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Mutantspace Arts Skills Exchange has been hosting an annual Bloomsday event in Cork since 2009 and this year we’re delighted to be part of a live online global reading of Ulysses called ‘The Global Bloomsday Gathering’ to celebrate Bloomsday 2013 at The Sextant Bar, Albert Quay on Sunday 16th June.
Our Cork contingent will be part of a global group of performers, writers and musicians – in Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Moscow, Pula, Zurich, Trieste, Paris, Bangor, Dublin, Derry, London, Sao Paulo, Santa Maria, New York, Boston, Chicago, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, and San Francisco – who will be reading the entire 264,861 word text aloud over a 30 hour period. From sun up in Auckland, New Zealand on 15th June to sun down in San Francisco on 16th June.
The 18 episodes — the name given to chapters in Ulysses — of the book have been divided into 45 minute segments and in Cork we’ve been given Episode 15, the Circe. The Circe is written as a play script complete with stage directions with the plot frequently interrupted by ‘hallucinations’ experienced by Stephen Dedalus and Bloom – a fantastical manifestation of the fears and passions of the two characters – as they head into Nighttown, Dublin’s red-light district.
We’ll be kicking off this event at 4.15pm and going live worldwide from 4.30pm – 5.15pm. After the live event we’ll be keep the gig going with a series of poets and writers reading from their own work as well as the incomparable Cork musician Ken Cotter playing tracks from his new album ‘Anatony Of A Goddess’ which is based on Joyce’s Ulysses. The album features top musicians including Robbie Malone from David Gray’s band, Bill Shanley and award winning composer Gavin Murphy with the lyrics infused with references to Ulysses. Here’s what Ken has to say about the album:
In the context of my album I think of two “goddesses”: the city of Dublin, and the book itself. Reading Ulysses was for me a journey through the mind and body, not just of Joyce, but of his race and their (my) history. Many episodes have a bodily organ associated with them, according to the schema supplied by Joyce to Gilbert, so for me it was an easy leap to think of my examination of Ulysses through song as some sort of anatomical dissection.
In a similar way, when I walk around Dublin, either virtually through the book or in my own wanderings today, I feel like I’m walking through the body and soul of the “Hibernian Metropolis.” Nowhere in Ireland, in my opinion, wears all phases of Irish history on its sleeve quite so ostentatiously as Dublin City.
The Gaelic “Atha Cliath.” Christchurch of the Vikings, Dublin Castle, adjacent to the site of the Black Pool from which the city got it’s name, Dubh Linn and for centuries the bastion of British colonial rule, Grattan’s Parliament, O Connell’s bullet-damaged statue, the General Post Office, the grandiose royal coats of arms on the Four Courts and the Custom house. This is the body of Dublin, which has been given up for Ulysses!
Dublin in the context of my album also conjures up the image of one of Charles Bukowski’s distressed goddesses. She has an unhappy habit, often through a haze of alcohol, of choosing the wrong men. Like so many women in Ulysses, it seems her lot will always be one of being let down by the men around her. The goddess Dublin continues to dream of her beloved Parnell, but unfailingly ends up with men like Boylan, Lenehan and the Citizen.
So come on down. 4.15pm at The Sextant Bar, Albert Quay, Cork on Sunday 16th June. It’s a fabulous venue and they’re always delighted to host the event and keep the performers and audience well fed and quenched with a delicious spread of classic Bloomsday fare including kidneys, Gorgonzola and red wine.
Here’s a track from Ken’s new album, ‘Anatomy Of A Goddess’.