What's The Occasion? Bloomsday!

Bloomsday is the day in 1904 described in James Joyce's acclaimed novel Ulysses; as it happens, this day in 1904 turned out to be a most extraordinary day indeed for Leopold Bloom and his soon-to-be fiancee Nora Barnacle as they perambulated into and around South Dublin's Ringsend neighbourhood (which was then a separate village).

Yeah... I've still never read it. But I will, I swear. It's been right at the top of my read queue for several years now, staring at me with its phone book thickness, enticing me with the writerly cred I stand to gain by actually being one of the few to slog through it.

See, it's one of those things, like Waiting for Godot; listening to people rave about the thing for years kind of has me spooked that it'll never live up to the hype. I imagine it's how those poor PC people feel about Macs; I mean why else would you cling to some ugly out-moded piece of crap that doesn't work? I can only hope that, when I finally get down to reading it, Ulysses is as amazing as any of the Macs I've owned.

Still, whether you've read the book or not, today is the day to be in Dublin, as the city comes alive(r) with pub crawls and public readings to honour one of its favoured sons and his landmark work of Modernist literature. The event has been growing in popularity every year since it was first held in 1954; many of the events are sponsored by the James Joyce Centre.
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