2012 Wrap

Despite the absence of posts on HCEverybloggy, meetings were held in the second half of the year since June, both at Hosty's Inkbottle and at the Well of Hope.

To end the year, we gathered at the Benevolent Booth of Youth.

A virtually complete compliment, including the Northern Fairlights, Medical Mick, Great Tain, Grinning Robber, Original Hosty and myself Mitzi.

We read from 235 to 238, which is Issy addressing Chuff. Dreams of suburban domestic paradise compromised by sauciness.

An inspired afternoon.

Bloomsday Sydney 2012

Bloomsday on Bondi, Sydney 2012

There are numerous Bloomsday events taking place around Australia this year. Sydneysiders will be treated to a day of Joyce by the sea, when the Bondi Pavilion becomes the latest place to celebrate Joyce's Ulysses on Saturday, June the 16th.
Bloomsday on Bondi begins at 10am with individual and group readings planned until 10pm.

Most of the days events are free, but there are two ticketed events for the morning and evening sessions. Buy tickets for Bloomsday on Bondi here:
UNSW, Centre for Global Irish Studies

May 6th Gathering

Present and accounted for, including Hosty GC, Ger and Tahonic, El Monty in the black fedora, Gwin n Tonic and myself, Sweet Mitzybird.   

A wonderful milestone (and stem) has been reached in our reading group. Together we have reached the final pages of Book 1 of Finnegans Wake. The chapter (1,8) is a firm favourite, known simply as 'ALP' for its heroine Anna Livia Plurabelle, or 'The Washers at the Ford' for the two washerwomen who maintain the flow of dialogue about ALP.

Whilte tempting to say we have 'finished' reading Book 1, it's hard to say our joyful work on the chapter is complete. It's a piece we'll return to time and again. There may yet be a bit of a performance from it at this year's Bloomsday.

We completed reading the list of presents given by ALP to all her childer. Some were rude and some were sad, some were nude and some quite mad. An enduring favourite maong the characters for me is Frisky Shorty. A great name for a pet terrier if there ever was one.

Other group members might post their own thoughts and reflections on our humble Finnegans Wake Reading Group as time meanders on its way. Or they mightn't, such as they please.

If you like Bloomsday, use facebook, and will materially occupy your allocated dimension of space in the Sydney region on June 16th, then check out the details for Bloomsday on Bondi:
www.facebook.com/BloomsdayonBondi.
It will have details and a link to the tickets page. Two ticketed events and two free events. Readings from Ulysses by cool people, music by talented people and craic by drunk people. Guinness on tap.

Myself, I will materialise in Dublin this Bloomsday for the first time.

As for the rising moon, it shone whitely and cool all over our pages of 212 and beyond in 1,8 - a mysterious and sad whispering, the watery sluicing of crumpled laundry and the quiet flap of bat wings. All this we heard, and bucketloads more. We shall return.

April 1st Gathering

It seems the joke was on us this April Fool's Day. Hailstorms, daylight saving and general mayhem bewildered the gods and waylaid our troops. Nevertheless, our Finnegans Wake quest persisted.

In attendance were myself, M Arklow, Moocher the Cat, and G Tahini, and we met for the inaugural occasion in G Tahini's home, Opened Sesame.

From our the section of 'Anna Livia Oysterface' we proceeded to the distribution of the Christmas Presents, reading up to the top of page 211. The presents were not always pleasant, and sometime quite sinister. We shall return to the gift-giving gala at next session.

March 4th Gathering

FW 204.16 - 208.26

Hosty shifted identity this session to Michael Arklow in a lemon-soap coloured cottage.
Present: Mr GR Google, Mr GT Tahini, The Two Chirsines, Bronze and Gold (SW and HC), myself Mitzi and Usual-Hosty, GC Yerac. El Monty sends apologies.

This session continues from mid-page 204. Two separate voice memo recordings were made, and may prove useful eventually. The theme for this session emerges from the phrase: "Are you in the swim or are you out?"

