Catholicism
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Decoding Bloom: The Lotus Eaters Sutra
“Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy with hand under his cheek.” — Ulysses, p. 80 This is a post in a series called Decoding Bloom where I take a paragraph of Ulysses and break it down line by line. The passage below comes from “Lotus Eaters,” the fifth…
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Plumtree’s Potted M’Coy
“This is the age of patent medicine.” – Stephen Dedalus To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episodes here and here. “Lotus Eaters” is, by its nature, a sleepy section of Ulysses, full of seemingly inconsequential incidents, but there are secrets hidden around every corner. Early in the episode, Bloom…
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Ep. 49 – O, My Dimber Wapping Dell
White thy fambles, Red thy gan! Wait, what? Find out what this phrase and much more means in this episode as we continue our discussion of “Proteus,” the third episode in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Topics covered in this show include: what Stephen means by “red Egyptians,” background on the Romani and Irish Travellers, Stephen’s class insecurity,…
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Ep. 27 – Nacheinander and Nebeneinander
Real talk: why are there no seagulls on Sandymount Strand in Ulysses? Have we stumbled onto a historical seagull-based conspiracy? Stay tuned to find out! Additionally, we’ll also continue discussing how Stephen’s walk on the beach is influenced by Berkeleyan idealism, Stephen’s perception of space and time, how blind people perceive the world and the…
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Ep. 20 – Big Words Which Make Us So Unhappy
History is the art of Nestor, so let’s immerse ourselves in the nightmare of history, at least the bits covered on p. 31 of Ulysses. Learn about Stephen’s hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. Mr. Deasy tries to teach Stephen a bit of history, but (spoiler alert) he doesn’t know much about history. Topics covered include Daniel O’Connell, the Orange lodges,…
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Form of Forms
“It follows that the soul is analogous to the hand; for as the hand is a tool of tools, so the mind is the form of forms and sense the form of sensible things.” – Aristotle, De Anima I am absolutely indebted to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the book Allwisest Stagyrite: Joyce’s Quotations…
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Decoding Dedalus: Omphalos
Daedalus in Ulysses was Joyce himself, so he was terrible. Joyce was so damn romantic and intellectual about him. He’d made Bloom up. Bloom was wonderful. – Ernest Hemingway, “On Writing” This is a post in a series called Decoding Dedalus where I take a paragraph of Ulysses and break it down line by line.…
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Agenbite of Inwit
—He can’t wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can’t wear grey trousers. To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here. The text of Ulysses is populated by certain repeated phrases that shine light on the inner…
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Decoding Dedalus: Glorious, Pious and Immortal Memory
This is a post in a series called Decoding Dedalus where I take a paragraph of Ulysses and break it down line by line. The passage below comes from “Nestor,” the second episode of Ulysses. It appears on page 31 in my copy (1990 Vintage International). Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond……