Having my way with Ulysses

Yes because

Now go.

eureka i was in the bath like archimedes when the idea came clean i am god and you too and why not let my work be delightful and with ulysses why not what a year it could be and i laughed every day and cried some too, the installment i knitted with molly crying as she was the death bunting for rudy have you ever knit anything people notice when she says whats the use grieving for something that was neither one thing nor the other she wont think herself into the glooms about that anymore because you know at that moment she has done so already and more than once and i don’t care how fast a knitter you are even for the tiniest little newborn which rudy most certainly would have been knitting takes time thinking and measuring and increasing and decreasing grafting and sewing it together weave in the ends and blocking if she blocked and put it on him it would have been all day and into the night I know what it is to be a woman and a mother twice over and pregnant more often than that and i felt molly that day back in oxen of the sun though thats not the only way we are in synch which made me laugh too mostly i laughed from the pleasure of it working with ideas i keep around what has love to do with free will and time and eternity simultaneity mathematical esoterica death and god both and or i would write something to crack myself up and laugh that way too each day long and crammed full i would wake up exhausted around 5 my boys wide awake up and busy id start all the simultaneity of life looking after my boys basic survival needs and sometimes my own food pull ups check the schedule what do i think im writing about today half awake without a god’s notion and clothes socks shoes wheres your jacket reading and waiting for it the first mad thing comes into my head no time to overthink anything commit to what comes research it and write and image and caption and keep going tomorrow comes fast and boys play read love kiss comfort and feed them dos huevos estrellados maybe today but no dear god they eat like damn birds one eats nothing new and the other eats two raspberries and is full both curly and sweet beautiful and neither ever eats the same thing as his brother ever smart curious both confused in my eyes sometimes when it comes to weather look mommy blue clouds northwest kids in the dumping rain peacefully doing whatever when people from well normal climates run at the first drop whether it is just misting out or pissing down rain the little one still wont pee in fish heaven where we poured bloop and flushed him on to eternality tell me how do you argue with that our 1st death too it was they learned to swim and play chess and checkers and watch out for the little one he cheats and read i love watching brotherhood happen ive never seen anything like it the sun shines for them and for my marriage too my second one and thank god for it my love my life and i moved to the backroom when was that during circe maybe where i could do my writing and studies at the table in there so i can think and the days slipping sideways and i stopped paying attention to months and started thinking in chapters each one a newness and a different kind of pleasure and in the bath nightly a languid floating flower alone and done for the day and this one the last one nearly done too yes and nothing to do tomorrow for the first time since long before a year ago but it is time now to stop to look around a bit take it in and rest quietly for just one time a short time perhaps or a long however it comes and be still yes because a woman whatever she does she knows where to stop.

4 Responses to Yes because

    • Thank you for your comment. I began it before the copyright ran out and would have done it regardless — that was just a happy coincidence. My motivation, I suppose, was that I had left academic life to have children and my littlest one had started preschool, giving me just a sliver of time to fill. I ended up filling it and spilling over by far! Why this? I don’t know anymore. I could have answered that question much more clearly a year ago. The idea came to me and I went with it and didn’t let it go until it was done. It was a great pleasure to spend so much time on Ulysses, to find so many of its secrets and its jokes. I’d do it again. But I’ll likely never choose to publish something daily for a year ever again, though I’ll always be prolific. The pace was relentless! But with the chance to turn back time and do it again I’d do it again.

      Joyce wrote television scenes in Finnegans Wake: I wonder what he might have done with the web. Truthfully, that’s the question I asked myself some time in October or maybe November of 2011. I imagine he would have had as much fun as I did, and would have blown us all away doing it. And without question, Joyce’s website would be NSFW.

  1. I have do admit I didn’t notice he had written television scenes in Finnegans Wake. But then I know I only ever noticed a fraction what he was trying to say/sing/write.
    May I ask one more question (I’m quite nosey): what was it that you did in academia? I mean to ask: was your work always related to (Joyce’s) literature?

    • Please ask as many questions as you like! I am a literary chronosopher which means I study the intersections of temporality and literature. Or I did. Well I still do. I suppose the closest English discipline I might be classified into is literary theory. What to call me was always a problem: “this is Veronica Tonkin and she is a what do we call you ? What do you do? Cultural studies?” “No.” “Something with theory?” “Yes, close enough.” I should have been a medievalist, they are always the coolest people. And so easy to say. “I am a medievalist.” It just sounds nice. I taught mostly contemporary literature, some modern literature, and literary theory, and I loved every minute of teaching. I was also quite involved in cinema studies. Joyce would sometimes appear in my classes, though not as often as more contemporary authors depending on what I was teaching. I did teach Ulysses as a senior seminar in a quarter system, which was never enough time, but I was not specifically a Joyce specialist. I think my vitae is on academia.edu, but it is badly out of date.

      There’s a television and a radio in HCE’s tavern and they make up some of the noise there. Look for the Butt and Taft scenes. I can’t remember where exactly. Somewhere in the middle.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.