Being 'in the know' or 'in the loop' is a recurring motif in The Washerwomen's chapter (I, 8). As ever, we try to figure out who is saying what to whom.

In order of appearance, let us say the first washerwoman to speak is called W1: she demands to know "all about Anna Livia". The respondent is W2. Perhaps the challenge, 'are you in the swim', is W1 questioning whether W2 is really reporting the truth, or mere hearsay? Then again, W2 often playfully bullies W1, and so may be uttering the phrase defensively...although of course W1 is 'out of the swim' from the beginning, as she is the one seeking answers.On 204, she uses water verbs for 'tell me', which are: "drip me" and "trickle me"...she is drip-fed information, but not averse to being 'tricked'.

There are discussions of Anna Livia's hair, possibly sparked by some wimples and head-dresses in the laundry pile. As they smell, W1 calls W2 'snouty', as she prepares to wash the handkerchiefs of St Veronica (famous for wiping the brow of Christ with a cloth, on which the dude's face remained as a ghostly imprint). So for those believers attached to the story of Veronica, this hilarious phrase of the 'greasy jub' of washing the Veronica's 'wipers' is a tad blasphemous.

River names continue, and a fish theme jumps out - parr is a salmon, and findhorn is smoked haddock. The Scottish-themed paragraph which mentions 'aird' also gives a number of names of Quays on the Liffey.

We are interested in eau de Colo: obviously a pun on the perfume, it suggests 'water from the bottom' (cul, Fr.) and also the Colo river here in Australia (also down-under.)

G Tahini sang some obscene songs about Mrs MacGrath who is mentioned on 204, and GR Google confirmed the origins of the old songs. Naturally, the songs relate to undergarments. These are continued on 205 ("the leg of her drawers"), a reference to the lewd song we remember from Circe.

As we sail further down the path of this marvelous chapter, we attempt to picture the scale of the scene: are the ladies beside each other on the river bank? Are they calling to each other across the river, also across the sea between Northern Ireland and Scotland? And do they row across in a boat at one point? ("If you don't like my story, get out of the punt." 205)

A moment to consider "catchment ring" and "knees'dontelleries": 205.1 - 2. There' something obviously genital about the first image: perhaps this refers to an easy birth ('freed them easy')? Or, if it's sex, it makes sense that these 'hurrahs' are secrets (ie: don't telleries.) Yet the dontelleries are also teeth (Fr.). Or they are secretive births: nees (Fr.).

The 'exhibitioners' are scholarship boys from Belvedere College. 'Nubilee' is a mix of young and older: nubile + jubilee.

The 'nubilee letters' have an 'exe' on them. They could be The Letter or they could be a garment embroidered with 'scarlet thread': recall the red A of the Scarlet Letter - for Anna. I referred to an earlier version of The Letter which has "four cross kisses" written as a sign off. Although this section is more about accusations of adultery, with one W calling the other Kinsella's Lillith': Lillith we know (Adam's girlfriend before Eve, branded forever after in feminist theatre (rightly so) and theory as the victim of misogynist cruelty and ignorance - Lillith, the lady who won't conform to the Madonna-Whore paradigm.)

The urging of W1 to W2 to keep narrating her stories returns mid-205, with Beckettian echoes: "Garonne, Garonne" - stop, go on ...


Here W2 refers to the continuing media speculation on HCE by explaining how he was written about in a weekly magazine, 'Wakeschrift', and how much he is reviled as a result: even the snow that snowed on his dirty old (hoaring) head is disgusted by him ('had a skunner against him'.) This Dublin slang changes slightly, as Glasgow for 'skunner' is to be drunk: so perhaps everyone is drunk on the story of HCE, as well as disgusted? It's certainly very compelling.

W2 goes on to say that everywhere you went: city, suburb and 'addled areas' ('adult areas', we thought), you could find cartoons of HCE - 'hsi ikom sketched upside down' ... 'tipside down'... is this because he fell?

