Having my way with Ulysses

Whereas.

• Eumaeus

The first and last rittlerattle of the anniverse; when is a nam nought a nam whenas it is a. 1:06 am

We really need to replace E.  Y too, damn it, its so awkward now. I really have to stop hooking up with the good looking ones, it never goes anywhere.  I can’t just assume all the time, no matter how hot they are, that a run of bad luck is never temporary. They don’t just need something to hold them over until whenever. There is no whenever.  There is never whenever. Remember that H we had that one time said he was doing research for a character he was writing. What a load of crap. Good looking guys can be losers too. Got to remember that. No, it was E. The E before the E we have now who just looked a bit like that H not that one time but the time before. And then the one today. Asking me out but would I mind paying because he’s out of work. I told him we had a three week waiting list for human directionals which means I’ll probably be carrying a sign myself tomorrow and that’s fine, because E is way too creepy to keep around. This place is infested with losers, but Hugh doesn’t pay me enough to put up with creepy.

Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn’t she?

• Cyclops

The time will soon come when her last notes sound and die into silence. She is a small episode in the eternal history of our people, and the people will get over the loss of her. 5:38 pm

Yes.  And he’s an excellent man to organize it.  The tour, you see.  It starts up north.  A summer tour, will be a nice holiday.  Who’s in it?  My wife, so far.  So far.  I believe Boylan is adding some rather famous, locally famous you understand, particularly well-known talent.  He’s organizing it.   Really it is just one show.  So far.  Just one.  Only Molly in it.  His father made some money.  Sold the same thing to the army several times over.  And now Boylan selling this tour.  Chip off the old.  Just one show.  I won’t go.  Go visit my father, his anniversary.  They’ll go alone.  Together.  He’ll organize her there.  Again.  I wonder what she sees?  She’s all drowned in him. Worst man around.

Love or money

• Sirens

Ay mi pobre hija, se van a quemar juntos en el infierno.

4:08 pm

Irato

These two bitches been doing a shit job of things. I see luring but no devouring. Where’s the devouring? Why I leave girls to do a woman’s job? Move over, all of you, let me through. Mama’ll fix this mess. Lidia, ready to kill herself over that one just left. He’s on his way to a real sirena baby, go play sad music and cry. Stupida. Where’s your sanity? Stand up straight! God give me patience these girls make me crazy. Who told you to warm him up for somebody else to finish off? Did all her work for her. She’s a better singer too. She knows what sells. Think. Remember when she was selling clothes? And singing in bars. What do you think made her money, eh? Those old theatre rags don’t sells themselves, you see people lining up for that? It was the men. The men. The men she lured singing. Learn something. And Mina. Who you going to get standing there doing nothing? Look at that fatso there slapping that piano with his meat hands. He knows. Or that fake priest who helped him knows: put on tight pants when you sing to the girls. It’s not the voice it’s the body. Even a fatty like him. Come on chicas! Why is it taking men to teach you a job you should know by instinct? Listen to these guys:

 

They know their business, ya. They’ll eat you alive then drag your soul to hell and you’ll want more. Listen to their promises. Even I’d take my panties off for them. Get your shit together. Now Lidia don’t cry. An idiot who leaves just like that isn’t worth throwing yourself away over. Mi pobre hija. I just want you to get them to come to you, to see you with their own will. Now enough of this, you give me a pain deep in my heart. You have work to do and another one coming in. You get him, ok? Enough tears chica, you make yourself crazy over nothing and me with you. Now go.

The bright stars fade

• Sirens

The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it.... Ah, mortal! then be heedful; for so, in all this din of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar.

4:00 pm

Rallentando

They have the same effect on all of them.  Lure them in, smile, make them think they’re the only pebble on the beach.  Screaming laughter after they’ve gone.  God bless my deaf ears.  Those two Delilah’s in there don’t realize that they’ll be old crones soon enough.  Beauty fades, and fast.  Sucker them in, girls, better land one before he he he realizes what you are about.  Then God’s curse on the bitch’s bastard.  Ruffled their feathers it did, that that kid piano tuner, blind as he is, paid them no notice at all.  Proved their invisibility to them.  They don’t exist unless they think they have a man wanting whatever beauty they possess under those scales.  Play a man like a fiddle.  Look at Kennedy there, ignoring that one for all she’s worth.  That’s an art, boys, that takes some skill.  Drives them wild every damn time.  She knows what they want.  And that other one stretching over him with the clocks on his socks sipping that violet syrupy nonsense.  He’s a male version of them getting Doce’s best show, snapping her bra, ringing in the hour.  Let’s hear the time.  Twelve men a day or she’s not happy.  Flatter them, then cling with chipped talons and devour them whole.  Maneaters.  Customers coming in, two, middling in age.  They’ll take a table with a view: want to see, not be seen.  Married, likely.  They’ll watch and won’t realize their own deafness until they leave.  Poor bastards.  They’ll hear the music, though, and why not?  They have memory and anticipation, same as you.  Same as me.  I hear it.  I hear the music all the time: voiceless songs sung from within.  Sometimes I go for the old slow blues numbers: Ray Charles in the day; Eartha Kitt, Miss Kitt to you.  When I want to pick it up a bit I hear the big bands.  Benny Goodman and his orchestra doing Sing Sing Sing.  In my mind, mind.  I expect; I remember.  Feeling a little allegretto.  Going to run some Louis Prima between my ears for a while.

