 Hello, and hello to our audiences near and far. We welcome you to Mechanics Institute's annual Bloomsday Celebration. I'm Laura Shepherd, Director of Events. Our Bloomsday noon is co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Ireland, San Francisco, the National Library of Ireland Dublin and Gray Area, San Francisco. First, we are honored to have Robert O'Driscoll, Council General of Ireland of the Western United States, who has a special greeting for us. Please listen. A Georgia, a Ginooshla, friends, distinguished guests. My name is Robert O'Driscoll, I'm Ireland's Council General here in San Francisco and I'm delighted to have been invited by the Mechanics Institute once again to address you at the start of your Bloomsday celebrations. I want to pay particular tribute to Laura and the team there at the Mechanics Institute. I know they've had to move everything online, but I want to praise your ambition and your creativity. I know today you've got a full program of recitals and musical and theatrical performances, which I think you're really going to bring alive Bloomsday and rest assured you're in good company. There is events on here, of course, in San Francisco, but also all across the world. Bloomsday is a global celebration. It is an Irish writer and James Joyce, an Irish selling Dublin in my own home city, but it has global significance and you are part of that global Irish community here today. I think that the fact that we're able to gather in this fashion would have appealed to Joyce. He was a man of ideas, a man of creativity who loved the use of technology to make things possible. And in many ways, the use of technology, particularly Zoom, being able to move from person to person from face to face to hear all these different voices is very reminiscent of certain chapters of Ulysses when we're introduced to all of these different characters and all of their different perspectives. Ulysses is kind of an early attempt at multimedia communications, which are the heart of our attempts to stay connected today, even though we are far apart. Although I think it's important to remember what Joyce said. He said, real adventures do not happen to people that stay at home, who remain at home. They must be sought abroad. So while this is a great celebration and I'm happy to do this way today, I hope it isn't long before we can all leave our homes and have real adventures and meetups together. Ulysses is probably one of the most famous examples of modern literature where the past is retaught and the future is charted out in the wake of upheaval and societal change. It's a time when new energies are coming to fruition. It is reminiscent of today. I know some of the changes we are experiencing right now in this moment. And in this regard, the Ulysses humanity remains its luster, maintains its luster. Joyce's efforts to bridge gaps, to understand others and to share with them your own story as demonstrating this wonderful, important novel are inspiring. Its fundamental message of coexistence and the inherent values of other people's views is one which is so relevant always, but perhaps particularly so today. Declusion, I wanna thank you again for having me here. I wanna wish you well in your performances today. I wanna say kagorgikis again to everyone for making this happen. I wanna wish you all a very happy Bloomsday. Kanyarian Taliv. Thank you, Consul General Robert O'Driscoll. Now today we bring together two worlds that of James Joyce's novel Ulysses set on June 16th, 1904, and today, merging old and new, virtual and real in a time of peace and unrest, illness and health. Our Bloomsday noon, a performance montage features readings, music and song by performers from the Bay Area, New York and Ireland. Our video runs 65 minutes and features 16 interpretations of Joyce's writing and themes that are traditional, contemporary and experimental, including portrayals of characters and scenes from Ulysses, many staged from home on Zoom, plus well-known Irish songs and a new musical compositions. We begin with a Gaelic tribute and incantation, koak on puke, in between two worlds by jazz singer Melanie O'Reilly. Enjoy. It's a wonder I'm not an old, shriveled hag before my time, living with him so cold, never embracing me, except sometimes when he's asleep, the wrong end of me, not knowing what to do, I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, but I'm doing it right. It's a wonder I'm not an old, shriveled hag before my time, living with him so cold, never embracing me, except sometimes when he's asleep, the wrong end of me, not knowing I suppose who he has. Any man that kiss a woman's bottom, I'd throw my hat at him, after that he'd kiss anything unnatural, where we haven't one atom of any kind of expression in us, all of us the same, two lumps of lard, before ever I'd do that to a man. Pru, the dirty brutes, the mere thought is enough. I was thinking, would I go around by the keys there, some dark evening, where nobody'd know me, and pick up a sailor off the sea, that'd be hot on for it, and not care a pin whose I was, only do it off up in a gate somewhere, or one of those wild-looking gypsies in Rath Farnham, had their camp pitch near the Bloomfield Laundry to try and steal our things if they could. I only said mine there a few times for the name Model Laundry, sending me back over and over some old one's odd stockings, that laggard-looking fella with the fine eyes, peeling a switch, attack me in the dark, and ride me up against the wall without a word, or a murderer, anybody, what they do themselves. I don't care what anybody says. It'd be much better for the world to be governed by the women in it. You wouldn't see women going and killing one another, and slaughtering. When do you ever see women rolling around drunk like they do, or gambling every penny they have, and losing it on horses? Yes, because a woman, whatever she does, she knows where to stop. Sure, they wouldn't be in the world at all, only for us. They don't know what it is to be a woman and a mother. How could they? Where would they all of them be if they hadn't all a mother to look