Other tauntings of HCE include burning effigies ('guy' as in Fawkes), mocking ('cammocking') and a dance with music ('Morris' and 'pipes'); the effigy (or the actual?) wears a triple-tiara, it may be the Pope's hat; the headgear is 'rotundarinking' his scalp: and M Arklow tells us there was an ice rink in the rotunda (of Dublin?).

205 closes with a refrain from recurring motif 'this is the house that Jack built.'

HC Chirsine successfully identified 'aeropage', a reference to Milton's speech in defense of freedom of expression. In this context of 206.1-2, there's a crowd and music, and their right to free speech is yet more anti-HCE rabble-rousing by 'the mauldrin rabble'. Their noise assisted by timpanies (timpan) and ancient violins (crowd, also masses of people making noise!)

ALP wants to get revenge on these aggressive folk: she will be 'level' with them (as only a river can, by overcoming 'snags'.) Or maybe she has some other mischief in store?

She will 'frame a plan to fake as shine', as the theme of fraud and duplicity re-emerges. She borrows a mail-sack (zakbag) from Shaun the Post, named as one of her 'swapsons': Here, a pause for discussion. Is he a step-son, (swapped from another mother) or simply a twin son (swapped/interchanged with his twin Shem?)

ALP dresses up for a masked ball: she made herself 'tidal'. The hilariously outraged W2 and W1 are quite poetic in their reactions. W1 wants to hear 'aviary word' about the story of our hen-woman; W2 helps balance the boat (punt); and they pause for a wee break (to wee.)

M Arklow read the paragraph 206.29 beautifully; a most poetic and grand description of ALP in true river form and also boat form ('the groove of her keel') - washing, and preening, jewelery and makeup - the works. Yet for all her glamorous beauty as a Russian ballerina (Pufflovah), she seems to be disguised as a man - she ends up bearded - 'oysterface'. She is disguising herself as Shaun the Post (possibly) or disguising herself as HCE...references to women in trousers with a hint of Calamity Jane ('Call her calamity electrifies man'.) In her changeable appearance, she is a bit of an Alice (as in Wonderland, as in 'liddel oddity').

The other aspect of her disguise could be blackface or some kind of darkening colour: W1 questions whether she is 'whole lady fair' or 'duodecimoroon' (racist old terminology for fraction of race) and when she creeps out of her igloo/tipi, she is a 'bushman woman'.

The gender-bent Anna is more pronounced on page 208, in which her clothing is detailed, with boy's and men's garments as well as women's. There is some suggestion that the river-figure and woman-man figure has become a ship ('stout stays...lined her length').

This session as always kept us guessing, but yielded plenty of diverting and outrageous detail for fun and astoundment.

February 5th Gathering

FW 198.29 - 204.21

This month's meeting saw an assistant Finnster in attendance, which was immensely helpful as we had a lot of washing to get through. To aid in working down the laundry pile, the group welcomed the long awaited Forest T. Clearing. Unfortunately the spectacular weather detained Bronze and Gold on the northern reaches, and a suggestion to travel either north or east one month in the future was mooted. Also present were Hosty, Garlicky Tahini, Mr GR Googly, the Jolly Medical Arklow and myself, Mitzy ("Speak, sweety bird! Mitzymitzy!" 225.20).

After reading aloud and demystifying some pages, we decided the theme today was about passageways, gaps and generally unfilled spaces. I'd like to quote from Rocky, the monosyllabic prize-fighter who got together with the vulnerable, sweet Adrien, saying "we got gaps". The notion of mutual emotional fulfilment, not to say physical fulfilment, is tangential to the raucous gossiple of the washerwomen, which continues here.

"she bogans without a band on" 198.25 there seem to be references to a woman (Molly by the window/ALP) pretending to play violin, ('pretending to ribble a derg on a fiddle") but the result is a sort of joyous dance. Though she can't play at all, insists Washerwoman 1. The "bogan" originates from hiberno-English, according to G Tahini, referring to an egg without a fully-formed shell. The origin of the Australian version of the word was professed unknown.

