Lockdown Diary - Tuesday 16th June 2020

Bloomsday.  One of my favourite days of the year. A celebration of James Joyce's novel 'Ulysses', one its leading characters (Leopold Bloom), Dublin and most importantly a celebration of life itself (“If Ulysses isn't fit to read, then life isn't fit to live.” (James Joyce))  Each of the chapters of 'Ulysses' takes place at at specific time on the 16th June, and so in celebration, as much as is possible (life always gets in the way), I read sections from each chapter at the allotted times. Further complicated by the fact that some chapters take place at the same time, but centred on different characters. 

In amongst the Joycean wanderings I've also squeezed in a long call with a Nurse at the hospital as part of my pre-op assessment, plus completed 30-odd minutes of brisk walking.  This afternoon I'm going to have a call with a friend in Berlin before returning to some of the online celebrations of Bloomsday being broadcast from Dublin.

Ended up speaking for almost two hours with my mate in Berlin, which included him testing out 5 quiz questions on music on me, ahead of him using them as part of a Zoom family quiz he's got coming up. Got 4 out of 5 right, but was annoyed not to have got the second one right.  Questions ranged from 1972 to 2010, so a reasonable spread of years. It's always fun catching up with him as we never seem to run out of things to talk about.

At 5pm I attended a Zoomcast (i.e. only the presenters were visible/audible) entitled 'Ulysses, Pandemic and Social Distancing'. Great talks from leading lights in Joycean studies, and great to see a nice bit of gender balance: two women and two men, of these Catherine Flynn, who is at UC Berkeley, has a great Irish accent. This has probably been my best Bloomsday ever, because the pandemic has meant all the action has taken place online rather than just physically in Dublin (and other great cities around the world), where, so far, I have been unable to be on the day in question.  Something I intend to fix soon.

Another episode of 'Altered Carbon' watched and finally the story begins to make some forward progress.  I still haven't formed an opinion on it one way or the other.  Visually it has the look and feel of 'Blade Runner' with even greater disparity between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' (reminds me of someplace), but the central story arc (if there is one) seems unclear and isn't helped by all the strange unexplained stuff about different factions view of longevity/multiple bodies. It's watchable, but I wouldn't say I was hooked.

Back to 'Ulysses' then sleep.  The final action takes place after 2am, so I rarely read that in real time. Perhaps if one was in Dublin, celebrating with like-minded lunatics, that would work out better. The amount of drinking that's required during the day and evening to keep up with the various characters might put paid to that. 

Today's track comes from an album that was released on the 16th June 1969, the date chosen because of 'Ulysses' / Bloomsday, allegedly,  though whether the great Captain had read the book is unknown and probably unlikely. One can hope.  I always imagine that this album, on some level, is the musical analogue of 'Finnegans Wake' rather than 'Ulysses', though I think in truth the 'Wake is more of an outlier relative to other literature than 'Trout Mask Replica' (for that is the album in question) is to other music. Having given the game away on the album choice, it only remains to select a track, and that honour falls to 'Moonlight on Vermont'

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