after them, what I never had? That's why I suppose he's running wild now, out at night, away from his books and studies, and not living at home, on account of the usual rowey house, I suppose. Well, it's a poor case that those that have a fine son like that, they're not satisfied. And I, none, was he not able to make one. It wasn't my fault. We came together when I was watching the two dogs up in her behind in the middle of the naked street. That disheartened me altogether. I suppose I hadn't had buried him in that little woolly jacket I knitted, crying as I was, but give it to some poor child. But I knew well I'd never have another. My first death too, it was. We were never the same since. Oh, I'm not going to think myself into the glooms about that anymore. Bloom's breakfast, take four. Mystically appalled bloom, eight with relish, the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crust crumbs, fried hen-card-rose. But most of all, he liked grilled mutton kidneys, which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, writing her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gillet light and air were in the kitchen, but out of doors, gentle summer morning everywhere, made him feel a bit peckish. The calls were reddening. Another slice of bread and butter, three, four, right. She didn't like her plate full, right? He turned away from the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob and set it sideways on the fire. A cup of tea soon. Good, mouth dry. The cat walked stiffly around a leg of the table with tail on high. Oh, there you are. The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly around a leg of the table, meowing. Just how she stalks over my writing table. Scratch my head. Mr. Bloom watched curiously, kindly. The leaf black form, clean to see. The gloss of a sleek hide. The white button under the butt of her tail. The green flashing eyes. He bent down to her. His hands on his knees. Milk for the pussons. The cat cried. They call them stupid. They understand what we say. Better than we understand them. Oh, she understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. Cruel her nature. Curious, my snever squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder what I look like to her. The light of a tower. No, she can jump me. Unquietly creaky boots. He went up the staircase to the hall. Paused by the bedroom door. Oh, she might like something tasty. Thin bread butter she likes in the morning. Still perhaps once in a way. I'm going around the corner. Be back in a minute. I don't want anything for breakfast. A sleepy soft grunt answered. Mm. Mm. Mm. He heard then a warm heavy sigh. Softer she turned over. And the loose brass quotes of the bedstead jingled. His hand took his hat from the peg. Over his initial heavy coat. The sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely. Plastos high grader. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. White slip of paper. Quite safe. On the doorstep. He felt in his hip pocket for the latch key. Not there. Oh, in that trousers I left off. Must get it. No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled the hall door to after him very quietly. More to the foot left. Dropped gently over the threshold. A limp lid. Looked shut. Alright. Till I come back anyhow. Ulysses is a notoriously complex book. It gives us the Dublin of 1904 in radically strange and challenging ways. Through its reworking of style and form. The novel engages critically with the world it presents. It asks us to grapple with the issues faced by the city. Issues of colonialism. Capitalism. Technology. Questions of gender and race. The novel thus speaks to our concerns today. As it tells its story in devious. Polytropic ways. You've just heard Leopold Bloom's first comic appearance in the novel. As he displays his curious taste for kidneys and giblets. Bloom here is both a modern version of the Homeric warrior who burns pieces of flesh and tribute to the gods. And also a modern oddity. Valuing cuts of meat that are considered awful. But falls off as waste. Bloom, like the novel as a whole, comes up with his own values and his own ways of doing things. Throughout the day in which Ulysses is set, the day we call Bloom's Day, Bloom responds to a series of problems. Social injustice and poverty. Unfair distributions of labour and wealth. Casual prejudice. And pointed bigotry. These problems of identity and meaning. In a world where all traditional scripts are in question. A work through in Bloom's relationship with Molly. On this very day she sleeps with Blazes Boylan. Her adultery raises the question of love in the modern world. What is marriage? What, if any, control does a man have over a woman? One of Bloom's responses is to remember the moment Molly agreed to marry him. It is this memory that sustains Bloom and sustains the reader throughout the wanderings of Bloom's Day. Indeed, Molly herself remembers this event in the last pages of the novel. I'm going to read that passage for you now. Sitting in a bar, Bloom remembers the picnic he and Molly had on Holt Head, where they lay under a rhododendrons and looked out over Dublin Bay. In our time of quarantine and of strict limits on physical closeness to the domestic unit, their physical intimacy is all the more striking. It's also a stylistically creative passage. It's unusual word orderings create a sense of the erosion of boundaries between Molly and Bloom. Subjects, objects and verbs merge into one another as their bodies melt together. In our moment of separation and estrangement, their erotic mingling is a moment of inspiration and hope. Glowing wine on his palate lingered, swallowed, crushing in the wine press grapes of burgundy. Son's heat it is, seems to a secret touch telling me memory, touched, his sense moistened, remembered. Hidden under wild ferns on hoes, below a space sleeping, sky, no sound, the sky, the bay purple by lion's head, green by drum-leck, yellow-green towards sudden, fields of undersea, the faint lines brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed under my coat, she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub, my