Here comes some leviathan imagery, as "grampus" is a whale, and one that tears at his sores ("tares at his thor") or tears (a weepy whale, sad and "glommen".) Could this be in response to ALP's gay dancing? Some geography is pointed out, and the Giant's Causeway (north of Ireland) is playfully conflated with Grafton Street, Dublin. We are informed that Fingal's Cave is at the Scottish end of the causeway.

HCE is sad and won't eat. Sitting sombre on his seat ('sambre on his sett'), he reads the deaths in that morning's Times. He perhaps snores with his mouth open from 12 to 4 ('his swallower open from swolf to fore') as those little birds clean his teeth (like those little birds who sit in the mouth of a crocodile, pecking out uneaten bits.) 
Anna Livia is shown fussing over her 'dear dubber Dan', which you would for someone who had 'been belching for severn years' - but no matter what food she brings him, he 'kast them frome him'. This is strange, considering the tasty offerings that one day hopefully will be served at the Finnegans Wake Cafe:

menu: blooms of fisk, meddery eygs, staynish beacons on toasc, cupenhave of Greenalnd's tay, dzoupgan of Kaffue mokau an sable, ale of ferns, shinkobread.

ANP offers to sing to soothe HCE: to 'vistule a hymn'. Her singing is so moving that it would 'cut you in two' (or perhaps make you bend over double with laughter?) Is she a good or bad singer, when it's said 'she could bate the hen that crowed on the turrace of Babel'? Maybe this means she was louder, considering the volume of noise emitted from Babel. Still, there is no reaction from HCE, 'not a mag out of him'.

Sentence from 199.33 - 200.3 is fabulous: it describes ALP as an aristocrat in a wonderful outfit riding out in a coach and incredibly costly clothes.

Washerwoman 2 (W2) refuses to believe this portrait of a wealthy Anna, and says 'blatherskite' (liar!), they are as poor as patches (Theirs porpor patches!)

ALP keeps singing to HCE, using compositions by well-known composers including Gluck.HCE as Humphrey ('umvolosy') does not respond, he is ill ('Bheri-Bheri') and 'deaf as a yawn'.

Now things start to get a little saucy and suggestive: ALP will do anything to wake up Humphrey, even excite his interest in life with help from passing servant girls or farm girls. The deal on offer is quite explicitly put ('Blockbeddum here!' - block is slang for the f-word.) ALP is now depicted as a 'cackling' madam who is earning money off her comatose husband. Or else, she is paying a 'silver shiner' to any woman who can get things happening in 'Humphrey's apron'.

W2 remains curious. She wants to know about Anna's 'rima' - at first I thought this was one of ANP's songs mentioned on page 200. Though when W1 starts reading out a letter (the content sounds like a diary entry), you realise W2 knows her friend has a copy of The Letter.

In the italics, W1 reads out the contents, in which: ALP wishes a bigger bottom (river bank)! She says she has worn hers away waiting for old Dane to wake up from hibernation ('his winter's doze') and perform his conjugal duty. She then slyly wonders if she could do some sewing and chores for a manly aristocrat to earn a little money. A final thought has her deciding to stay in her snug bed, though she'd rather be on the beach.

As discussion unfolds on page 201, there's the question of how many kids (aleveens: little fish) ALP had. The number 111 is repeated in various forms (Swahili and Hebrew.) So many kids, that she can't remember their names, but 'they did well to rechristen her Pluhurabelle.'

W2 reckons she will have even more. W1 wants to know about the younger ALP and her many lovers. ALP is shown as an active, seductive lover ('casting her perils before our swains') but also as the river who coasts along, by chance met by the males who enter her...'she sid herself she hardly knew whuon on the annals her graveller was'.