 

You’re bothering me.  Get out of my head, I have customers to serve.

I don’t think you knew him or perhaps you did, though.

• The Wandering Rocks

And toward a stairway, he and I, together, turned; and just as soon as I was at the first step, I sensed something much like the motion of a wing, and wind that beat against my face, and words: "Beati pacifici, those free of evil anger!"

I’ve tried so many people I can’t tell if I’m coming or going.  School for the children, money, insurance question.  Insurance later with Bloom, much kindness in him.  Poor Dignam, decent little soul, a bit low sized.  We’ll help his children up, and his widow, give them peace.  Down to me to arrange it.  Burned by gold heads appear above the crossblind of their usual window.  She won’t have to ascend and descend other’s staircases.  Descending the staircase, Nannetti, hailed his fellow council members ascending the staircase.  Dual mirrors in a shop window supervise Blazes Boylan, virile, energies rising, intercepting Bob Doran, emasculated, on the downward arc of his annual bender.  Jimmy Henry and Long John Fanning: they’ll give on the spot, no hesitation, no questions.  They’ll do it purely for goodness’ sake.

And what star is that, Poldy?

• The Wandering Rocks

Money is indeterminate, it is everything, a kind of general equivalent, it is nothing, a kind of blank meaning. Information, as blank meaning, is in the process of taking its place, as a general equivalent.Rochford is Boylan with impatience for me to show Blazes his bit of code when I see him later.  I’ll sound him out.  This is it, whatever sense you want to make out of it:  010101000111010101110010011011100010000001001110011011110111011100100000010011110110111000100000001010000111000001100001011110010010000001100001011101000111010001100101011011100111010001101001011011110110111000100000011101000110111100100000011101000110100001100101001000000110111001101111011101110010111000101001 Richie Goulding on financial business for Goulding, Collis and Ward walked blindly toward a woman no longer young, smiling, as she rushed, fully absorbed, toward him, on her way from superior courtroom W-331 to courtroom E-173.  Money to be made, Tom says, telling people what they see now.  Label the now and they’ll enjoy it more.  Augment that reality.  From Boeing Field, a string of stretch suv’s, one bearing flags, made its way toward the freeway.   Maybe money there but I’ll get mine some other how.  I have my methods.  He’s a hero, Tom, you know that?  Saved somebody stuck down a manhole, the one just down there under the poster of that dauby chick with the yellow hair.  Poor devil stuck halfway to hell choking to death on sewer fumes and down went Tom, tied a rope around him and up they hauled them both.  The act of a real hero.  Ambulance.  Can’t hear myself type.  Anyway, the race is on soon.  Bantam Lyons is putting everything he’s got on a horse somebody gave him that hasn’t an ice cube’s chance in hell.  McCoy kept himself out of it.  I can take my time; she doesn’t need these steaks yet.  I don’t think he appreciated my story about that dinner at Glencree either; he has some kind of feeling for Bloom maybe.  Says his wife sang there but did she?  Come on.  She a star?  Please.  The bright stars fade. Anyway, it was blue o’clock in the morning when we left with the car top down and I sat next to Bloom’s wife trying to get her top down.  Unfurnished Apartments, picked up and placed again on the window sash.  Bloom playing the astronomer pointing out this comet and that comet and stars and stars.  Left me to pay attention to his wife’s moon.  What star is that Poldy, she said.  Just a pinprick, needle dick.  He’s all right, though, Bloom.

Is he in love with that one, Marion?

• The Wandering Rocks

I am almost afraid to confess it, even to these secret pages. The man has interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him. In two short days, he has made his way straight into my favourable estimation – and how he has worked the miracle, is more than I can tell.