hand under her nape. He'll toss me all. Oh, wonder. Cool soft was ointments, her hand touched me, caressed, her eyes upon me did not turn away. Ravished over her eye-lay, full lips open, kissed her mouth, yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seed-cake. Warm and chewed, mawkish pulp, her mouth and mumble, sweet sour of her spittle. Joy, I aze it. Joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting, soft, warm, sticky, gum-jelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles fell, she lay still, a goat, no more. High on Ben Hoth rode a dendrons, and nanny-goat walking sure-footed, dropping currents. Screened under ferns, she laughed, warm-folded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her, eyes her lips, her strapped neck beating, woman's breasts full and her blouse of nuns veiling. Fat nipples upright, hot I tongueed her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair, kissed, she kissed me. Me. Me now. In the merry month of June, from my home, I started left the girls of tomb. Nearly broken-hearted, saluted father dear, kissed me, darling mother, drank a pint of beer, tears and grief to smother. Off to reap the corn, leave where I was born, I clasped out Blackthorne to banish ghosts and goblin. In a brand new pair of brogues, ran to Lord of Bogues, frightened all the dogs on the rocky road to Dublin. One, two, three, four, five, left the hare and turned her down the rocky road, all the way to Dublin, back full-old era. In Mullingar that night, I rested limp, so weary started by daylight. Morning, blithe and airy toke, a drop of the pure. Keep my heart from sinking, that's an Irish misture. When he's on for drinking, to see the lassie smile, laughin' all the while, at me curious styles would set your heart above it. Haxed if I was hired, wages I required, I was almost tired of the ride. I was almost tired of the rocky road to Dublin. One, two, three, four, five, left the hare and turned her down the rocky road, all the way to Dublin, back full-old era. In Dublin next arrived I thought it's such a pity, to be soon deprived of you of that fine city. Took myself a stroll out amongst the quality, bundle it was stole in a neat locality. Locality something crossed my mind, then I looked behind, the bundle I could find upon mistake, the wobblin' inquiring for the road, they said my connex broke, wasn't much in foam on the rocky road to Dublin. One, two, three, four, five, left the hare and turned her down the rocky road, all the way to Dublin, back full-old era. From there I got away, spirits never fail and landed on the key, as the ship was sailing. Captain let me roar, said that no room had he, when I jumped on board, a cabin found for patty, down amongst the pigs, and some hearty pigs sang some hearty weaves. Water round me, bubble it, went off folly head, I wish myself was dead, better whore instead of the rocky road to Dublin. One, two, three, four, five, left the hare and turned her down the rocky road, all the way to Dublin, back full-old era. The boys of Liverpool, when we safely landed, called me self a fool, I could no longer stand it, blood began to boil, temper I was losing, poor old Aaron's Isle, they began abusing, hurrah, my soul says, I shall lay the island fly, the way boys nearby could see, I was the hobblin with the loud hooray, help me clear the way for the rock, go to Dublin, one, two, three, four, five, hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road, all the way to Dublin, back full-old era. Blum was talking and talking with John Wise, and he was quite excited with his dumb, duckety, mud-colored mug on him and his old plum eyes rolling about. Thank you. Worse execution, all the world is full of it, perpetrate a national hatred among nations. What do you know what a nation means, says John Wise. Yes. What? Is it? Our nation, the nation is the same people, living in the same place. Be good, says Ned, laughing. If that's so, worry about nation, for I've been living in the same place for the past five years. So of course everybody had a laugh at Blum and says he trying to muck out at it, well, also living in different places. What is your nation, if I may ask, says the citizen. Ireland. I was born here, in Ireland. The citizen said nothing, only cleared the spits out of his gullet and gob. He spat a red-bank oyster out of him right into the corner. After you, if the post-joel says, he taken out his handkerchief to swab himself dry. There you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and repeat after me the following words. The much treasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish face cloth attributed to Solomon of drama and Manus Termituck. Org McDonough, authors of the book of Ballymote. Show us over the drink. Which one is which? Oh, that one's mine. As the dead policeman said. And I belong to a race that is hated and persecuted. Also now, this very moment, this very instant, rubbed, plundered, insulted, persecuted, taken what belongs to us by right at this very moment, sold by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle. Are you talking about the new Jerusalem, says the citizen? I'm talking about injustice. Right, says John Wise. Stand up to it, then with force like men. But it's no use, force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite that is really life. What, says John Wise? Love. I mean the opposite of hatred. A new apostle to the Gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love. Well, isn't that what we're told? Love your neighbor. That's right, says the citizen. Bigger my neighbor is his motto, love. He's a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet. Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the chemist. Constable 14A loves Mariah Kelly. Gerta McDowell loves the boy with a bicycle. MB loves a fire, gentlemen. Lee Chi Han, lovey-up, kissy, chow-poo-chow. Jumbo the elephant loves Alice the elephant. Old misch-de-vichoyer with the ear trumpet. Love's old misch-de-vichoyer with the pteridin eye. The man in the brown macintosh loves her lady, who is dead. His Majesty the King loves her Majesty the Queen. Mrs. Newman W. Tupper loves a fair gentleman. You love a certain person. And that person loves that other person. Because everybody loves somebody. What God? God loves everybody. Everybody. He's a widower now. I wonder what sort is his son? He says he's an author and going to be a professor of Italian, and I am to take lessons. I wonder what is he driving at now? Showing him my photo. He's not good of me. I ought to have gotten it taken in drapery. That never looks out of fashion. Still, I look young in it. I wonder he didn't make him a present of it, but I do. After all, why not? I suppose he's a man now by this time. He was such a darling little fellow in his Lord Funtl Roy suit and curly hair, like a prince on the stage. When I saw him at Mac Dylan's he liked me too, I remember. They all do. Wait. By God, yes, wait. Hold on. What was the seventh card this morning when I laid out the deck? Union with a young stranger, neither dark nor fair. I thought it meant him, but he's no chicken. Neither a strange journey, either. Besides, my face was turned the other way. What was the seventh card after that? The ten of spades for a journey by land. Then there was a letter on its way and two handles too. The three queens and the eight of diamonds for a rise in society. Yes, it all came out. And two red eights for new garments. Look at that. And didn't I dream something too? There was something about poetry in it. I hope he hasn't long greasy hair hanging into his eyes or standing up like a red Indian. What did they go about like that for? Only getting themselves and their poetry laughed at. I always liked poetry when I was a girl. First I thought he was a poet like Byron, not an ounce of it in his composition. I thought he was quite different. I wonder, is he too young? He's probably twenty or more. I'm not too old for him if he's twenty-three or twenty-four. I hope he's not that stuck-up university student sort. They all write about some woman in their poetry. Well, I suppose he won't find many like me where softly sighs have longed the light guitar, where there's poetry in the air, the blue sea and the moon shining so beautifully, coming back in the night boat from Tarifa, the lighthouse at Europa Point, the guitar that fellow played was so expressive. Will I never go back there again? All new faces, two glancing eyes, a lattice head. I'll sing that for him. They're my eyes if he's anything of a poet. Two eyes as darkly bright as love's own sea. Love's own star. Aren't those beautiful words as love's own star? That'll be a change the Lord knows to have someone intelligent to talk to about yourself. I'm sure he's very, very distinguished. I'd like to meet a man like that. God knows, not those other rook. Besides, he's young. Those fine young men I could see down at Margate's strand bathing place from the side of the rock, standing up in the sun, naked like a god or something and then plunging into the sea with them. Oh, God. Now, wouldn't that be some consolation for a woman like that lovely little statue he bought? I could look at him all day long. He's curly hair and shoulders. His finger up for you to listen. There's real beauty and poetry for you. I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over. Also, his lovely young cock there so simply. I wouldn't mind taking him in my mouth if nobody was looking, as if he was asking you to suck it so clean and white he looked with his boyish face. I would, too, in half a minute, even if some of it went down. It's only like Grohl or the Jew that there's no danger besides he'd be so clean compared to those pigs of men. I suppose never dream of washing it from one year's end to the other, the most of them. So that's what gives the women the moustaches. I'm sure it'll be grand if only I can get in with a handsome young port of my age. I'll throw the cards first thing in the morning till I see if the wish card comes out, or I'll try pairing the lady herself to see if he comes out. I'll read or study all I can find and if I know what he likes, I'll learn it off by heart so he doesn't think I'm stupid and I can teach him the other part. I'll make him feel all beautiful under me. Then he'll write about me, lover and mistress publicly, too, with our two photographs in all the papers when he becomes famous. Mr. Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by sad and dangerous, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hoops crane with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. It's more sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of Does anybody really? Plant him and have done with him like down a coal chute and lump them together to save time. All soul's day. Twenty-seventh I'll be at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener, keeps it free of weeds. An old man himself bent on double with his shears clippin near death's door. Who passed away? Who departed this life as if they did it of their own accord? Got the shove, all of them. Who kicked the bucket? It's more interesting if they told you what they were. So-and-so, we'll write. I traveled for the cork lino. I paid five shillings in the bottom pound. Or a woman with her saucepan. I cooked good Irish stew. Theology in a country church that ought to be that poem of who's it. Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell entered into rest. The Protestants put it. Old Dr. Murns, the great physician called him home. Well, it's God's acre for them. It's a nice country residence. Annually plastered and painted. The ideal spot to have a quiet smoke and read the church times. Marriage ads, they never tried to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs. Garlands of bronze foil. Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more poetical. Others get rather tiresome, never withering, expressing nothing. Immortals. A bird sat tamely, perched on a poplar branch, like stuffed. Like the wedding present Alderman Hooper gave us. Ho, ho! Not a budge out of him. No, as there are no catapults to let fly at him. That's a dead animal, even sadder. Silly, merely burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox. A daisy chain and bits of broken chainies on the grave. No, a sacred heart, that is. Showing it. Heart on his sleeve. You know, it ought to be sideways and red. It should be painted like a real heart. Ireland was dedicated to it, or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why this inflection? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the basket of fruit, but he said no, because they ought to have been afraid of the boy? Apollo, that was how many. All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithfully departed. As you are now. So once were we. The drop of the crater every morning. Back to the devil to dance to your heart. Round the floor, your truck to ship. This is indeed the truth. I told you, not so fun at Finnegan's Wake. One day, when Tim was rather full, his head felt heavy, which made him shake. He fell off the ladder and he broke his skull. And they brought him home, his cart to wake. Rolled him up in an iced tea sheet. Layed him out upon the bed with a bottle of whiskey at his feet and a barrel of porter at his head. Wipe on the door when he danced to your partner round the floor, your truck to shake. This is indeed the truth. I told you, not so fun at Finnegan's Wake. When his friends assembled at the wake at Mrs. Finnegan called for brunch. But first she brought out tea and cake. Then pipes, tobacco and whiskey punch. Then the widow Malone began to cry. Such a nice tea corpse did you ever see. Tim, I'm afraid, why did you die? When you hold your cup, says Malin McGee. Wack on the door when he danced to your partner round the floor, your truck to shake. This is indeed the truth. I told you, not so fun at Finnegan's Wake. Well, Mary Murphy took up the job. Oh, Biddy Sushi, you're wrong, I'm sure. Then Biddy fetched her a belt in the cup and left her sprawling on the floor. Then the warden then engaged with woman to woman and man to man. Shalala was all the rage and a row and a rupture soon began. Wack on the door when he danced to your partner round the floor, your truck to shake. This is indeed the truth. I told you, not so fun at Finnegan's Wake. Well, make Malone ducked his head when a bottle of whiskey flew at him. Instead of landing on the bed, the whiskey scattered over to him. Be dad, be five, see how he rises. Timothy rising from the bed, saying, thrown by whiskey around like blazes. Thanamondool, do you think I'm dead? Wack on the door when he danced to your partner round the floor, your truck to shake. This is indeed the truth. I told you, not so fun at Finnegan's Wake. I even said with tinkling, one who has faded into impalpability through death, through absence, through change of manners. Elizabethan London lay as far from Stratford as corrupt Paris lies from Virgin Dublin. Who is the ghost from Limbo Patrum returning to the world that has forgotten him? Who is King Hamlet? It is this hour of a day in mid-June that is up a house by the Bankside. The bear, Sackerson, growls in the pit near it. Paris Garden, canvas climbers who sailed with Drake to their sausages among the groundlings. Shakespeare has left the Huguenot's house in Silver Street and walks by the swan muse along the riverbank. But he does not stay to feed the pen, shivvying her game of signets towards the rushes. The swan of Avon has other thoughts. A place Ignatius Loyola may caste and help me. The play begin. A player comes on under the shadow made up in the cast-off mail of a court buck, a well-set man with a bass voice. It is the ghost, the king who has studied Hamlet all the years of his life, which the part of a specter. He speaks the words to Burbage, the young player who stands before him beyond the rack of seercloth, calling him by name, the bearer's spirit, the son of his soul, body Hamlet Shakespeare, who has died in Stratford that his namesake may live. Shakespeare, a ghost by absence in the vesture of buried Denmark, a ghost by death, and his own words to his own son's name that Hamlet Shakespeare live, Hamlet's know, or probable that he did not foresee or draw the logical conclusion of these premises. You are the dispossessed son. I am the murdered father. The mother is the guilty queen and Shakespeare. Shakespeare, entitled to Philip, the village of phallus inflammable, fortress of plundering, wandering, white and impervious Wellington, Washington water, the Wilmington weathering, highly improbable, wondering whether in novels the avarice ever recovers, and why are we wallowing here in the thick of some pages on a red-eye? Willing is shelling to Britain for taking a second election. The erection of asinine nationals frightened of foreigners, seeking employment, asylum, survival, existence, a bite and a pillow, a roof and a fellow, compassionate, passionate, a mattress, a matter of memory, foam in a forgotten fiddle, a saddle or anything, tenable, arable, wearable fashion, a fishing gun, fishing a future for father of someone in solitude, gratitude, doddering, wasting away at the whim of the Institute. What can I do for the dying who did for me everything, everything? Sing him a song at the end of the universe, hoping he'll hear it, and southern shiver of memory, foam in his horrible home. It's the happiest one in the area, only it's odious, hideous. He is entitled to beauty, a banquet of final of heavenly, examining languages, audible, edible, science, a sonic, acoustical, coding, deciphering, foreign, deplorable. Seventy years in the seat of his secretive government numbering, proud of his part of untelling intelligence, keeping us ever entitled to not even think of it innocent, imminent, immigrant, creepily speaking, off-fying and lying and tapping your telephone. Hell, if he knew it, but no point in asking, it's better to let him be bigger for seventy years in the service of others. It's more than I ever could say for myself. All I did was some ranting, enchanting that nobody heard except those who expected it. How can you make any difference when you are in hiding and staying inside the absurdity, worded team, messing with morals and metaphor, guessing the parsing of meaning, morpheming, phoneming, phonology, elecute, elegy, mentioned to clench and disclaimer, I'm yammering off at your grammar. And I pay, pay, pay, pay, pay, pay, at your grammar. And I pay, pay, pay, pay, pay, pay, at your grammar. And I pay, pay, pay, pay, pay, at your grammar. And I pay, pay, pay, why does it matter? I say that it matters. I say that it matters. We are entitled to talk about art at the part of party. It's only one drink and that gives you permission to muddle the mission. The missing of muscle is making you move in a menacing manner. I have no relation to this iteration but seemingly something to talk about other than art at the party and far more important is people are ravishing people and blowing up people and there goes another one mad at the masses attending the mosques. synagogue, how do you spell it? God at the synagogue. Coco and Dada that grew out of meaning was savage, but then blowing up people and bubbling up into art that is artifice. Edith is passing his art in the room at the Philly Museum where you and I snuck in the closet and massively made it surrounded by janitor thingies and darkness, the opposite, art and star, all of my favorite pieces inspired and fired by dim-witted murder. Maybe it matters to many or maybe a few but it's back at the studio gathering evidence, studying reasons for trying to heal my serenity. Speaking of Europe, a lovely young couple who stayed at the house at the countries united way back in the 50s, I said I don't think so because I remember it. Suddenly piles of penniless paper just pieces of art in the closet. I visited so many countries they cluttered together and check off the bucket. I've been there. Do you understand what the bucket? The bucket is dead. We have some stupid picture of lying there thinking of places we never completed. I got pretty good with my Spanish and German and French if you're very forgiving. So living is all about grabbing a piece of the planet as long as you pay for your carbon emission. Your cultural comes when stuck at the border. But I am entitled to miles for using my credit card. Double the points if it's dining or groceries. What do you see if you're losing your vision to ruin the pyramid? Going to Greece on the spring on a gaze at the scenery seen in my inner ecstatic and titled to sit in the therapist's office and talk to my organs and titled to travel and finish the circle of birth and recycle. I signed up my body for science at UCSF. Is there anything else I can do more important than dying? I'm already famous for closing my eyes and discovering pattern. I already had a good run with the man of my soul Supposedly holy Even though I'm lacking some delicate layers of memory. I'm home in the Studio striking out letters A little more Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! interven at the Soft dossier Is it better than it seems? want pious gloves. You're a student, weren't you? Of what in the other devil's name? P-C-N. P-C-N. You know. Physique, chimique, et naturel. Aha! Eating your goat's worth of mouan sivé. Flesh pots of Egypt, elbowed by belching cab men. Just say in the most natural tone, when I was in Paris, boudniche, I used to, yes, used to carry punk tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder somewhere. Justice. On the night of the 17th of February 1904 the prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it. Other me. Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. Louis, c'est moi. You seem to have enjoyed yourself. Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like? Forget. A dispossessed. With mother's money, eight shillings. The banging door of the post office slammed in your face by the usher. Hunger, toothache. Encore deux minutes. Look, clock. Must get fermé. Hired dog. Shoot him to bloody bits with a bang shotgun. Bits, man, splattered walls, all brass buttons. Bits, a crook clack in place. Clack back. Not hurt. Oh, that's all right. Shake hands. See what it meant? See? Oh, that's all right. Shake a shake. Oh, that's only all right. You're going to work wonders. What? A missionary of Europe after fiery columnanists, fiacra and scottish, in their creepy stools in heaven spilt from their pipe pots. Loud, Latin laughing. You gay. You gay. Pretending to speak broken English as you drag your valise. Porty-three pants across the slimy pier at New Haven. How? Rich booty you brought back. Le tutu, five tatted numbers of pantons blancs et culottes rouge. A French telegram. Curiosity show. Mother dying. Come home. Father. The aunt thinks you killed your mother. That's why she won't. So, there's health to Bolligan's aunt, and I'll tell you the reason why. She always kept things decent in the Hanigan family. Hmm. His feet marched in sudden proud rhythm over the sand furrows, along by the boulders of the south wall. He stared at them proudly. Piled stone mammoth skulls. Gold light on sea, on sand, on boulders. The sun is there. The slender trees. The lemon houses. Hmm. Paris, rolly waking. Crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of farrows of bread. The fog-green wormwood. Her matane incense court the air. Belle wormwood rises from the bed of his lover's wife's lover. The Kirchift housewife is a stirrer. A saucer of acetic acid in her hand. In rhodos, Yvonne and Madeleine new make their tumbled beauties. Shattering with gold teeth, chaussons of pastry. Their mouth yellowed by the puh of flan breton. Faces of Paris men go by. Their well-pleased pleasers curled conquistadors. I'd love to have the whole place, women in roses, heaven. There's nothing like nature. The wild mountains. Then the sea and the waves, Russian. Then the beautiful country with its fields of oats and wheat. And all kinds of things. And all the fine cattle going about. That would do your heart good to see. Rivers and lakes and flowers. All sorts of shapes and smells and colors. Springing up even out of the ditches. Primroses and violets. Nature's is. As for them saying that there's no God, I wouldn't give a snap of my two fingers for all they're learning. Why don't they go and create something? I often ask them. Atheists or whatever they call themselves. Go