For the second half of Chapter 2.1, we welcome genuine teenager, Cormac Malone, to start us off, before we churn our way to the door-slammiest of thunderwords yet. We consider whether reading the Wake is just like a Tough Mudder race, and whether HCE is Neo from the Matrix. Toby reveals the Irish town in which he spent New Year's Eve 1999, and we consider what it would take to require demanding a theatre curtain to "drop by deep request."

As we prepare for Night Lessons, it's all fon and gheims until sumbuddy looses an ay.

This week's readers: Cormac Malone, Toby Malone, TJ Young

Progress: 259 pages complete, 369 pages to go; 41.24% read.

Contextual Notes

Neo seeing the Matrix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-0RHqDWcJE&t=27s

Tough Mudder: the same as the Wake: https://toughmudder.com/

So Long, Farewell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy9_lfjQopU

Paddy Blue’s, the pub in Gorey Toby went to on New Year’s Eve 1999: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH66Wu1ZGHU

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

Book Two is underway at the Wake, and it's taking the voices spanning three different continents to take us there. This week Toby and TJ are joined by the delightful Brit Lucy Brazier, author of Finnegans What? Finnegans Wake - a Guide by an Idiot to discuss inappropriate sibling games, river poo, Oscar Wilde, underwear fetishes, and Francophobia. Despite her book's subtitle, Lucy is no idiot, but offers insight and humour that demonstrate the value of re-reading, even we are all left in a state of merry confusion.

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

Progress: 240 pages complete, 388 pages to go; 38.22% read.

Contextual Notes

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

Finnegans What?: Finnegans Wake - A guide by an idiot https://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. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!