Then there is a beautiful passage about the 'young, thing, pale, shy, slim, slip of a thing' - Liffey as the dainty stream. It's a 'Curraghman' (man from Cork?) who gave her 'the tigris eye'. Now Anna Livia is truly the Liffey, as her course is described at the beginning of page 203. W1 isn't satisfied with the story of the Curraghman, she wants to know the very first man who saw and drank from the Liffey. So W2 tells the story of Michael Arklow, a hermit who breaks his vow of chastity with ALP. 'He had to forget the monk int he man' as he put his hands in her hair.

The final moments of our reading session end with the Liffey diverting through a gap, escaping: 'she sideslipped out of a gap in Devils glen' and then wriggles happily in some muddy pools - Dublin, black pool - and blushing hawthorns 'look askance upon her'. Our impression was not so much askance as awe-struck by the twists and turns of the little Liffey and her later exploits. The descriptions are suggestive and saucy, but the freedom of the river, and its energy, seems also to be a source of envy as well as scandal for the washerwomen.

January 1st Gathering

Our first meeting for 2012 took place appropriately enough on the first day of the year, with the added joy of celebrating the entry of Joyce's work into the public domain.

Finally, FWRG has arrived at Book 1 chapter 8, the famous Washerwomen scene, which Mitzi has performed snippets of before on Bloomsday and other Joycean occasions - rebel performances, conducted without permission from the Joyce Estate, mind.

This first session for the year also welcomed new group member Gaelic Tahini, whose knowledge of Gaelic language and Joyce is richer than the sesame paste for which he has been subtly re-named (garlic tanihi).

Other members present included The Two Northwegiennes, The Borrowed Beckettian, Hosty (naturally enough, Mr Google (with Joyce filter search activated) and myself Mitzi.

Our session cleared up a few mysteries about the terms littered through the 'washers at the ford' scene, and also perhaps created a few more.

The suggestive language of the two washerwomen comments on HCE's suss sexual behaviour, especially when "he went futt and did what you know"...and 'futt' could mean he escaped, or went forth. 

We were prepared for the torrent of river references, but who is the "eld duke alien"? He is the Greek fellow Deucalion, son on Promethus, and a Noah-type who survived a great flood, whose name provides a nice "alienated" pun to remind us of HCE's position as an outsider.

The Latin-flavoured term "nicies and priers" is a version of 'nisi prius', urging us to "ignore previous" reports, as this bit of "newses" is the latest on the "illysus distilling, exploits and all". We agreed the illicit distilling of "Ulysses" was hinted at here.

"As you spring, so shall you neap", a cute play on the sow and reap of spring (season) and the tides, new terms for me - with the added idea that what goes around comes around (something floated away on the tide will return on the incoming tide.)

Accused quite meanly of "making loof", an innocent enough activity really, "loof" also suggests "leaves" in Dutch (make like a tree, and leave?) as well as life (that which is occasioned from making love), or the "oof" of money (language?!) suggests something entirely more sinister (loot!)

The left and right banks of the Liffey are referred two by the two "reve"s, which incidentally suggests the French dream of "reve". 

Lictor Hacket, someone contributed, carries the fasces into somewhere official - parliament? Court? Hacket being an amusing references to the fasces (ceremonial axe).

The pun on "huges caput earlyfouler" is particularly funny, suggesting an 'earlybird', as well as unpleasant, 'foul' actions.

A majority of our conversation turned to marriage and Joyce, given that a substantial part of the washerwomen's talk is on the legality of HCE and ALP's marriage. A reference to Blacksmith refers to elopements in Scotland just beyond the English border. The marriage of 'Flowey and Mount'; suggests the marriage of river (flowing) and mountain (our two principle characters.) This led to brief side chit-chats about Joyce's late marriage to Nora Barnacle in England, for the benefit of their children. This kind of scandal (partners in life, unmarried) is echoed in the incredulity of "not a grasshoop to ring her, not an antsgrain of ore!" (no gold ring.) (Hello there, Ant and Grasshopper!)

The wedding march from Wagner is echoed in the chords "Dom Dom Dombdomb" with a range of epiphanies sparked by the phrase "and his wee follyo": a wee folio (FW, a small book really), and 'we follow you' (down the aisle), the ultimate "oui" folio/book, Ulysses.

