podcast
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Ep. 115 – AND IT WAS THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER
Why is this Bloomsday different from all other Bloomsdays? Topics in this episode include orthography, Dermot’s recollections of working in graphic design, the saving grace of calligraphy, spellingbee conundrums, dayfathers, nightfathers, Old Monks, unions, an obituary surprise, Passover and how it shows up in Ulysses, Rudolph Bloom’s Haggadah, how Charlton Heston traumatized us as children,…
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Ep. 114 – HOUSE OF KEY(E)S
We finally unlock the secrets of Ulysses! Topics in this episode include Joseph Nannetti Sr. and Jr., the debts of Joe Hynes, Bloom’s passivity, the real Alexander Keyes, his struggle to advertise in print in Dublin, advertising in late Victorian Ireland, an innuendo of Home Rule and the Manx Parliament, heraldic imagery in Bloom’s ad,…
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Ep. 112 – Exiles (w/ Steve Carey)
Once maligned, later tentatively praised, James Joyce’s only existing play, Exiles, may be his least popular work. Though it is rarely staged these days, Bloomsday in Melbourne’s Steve Carey is up to the challenge. We talk why Exiles has been so maligned, why it’s actually good, and how to go about staging a play that…
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Ep. 110 – Aeolus
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind… We kick off our series on Ulysses’ seventh episode, “Aeolus”! Topics in this episode include Book X of The Odyssey, Homeric parallels found in “Aeolus”, the headlines, the Evening Telegraph as it appears in Ulysses, Stromboli, brazen walls and floating isles, wind and air imagery, the…
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Ep. 109 – The Tower of Silence
Break out the Tantalus glasses – we’re finally getting out of the Underworld! Topics in our final episode covering “Hades” include paying the ferryman, turning a suit, rats, Robert Emmet, the speech from the dock, toxic nostalgia, cremation, the Catholic Church’s position on cremation, quicklime, Zoroastrianism, the Parsi Tower of Silence, the unexpected consequences of…
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Ep. 108 – The Chief’s Grave (w/ Jordan LeVeque)
Sometimes, Bloom is right to be wrong. Topics in this episode include Charles Stewart Parnell’s funeral and grave, Parnell as Agamemnon, Parnell as a Christ figure, graveyard iconography, Old Ireland’s Hearts and Hands, All Souls’ Day, euphemisms for death, Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” a stuffed owl, Milly’s funeral for a bird,…
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Ep. 107 – Far away a donkey brayed.
What’s up with that donkey in Glasnevin? Topics in this episode include seagulls in Ulysses, the Blooms’ old digs in Lombard St. West, The Joyce Project, Mesias the tailor, donkey lore, superstitions of death, a strange work of art, Lucia di Lammermoor, Ivy Day, the location of Bloom’s future grave, Altman the Saltman, Finglas, Joe…
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Ep. 106 – M’Intosh
Who is the man in the macintosh? Topics in this episode include trying to figure out the identity of Ulysses’ most enigmatic figure, Penrose, HCE, Peter Falk, the details we can decipher from M’Intosh’s brief appearances in Ulysses, the infallibility of Bovril, Dusty Rhodes, why searching for Easter eggs can be unsatisfying, Theoclymenos, James Clarence…
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Ep. 105 – The Ides of June
Beware the Ides of June. Topics in this episode include the power of keys, John O’Connell the St. Peter of Dublin, “Silver Threads Among the Gold”, Daniel O’Connell the Hercules of Dublin, Daniel O’Connell’s cheatin’ heart, the Persephone of Dublin, Christian burial practices, blood libel, vampire imagery and antisemitism, Leopold Bloom’s version for everlasting life…
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Ep. 104 – Broken Hearts
Corpses rarely wear hats. Topics include the correspondent organ of Hades (the heart), the O’Connell Circle, Daniel O’Connell’s heart, Tom Kernan, hats, losing your identity in the underworld, freemasonery, whether or not Leopold Bloom is a mason, Mount Jerome and the Irish church, Bloom’s denial of an afterlife, humor in the face of death, ghosts…