and wash the cobbles off themselves first. Then they go howling for the priest. And they die in. And why? Why? Because they're afraid of hell. On account of their bad conscience. Ah, yes. I know them well. Who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all? Who? Ah, that they don't know. Neither do I. So there you are. They might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow. The sun shines for you, he said. The day we were lying among the rhododendrons. On health heath. In the gray tweed suit. And his straw hat. The day I got him to propose to me. First I gave him the bit of seed cake out of my mouth. And it was a leap year like now. 16 years ago, my God. After that long kiss, I near lost my breath. He said I was a flower of the mountain. Yes. So we are all flowers. All a woman's body. Yes. That was the one true thing he said in his life. And the sun shines for you today. That was why I liked him. Because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is. And I knew I could always get around him. And I gave him all the pleasure I could. Leading him on till he asked me to say yes. And I wouldn't answer first. Only looked out over the sea and the sky. I was thinking of so many things he didn't know of. Mulvey. And Mr. Stanhope. And Hester. And father. And old Captain Groves. And the sailors playing. And the sentry in front of the governor's house. With the thing round his white helmet. Poor devil half-roasted. And the Spanish girls laughing in their tall combs. And the auctions in the morning. And the Greeks and the Jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe. And Duke Street. And the foul market all clucking outside Larby Sharon's. And the poor donkey sleeping half asleep. And the vague fellas in the cloaks asleep on the shade and the big whale of the carts of the bulls. And the castle thousands of years old. Yes. And those handsome moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop. And the night we miss the boat at Al Joceros. The watchmen going about serene with this lamp. And that awful deep down torrent. Oh. And the sea. The sea crimson sometimes like fire. And the glorious sunsets. And the fig trees at the Alameda gardens. Yes. And all the queer little streets. And the pink and blue and yellow houses. And the rose gardens. And the jesemines and the geraniums and the cactuses. And Gibraltar. As a girl where I was a flower of the mountain. Yes. And how he kissed me under the Moorish wall. And I thought. Well. As well him as another. Then I asked him. With my eyes. To ask again. Yes. And then he asked me. Would I. Yes. To say yes. And my first and flower. My arms around him. Yes. And rubbed down to me. So he could feel my breath's all perfume. Yes. And his heart was going like mad. And yes. I said yes. And much thanks again to Gray Area. For our co-sponsorship. Council General in San Francisco. And to all of our community partners as well. As well as the National Library of Ireland. And I want to bring up our cast and have a cast curtain call for you. So bravo. And bravo. Cast. Would you put yourself on video and on mute. To say hello to everybody. New York City. Hello. Yes. We have Aaron. Aaron and Karen. Hi. New York. Thank you for a lovely show. Aaron Beal who's a for aren't you a former Berkleyan. Yeah. I went to Maybach. I went to Berkley High. I went to El Cerrito High. And then I went to like five high schools in San Francisco. All in two years. Great. And the Cerrito Brian is a longtime Bloomsday producer in New York. So we're just thrilled to have you as part of our Bloomsday, our Bloomy's team. Thank you. Great show. Thank you. And I want to start at the top here is Esther Mulligan and John Ilyan. Our singers and actors who were featured today from East Bay. A word for our audiences. Can you see us? Yes. Wonderful. Well, I just want to say, you know, thank you, Laura, for having us be part of this. And we it was a wonderful program. And I just wanted to say hello to my family and friends in Ireland and to my family here. And that's it. John the same. My husband, John. I had to be a part of it. Hello, all Bloomies out there. I hope you had a good time. And again, I was delighted to be a part of it. Thank you. Great. Next, we have Josiah Paul Hamas who's been with us for a long time also from East Bay, a wonderful actor and director and playwright as well. Well, thank you so much, Laura and Bruce and everyone at Mechanics for including me in this wonderful group of people who are so talented. I feel really humbled to be a part of it. And thank you so much. You were all awesome. I loved watching your performances and the range. So thank you, Bruce and Laura for putting such an interesting collection of pieces together. And any friends and family out there, thank you so much for watching. And this was so fun to be a part of. And it was fun to work with Bruce on figuring out how to act together on Zoom. So that was really quite fun. Thanks again. Yes. One of the challenges, of course, was doing a scene with a dialogue but having to film in two different places and then to merge their scenes together. So everything you see was done from everyone's living rooms. And of course, we have Bruce Spearman, our director and my colleague and collaborator on many theater projects both with the Yiddish Theater Ensemble and other events that we're doing. And Bruce is also an actor, a director and a creator and a dance master, a Jewish dance master. So Bruce Spearman. Yeah, this was such an honor to be a part of this cast. Oh my God. Just L'chaim from Leopold Bloom and and thank you for joining us together. What a what a pleasure. Thank you. Okay, and then we have Mark Faulkner for all the hours of editing. Yeah, so here's Mark Faulkner, our audio and visual editor from Bohantik Productions, who we know from back to Boston and also to the Bay Area. And thank you, Mark. You're welcome. It was a pleasure to be able to do this and present. And thanks to the tireless efforts of you, Laura and Bruce and Matthew, everybody at Gray Area. Thank you and kudos. Yes. And here's Anne Guest, who is our featured music director, put