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June 16th is the day when James Joyce set his famous novel Ulysses. The day is now known as “Bloomsday”, after one of the main characters, Leopold Bloom.
Joyce’s novel is entirely set in Dublin on that one day as the characters move around the city as part of their everyday lives. And James wrote about them, partly modelling the book’s structure on Homer’s Odyssey. It’s an extraordinary book, for a long time banned for supposed obscenity, but now much revered particularly in Joyce’s home city.
Bloomsday has been on my list of ‘must-do’s for a long time and this year I finally made it. Masterminded by Mike Gogan, we walked as a group around the city joining thousands of others, some dressed up in period costume. Along the way, Mike, Johnny Lyons and I – all 26 and Dark Angels members – read extracts of Ulysses to our little group of fifteen, starting with the opening breakfast scene at the top of the Martello Tower in Sandy Cove.
It was the most marvellous, memorable day. Put the date in your diary for next year – June 16th – and head to Dublin’s fair city.
– John Simmons
For East Anglia bylines I interviewed people from Oblique Arts.
Another interview, with artist Jane Mackay, about her synaesthetic work, was enormous fun, and I hope I do it justice when I write it up for publication. And covering the World Peashooting Championship in Witcham should be fun also.
– Aidan Baker
July I’ll be presenting two talks and a walk at Bradford Literature Festival.
I’ve been working on Alberta Vickridge’s story for over a decade; she first appeared in my one-woman show Words, Women & War: Forgotten Female Voices from the Great War back in 2015.
I gave the Brontë talk in Brussels this year – it’s subtitle being Brontës, Boggarts & Brogue. More on dialect in this talk (following my discussion for 26’s podcast series).
Alberta Vickridge: Bradford Bardess – 6 July 10.30
Haunted Histories: Ghostly Tour of Bradford – 9th July, 6pm
Folkloric Legends and Influences of the Brontës – 12 July, 13.30
– Irene Lofthouse
Recommendations
Theo in Golden by Allen Levi. This was strongly recommended to me by an American friend. You can feel that there’s an understory waiting to emerge. But he makes you wait for it. What was so refreshing was reading a book that was overwhelmingly positive and not packed with tension and too much reality!
Next up? Ann Patchett’s latest – Whistler. I expect more of the same…
– Alastair Creamer
April is being wonderful. I’m in New Zealand staying with an old friend and staying in his beautiful house on Breaker Bay in Wellington which looks at the attached view.
Last night we watched a Danish film, Another Round, by Thomas Vinterberg, starring Mads Mikkleson. It started as a film about drinking (Danes are massive drinkers), but then Vinterberg’s teenage daughter was killed at the beginning of filming and it turned into a film about life and living it. The final scene, in which Mikklesen dances with sudden renewed joy is absolutely beautiful.
The song he dances to ends:
What a night, what a life,
What a beautiful, beautiful ride.
Don’t know where I am in five
but I’m young and alive.
Fuck what they are saying. What a life.
And it freeze frames on him flying through the air into the harbour water…
– Julie Batty