Having my way with Ulysses

Six sixteen which he pointedly turned a deaf ear to.

While we sleep here, we are awake elsewhere and that in this way every man is two men.1:36 am

Look. Don’t you know that if you fuck a whore, you together become one body? It’s old, this idea, thousands of years written by people who were no better than they should be. They say in their most sacred “The two shall be one flesh.” The beast with two backs and the molecules entwining.  And more than that, it’s turtles all the way down baby; you’ve just thrown yourself into the den of lions. So far be it for me to put two and two together, but we are each other, you and I. You think we are cultured fellows, promising so brilliantly and indeed we are and them too, though they don’t know it. And we’ve all fucked around: we’ve had sex with everybody. You sleep with him, he sleeps with him and her, and she sleeps with she and she with he and all of us all together form one body of no uncommon calibre.  Whatever shall we wear?

Think you’re escaping and run into yourself.

  The director of one of the state prisons told his inmates that there were certain tombs in an ancient river bed and promised freedom to whoever might make an important discovery. During the months preceding the excavation the inmates were shown photographs of what they were to find. This first effort proved that expectation and anxiety can be inhibitory; a week's work with pick and shovel did not manage to unearth anything in the way of a hrön except a rusty wheel of a period posterior to the experiment. 8:55 pm

Getting dark now.  From within: windows turning into mirrors; from without: mirrors turning into windows.  Can be shocking to be within and turn the light on, suddenly see yourself as others see you.  From without, we get the gradual, surroundings disappearing, and what you’re doing in there, well, darling little wretch, I see your I see all.  Baby your longest way round is the shortest way home. Think you’re escaping?  You’ve run into yourself.  Naughty darling.  Now let’s lie on our back and watch until three stars apparate, maybe we’ll see something new.  It’s the new I want.  Nothing’s new under the sun; let’s see what charades the moon will play.  Or a comet, Rip Van-Winkling toward us: coming back after twenty years asleep.  We’ll kiss our shoulder and take a return voyage around our own little world.

Beneath a reign of uncouth stars.

For one of those gnostics, the visible universe was an illusion or (more precisely) a sophism. Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable because they multiply and disseminate that universe. 11:46 am

[A slight whispering wind blows through the theatre and we hear the sound of an incoming tide.  The veil of the temple rises revealing a circle of people lying on their backs staring up at the sky.]

Cassiopeia: [gazing at herself in a hand mirror] The stars are beautiful at this time of day, don’t you agree?  Though not as beautiful as me of course.

Pan:  Of course, baby.  Now come over here and sit on my lap.  My energies are rising.

Cassiopeia:  None so beautiful as me.

Shadow: [rolling over, bending himself toward the rocks, turning his back to the sun] Darkly they are there behind this light.  Darkness shining in the brightness.

Proteus:  [in the shape of a long stick, curved at the end, no knots]  We are here to look at birds people, not stars.  Now pay attention before I change my mind, I’m getting tired.  Did you hear that rook?  That means it will soon rain.

Pan:  This is Seattle, everything means it will soon rain.  Look, a dog!  It will soon rain. Look, a wave!  It will soon rain.  Please.  So, Virgin, your hand is so gentle.  Love the longlashed eyes, baby, want to trust me a little?

Cassiopeia:  She, she, she.  What is she to compare to me?

That Virgin:  [pointing] That cloud looks like a book.  See it up there?  Oooh, now it looks like letters.  U. P.

Pan:  [visibly aroused]  A lady of letters!  I am lonely here, touch me.

Proteus:  [in the form of our souls]  Goodness!  Look at that manshape ineluctable! I’ll sit on your lap. Cling to you a little, a woman to her lover.

Pan: [in his flutiest voice] The more the more!

Shadow:  [flatly] Come back to us Proteus, I see shadows of birds on a white field.

Pan: [Flutier] Don’t listen Proteus, come, cling, then come.  Now where the blue hell are you?

Proteus:  [In the form of a mirror] That’s better.  Feel a bit shamewounded.  Now where were we.  Oh yes.  Those birds, Shadow, are magpies and there are one, two, seven of them.  A secret.  And my stars, look, an owl!  And it is nearly noon, no wonder I am so tired.  Let’s see, owl, a revelation at night.  Also a bitter mystery.  A mysterious secret will be revealed at night.  Also, it will soon rain.

Cassiopeia:  [rubbing lotions into her skin]  Proteus, you’ve never looked so flat, yet in you I see distance.  Near, far, east, me.  Oh there I am.  Me.  Oh Proteus, you are so beautiful.  Oh, I feel something!  What is that word known to all men?

That Virgin:  What is that word?  I want to feel it too.  Point over here Proteus, show me what Cassiopeia sees.

Proteus: [In the form of Berkeley]  You see nothing.  You think you see.  Everything is flat, and you only think you see distances.  Those stars unbeheld behind this light?  Their distance is only an element of your idea of them.

Pan: [masturbating gently]  I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now.  I am quiet here alone.  Sad too.  Touch, touch me.

Shadow: [in the form of my form]  Not for all the word.