Leopold Bloom
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“Sirens” Songs: The Croppy Boy
This is part one of a two part series about select songs from the “Sirens” episode. You can read part one here. “Bloom’s, the novel’s, and, apparently, Joyce’s answer to a rancid discourse of Irish nationalism appears to be nothing more than gas, flatulence induced by an Irish diet too rich in that unctuous, “grosser”…
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“Sirens” Songs: M’Appari
This is part one of a two part series about select songs from the “Sirens” episode. You can read part two here. (Part two coming soon!) Stuart Gilbert, in his book, Ulysses: A Study, explained that in the view of the average Dubliner, music was an “essentially Italian art.” Simon Dedalus recalls the music of…
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Ulysses & The Odyssey – Sirens
“A musical episode was easy to place in Dublin, for Dublin is, or was, a musical town, with a particular passion for vocal music. A few Dubliners of the older generation meet in the lounge of the Ormond Hotel and a couple of songs, with an improvisation on the piano, constitute the entertainment. No writer…
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Sweets of Sin
“… a volume of peccaminous pornographical tendency entitled Sweets of Sin, anonymous author a gentleman of fashion…” “…I wonder what kind is that book he brought me Sweets of Sin by a gentleman of fashion some other Mr de Kock …” In the tenth section of “Wandering Rocks,” the tenth episode of Ulysses, we rejoin…
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Ep. 151 – Blind Stripling
A wild Blazes Boylan appears. Topics in this episode include the incredible story of Reverend Thomas Connellan, the Bible Wars, Soupers, the Bird’s Nest orphanage, apostasy and conversion, a typographical error heroically corrected, the blind stripling, whether or not the blind stripling actually wants help from Leopold Bloom, Bloom’s savior complex, Bloom’s empathy, the history…
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Ep. 150- Throwaway
I need to see a man about a horse. Topics in this episode include a return to nutarianism, Tom Rochford’s surprisingly heroic back story, the Ascot Gold Cup, racehorses with weird names, Jack B. Yeats’ Olympic career, the life cycle of a pernicious rumor, Tom Rochford’s invention, Don Giovanni’s ending (spoiler alert), peristalsis nearing its…
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Ep. 149 – Ancient Free and Accepted Order
Are you on the level? Topics in this episode include discussion of whether or not Leopold Bloom is a freemason, how well Nosey Flynn knows the business of the other Dubliners, why Bloom never thinks about being a freemason, whether or not Tom Kernan is in the craft, whether or not you can leave the…
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Ep. 147- Seed Cake
Should you bring oysters to your naughty liaison on Howth? Topics in this episode include your thoughts on Bloom’s glass of burgundy, whether or not oysters are an aphrodisiac, where you used to be able to find the best oysters in Ireland, whether or not it’s ok to eat oysters in months that don’t have…
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Ep. 145 – Gorgon-Zola
Fermentation is hot. Topics in this episode include Davy Byrne’s moral pub, Nosey Flynn, Noah and the curse of Ham, Plumtree’s Potted Meat, cannibalism, missionaries who get eaten by cannibals, long pig, Reverend MacTrigger, lapses in Leopold Bloom’s empathy, the Jesuits’ mission of conversion, colonialism, Yom Kippur, food as an expression of religion, mity cheese,…
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Ep. 144 – Rawhead and Bloody Bones
Let’s hope for something galoptious when all’s said and done. Topics in this episode include the lestrygonian feast in the Burton, masculinity and meat eating, societal paralysis, Bloom’s plan to feed the masses, Bloom’s memories of working in the cattle market, the importance of cattle to the Irish economy, the horror that is dicky meat,…