Is the Irish sea harbourless (the 'harbourless iverniken okean)?

When HCE loosed "two croakers from underneath his tilt", we were reminded of Noah sending two ravens out into the rain in search of a landfall. The third try (a dove) succeeded.

"By the smell of her kelp they made the pigeonhouse" ... a diversion prompted the thought of sailors who navigated by scent. Impressive! The Pigeonhouse is a Dublin landmark, an electricity works mentioned on page 34 of Ulysses (in French, a la Dedalus.)

The great little word "timoneer" refers to a helmsman, an HCE's role as the sailor from the north arriving on Ireland's shore is broadly discussed.

A brief diversion here is about coffee: G Tahini mentioned an Irish coffee outlet that boasts its baristas trained "in the Australian method of coffee-making". An interesting example of reverse Antipodeanism.

What does it mean to be "suivied"? How is it even pronounced? It's from the French, suive - to follow. A set of dramatic phrases shows HCE as a 'marchantman' embarking towards Ireland with great flourish, following "their scutties right over the wash"; he's wearing a billowing cameleer's cloak (it could have something to do with his hunchback's hump) and crashes into a Dublin sandbar with some suggestive violence: "he borst her bar!"

Whose "scutties" are they? Scutties I imagine as some smaller kind of seagoing vessel. The Wash is an estuary, an indentation rather much larger than a harbour on the eastern coast of England. Joyce is clearly having a bit of fun here with geography, and it's possible that this isn't an arrival at Ireland at all, but the washerwomen recalling many different seafaring tales of HCE, another Odysseus of sorts.

"He erned his lille Bunbath hard, our staly bred, the trader."

I have performed these line many times, and always without knowing entirely its actual meaning, but rather its range of meanings: my tone has always been: sly, suggestive, saucy and knowing. There's an implicit criticism of sexual deviance, or dishonesty, or both.

 The Bath Bun is a baked treat from the city of the same name, and the puns on 'daily bread', 'stale bread' and someone being 'bred' from HCE's sexual activity are dizzying. HCE is both a "trader" and "traitor". As always, his status is mixed, perilous, uncertain.

More puns follow on sweat and wet, brow and prow ('in this wet of his prow'), so that it seems as HCE has become the ship he sailed in (as well as marking the clothes now being washed.)

"HCE has a codfisk, ee" ... like Bloom compared with a cod, HCE is accused of having a "codfish eye", an appropriately pescatorial image for such a seaborne episode; although it's quite an insult to HCE, as having a codfish eye means a glazed and gormless expression (with much collective admiration for the terms 'gorm', 'gormful' and 'gormless'...

Genders are collapsed when one of the washerwomen comments, "shyr, she's nearly as badher as him herself", with a sonorous mix of personal pronouns. "Badher" is also an Irish word for deaf/mute, adding to the previous image of gormless (not that deafness is associated with stupidity in our contemporary context.) One washerwomen questions the other, how often was ALP left aside/ignored (how loft was she lift a lattery extro - a fabulous, musical phrase). This suggests more gossip about what could be HCE's infidelity or even something more scandalous, ALP procuring him lovers (although with the boundless energy and reincarnations of HCE, perhaps she deserves a rest by chapter 8?)

There is so much going on in this most sparkling chapter. It's witty, worldly-wise and overflowing with intrigue. We ended with a series of our own epiphanies, considering the question of whether music itself is a language. It is not clear how we arrived at this perplexing question, but a celebratory bottle of chardonnay may have helped.   


Hooray for a creatively free future in which artists can reflect and recreate their own Joycean awakenings.

Our next session in February glitters with promise, and the visit of a Queenslander, a chap as high as a howeth in our estimation, on stilts still, as St Patrick hasn't been by below the equator on desnaking duty.
This blog post must serve as another mere milestone on the meandering road that we follow for fun again (and again), with Wakeful anticipation (this time) until February.