all that wonderful music together from her home and all of those wonderful songs of all the inlays of photos and, you know, the camera with the piano and the flute and everything, all the wonderful details. And here's the piano. Thank you, Anne. Thank you so much, Laura. And thank you to Gray Area and to Consul Driscoll for his remarks. I think James Joyce was just so excited to see what we did with all these different types of media. I was blown away. Thank you, Amy. That was amazing watching, watching that. It really connected the book to me with what we're living through right now and what our world is going through. It was really, really amazing. Thank you, everyone. Wonderful to be a part of this. Next we have Dan Harder, who is also an actor, but mainly a poet and playwright and director. We've done many collaborations together and thank you for bringing us to Paris for that Latin Quarter hat piece. That's a wonderful piece. It was, it's amazing to see how wonderfully you, everybody did. I had no idea and I was asked, I was like, well, I'm not going to be that good. I probably wasn't all that great, but everybody was, the quilt that you put together would make Mr. Joyce very, very proud. It was really beautiful. And so I'm honored to be a part of it. And I just say to friends and anybody else who's listening, à votre santé, comprendre mon vie. Yeah, be well. Thank you, Dan. All right. And of course, we're welcoming Melanie O'Reilly from Wexford, Ireland, one of our long time blueies, and we're so happy to have you back. Melanie brought us those incredible opening music selections with Quarampuca. And I lose my breath, which was a beautiful way to follow up. Karen's Molly Bloom, but the music was just beautiful and just so honored to have you back with us from afar. Thank you, Laura. It's absolutely fantastic to be reconnecting with you all with the blueies and with the new blueies now, with the new audience on Zoom. And it's been an honor and a pleasure to be part of this. It was always a pleasure and honor. But now with this new group and a new way of doing it, it was an amazing, absolutely amazing event. And so it was fantastic to be part of that and greetings from Ireland. And so Dublin is my, where I come from, but I'm actually here in Wexford, lockdown. And we're about to, of course, enter into the new, shall we say, the restrictions will be lifted very soon, where we can travel more. But I really want to say how incredibly well put together, and Laura, Bruce, Mark, all of the team and all the performances, it's, it was an extraordinary experience watching and listening and having this connection with Ulysses and now. And that's what James Joyce was all about, was the now. And bringing the, the Liffey, you know, the stream running through it, bringing that all together. And I'm very, very proud to be part of it. And thank you so much for everything you've done. And thank you, Melanie. Yeah, we included a wonderful, in the middle, we included those incredible photos from the National Library of Ireland, and which we were so pleased to be able to work with them just to bring you to 1904 Ireland and to Dublin, and that just brought us closer together, even though we're, we're so far away from each other. Next, I want to introduce Amy X. Newberg, and who's our composer and vocalist, and Andrew Euras, who did those incredible visuals and video for the piece entitled, we was thrilling to see. And also we wanted to bring Joyce's stream of consciousness into today's artistry and expression. And Amy, I think that piece just hit it right on the head. And it was just, just a minute. Oh, good. Thank you. It was really an honor and eye-opening experience to be part of this. I mean, I actually really learned a lot from watching this. And I'm now more in love with James Joyce than I was before. And I agree, I think he would have really approved of what we're doing here in our sort of modern capacity and limitations. And it was really fun to work with Andrew. He did, the piece actually existed beforehand, but Andrew came on board very last minute, once we became part of this collection and worked very fast to put that video together. And I'm just thrilled that we were able to be part of it. And I'm still in tears from that final soliloquy. Very moving. So, thank you all. Thanks, Amy. And thank you, Laura and Bruce, for putting this on. It was an amazing experience. And it was just so quick and so last minute. And I remembered, I read one page of Ulysses. And from what I understand, that's actually an accomplishment for a non-literate person. So I feel proud of that. Maybe I'll get to page two. Thanks a lot. Thanks again. Okay, you have a 700 plus pages to go, but that's okay. Take your time. I also want to introduce Professor Catherine Flynn, who gave us our professorial lecture and a beautiful, beautiful reading from Playing Bloom. And I also want to mention that Catherine is also head of the Irish Studies Department at UC Berkeley. And there's more to come. There's a whole other Bloomsday presentation and event that Catherine has produced at five o'clock today. And we're going to put the link up on our chat. So please, we're all going to join Catherine at five o'clock. And I hope all of you will as well. Okay. Have I introduced everybody? I also want to thank Matthew Chacon from Gray Area. Can we see you, Matt? And also Pam Troy, events assistant at the Mechanics Institute for all of your dedicated work behind the scenes. There was a lot, a lot to do today. And we offer a cilantro and good health to everybody. And we hope to see you in person next year. And be well, stay connected. We love you all. And audience, thank you for joining us. If you would like to make donations towards Bloomsday, just send that on to Mechanics Institute at 57 Post Street, San Francisco, 9th or 104, or call us or email us and we'll be in touch with you. We're so proud to have our first international event with you and to bring together our performers and musicians and actors and cast members with you, our audience, even though we're so far apart. Let's say a cilantro together. Be well.