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Announcement :: Arts |
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Bloomsday in Champaign |
Current rating: 0 |
by gehrig
Email: zemblan (nospam) earthlink.net (unverified!) |
17 Jun 2004
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The Bloomsday Centennial hits Champaign this weekend |
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Bloomsday -- a celebration of Irish culture in general, and James Joyce's novel "Ulysses" in particular -- will be performed in word and song on June 19, 2004 in downtown Champaign. But this time we've pulled out all the stops, because 2004 marks the hundredth anniversary of Bloomsday, that ordinary day in Dublin on which "Ulysses" takes place: June 16, 1904.
Bloomsday celebrations will take place wherever in the world Joyce's masterpiece is honored, and Champaign-Urbana is no exception. Readings from the text -- including some by guest celebrity readers -- will take place throughout the day, woven through many venues in downtown Champaign.
The celebration begins with a reading at Verde Gallery at 8:30 AM and ends with an 11:30 PM performance at Mike & Molly's pub by an electric Irish band -- the one and only Billy Shite and the Fecktones.
"Joyce to the World," a new documentary detailing Bloomsday as it is celebrated around the world -- and including a shot of that famous Joyce interpreter, Indigo Frank -- will be shown at 8:00 PM at Verde Gallery on Friday, June 18 as an appetizer for the following day's grand events.
This is the third annual celebration of Bloomsday in downtown Champaign, and -- as experience shows -- you don't have to be a grad student in Irish literature to come downtown and sing a song or lift a pint in honor of good Mr. Bloom, or even to join in the reading.
The full schedule is available at http://www.fpmrecords.com/events/bloomschedule.html.
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See also:
http://www.fpmrecords.com/bloomsday
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This work is in the public domain. |
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Re: Bloomsday in Champaign |
by sean o'torain
loughfinn (nospam) aol.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
18 Jun 2004
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Why are those responsible for banning Joyce not being mentioned.
Sean O'Torain. loughfinn (at) aol.com
It is great to see the recognition of Joyce and Ulysses that has been taking place in Ireland over the past few days . I live outside Ireland and it does my heart good. But if I could raise a note of criticism. Would it not be a more accurate reflection of Joyce and his experience if we had some mention of the forces that condemned Joyce and banned him from Irish life? Who were these forces, where are these forces now? This is not just an issue of accurate history for me. It is also personal.
I emigrated to Canada in 1965 having left school when I was 16. Working as a laborer in a lumber camp in Northern Ontario in the summer of that year I became friends with a Quebecois student who was working for the summer holidays. One day during a break from pulling the logs in from the lake he said to me, "Well what do you think of Joyce then"? All I could say was: "Who is Joyce"? I had never heard of him. I have never got over the humilation and anger at having to be introduced to Joyce in this way.
So I look in vain for some coverage in the Irish media which might shine some light on the forces that banned Joyce. After all they should be held to some account should they not? The churches, their many front organizations, the schools they control, the health system over which they have such influence, the major political parties they still try to intimidate, the business organizations they support and which in turn support them, the mass media. I am not sure Joyce would have been happy to see these forces let off the hook in these days when he is being praised by just about everybody.
After my experience in Canada I vowed to find out who Joyce was. I had joined the merchant marine by this time and the first big city I came to was New Orleans. I went to the library and asked for a book by Joyce. They gave my Finnegans Wake. I tried to read it but I thought I had concussion. Years later I realised that Joyce might have been quite pleased to hear that somebody who knew nothing about his book felt like they had concussion. Later I have managed to come back to it and the rest of Joyces work.
To me the lesson of Joyce is that great art, great writing, cannot be suppressed even if all the most powerful forces in society are against it. If it corresponds to reality, if it lifts the spirit and soul of a people, then it will break to the surface. My mother was what was known as a "servant girl" in her youth and later the spouse of a small farmer. She never heard of Joyce but two of his poems were read at her funeral in Donegal a few years ago. Joyce, though long dead, made his way to that small village.
I would like to thank Joyce for his assault on the brutal male domination that has been so much a part of Irish capitalist christian society. He wrote in Finnegans Wake: "the vaulting feminine libido.... sternly controlled and easily repersuaded by the uniform matteroffactness of a meandering male fist". What a powerful image, what a blow to the backwardness of Irish society in Joyces time and not all gone today. But how great it is that this old Ireland is being driven into the past by the women of modern Ireland as they get jobs outside the home and control over their own bodies. It would have been good to see some more coverage in the Ulysses celebration of the forces that tried to keep him banned and the women and people of Ireland down.
Sean O'Torain. |
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Re: Bloomsday in Champaign |
by dave
extremeacidity666 (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
19 Jun 2004
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hi, i'm from champaign, urbana. i'm in wisconsin now tho. good to see that yer all havin' a good time. cheers! |
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Re: Bloomsday in Champaign |
by Andrew Ó Baoill
andrew (nospam) funferal.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
26 Sep 2005
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A minor clarification of Seán's point. My understanding is that Ulysses, for one, was never formally banned in Ireland - the reason, perhaps, being that banning required that one provide several copies to the Censorship of Publications office with a rationale for the banning.
However, the general point about the general absence of Joyce's works from Irish public life - through to the 1990s when I finished school (in Ireland) - is still valid. |