I need to find something new to read.  This public domain stuff I’m digging up has too much mystery business in it.  Maybe I’ll start reading blogs?  Except they all suck.  Every dumbass with a computer thinks there’s something new to say.  But there’s nothing new anywhere, just recombination of old ideas.  01010011011010010111100000100000011101110110000101101110011101000111001100100000011101000110111100100000011011110110011101101100011001010010000001111001011011110111010100100000011000100110000101100010011110010010110000100000010010010010011101101101001000000100001001101111011110010110110001100001011011100010000001110111011010010111010001101000001000000110100101101101011100000110000101110100011010010110010101101110011000110110010100101110
Maybe I should just start a blog myself.  Mix it up a little.  Can’t be hard, right?  How much time could it possibly take?  Oh Christ I hope he doesn’t make me stay late.  I’ll miss seeing Shannon tonight before Susy Nagle gets to him first.  None of the guys can keep their eyes off her.  Or their hands.  I need a new look.  Not like that poster of Lady Gaga I have to stare at all day with the mustard hair and dauby cheeks.  She’s not nice looking is she?  Under all the makeup and hair and everything.  Pretty ordinary looking without the performance art wardrobe. Human directionals, former sign twirlers (some more attractive than others) having recently become a distraction to drivers now walk past the fruit stand instead of twirl in stationary position to avoid litigation.  I suppose everybody is.  Need better clothes.  And luck and talent.  And money.  And no pants.  Doesn’t she ever put on pants?  Hm.  I don’t think he’ll be back in.  Maybe I can get out of here early.  I have to wait until at least 5:00 in case he calls in.  I think I might have double booked him for 4:00, so there’ll be fallout from that.  Whoops.  Oh well.

Young jucy crinkled and plump

• The Wandering Rocks

I am not jealous of what came before me. Come with a man on your shoulders, come with a hundred men in your hair, come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet, come like a river full of drowned men which flows down to the wild sea, to the eternal surf, to Time!Why did I let him take the flower?  I’m shamefaced just thinking about it.  The one thing here that’s mine.  And him sending port and pears and peaches and a jar of that nasty junk to an invalid.  Again: different invalid.  Doesn’t seem the charitable type to me.  Other way around, I’d say; I let him take a good long look at my peaches and pretended not to notice.  Notice a few different titles here today.  Maybe something new in the back.  Let him look.  My little gift.  I counted fruit and waited for the H E L Y ‘S guys go past again. Y is pretty cute. Too bad he has to follow that creepy E all day. Wouldnt mind hooking up with my flower thief but I’ll probably just end up with Y.  Or with my luck E!  God scrub that thought from my brain right now!  Ick. Well.  Flirting with customers never goes anywhere so what’s the damage?  He’s a nice dresser, I wonder who is his invalid this time.  And what’s she going to do with a basket of fruit?  Wouldn’t impress me.  Hello! he’s getting off the phone.  Maybe I’ll give him another peek.

It is. It is.

• Lestrygonians

There is such loneliness in that gold. The moon of the nights is not the moon whom the first Adam saw. The long centuries of human vigil have filled her with ancient lament. Look at her. She is your mirror. 1:59 pm

He didn’t see me, light in his eyes.  Blazing.  It was him, surely. I couldn’t look!  Saw and turned to the right fast, denying my short breath and looking cool until my heart could break.  Headed for museum.  Goddesses.  My heart!  Still quopping.  Think goddesses, cream curves of stone.  Cold.  Didn’t look.  Pockets.  Looked for something.  Kibbutz, where did I?  Potato, soap.  Need to get her lotion.  Then safe!  Safe.  Is it?  Afternoon, she said.  In the afternoon.  Almost certain.  Yes it is.  Yes, that.  Not see.  Get on.

Never know whose thoughts you’re chewing.

• Lestrygonians

But don't forget that as long as God gives us life we will still be mothers and no matter how revolutionary you may be, we have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect.1:43 pm

Why does no one starve in the desert? Because of all the sandwich is there. Had a gorgonzola sandwich with mustard. Easy on digestion. Cheese digests all but itself. Ate it trying not to see the drip from Nosey Flynn’s nose. Davy Byrne quiet, ingratiating. Puts up with Nosey Flynn talking horse racing, money to throw away. A regular is like the roommate you never wanted. Nosey curious about Molly’s concert tour, is Blazes Boylan involved. Well, a free ad is a free ad even if it does bite at the heart. Told him. Word of mouth. Word is he’s covered in fleas, or worse. Scratching in his pants pockets, talking about a fight at Lewis-McChord. That place breeds the worst of them all. Something about the Northwest maybe. The rain? More serial killers here too. Train them up here, make them into murderers. Teach them war is a live action video game. Get them to like it. Then off they go to sunny places, full of power, false authority, prescription drugs and hash. Make the mission vague and change it up so they won’t wonder about why. License them to kill farmers for fun, murder holy men and whole families. Villages. Toss the candy out the front of the convoy and drive over the little ones. Leave behind a Russian gun. Murder staged to look like combat. We were attacked, they’ll learn to say. Then bring them back to Lewis-McChord so they can implement their education. Watch them put their cigarettes out on their women’s skin and don’t forget to torture the children. Waterboard a little boy because he can’t say the alphabet. Another because he wet his bed. Killing each other and themselves and everybody else. War is the safest bet: heads all lose, tails all lose. Easy money. Dark thoughts to chew over. Scars on the anima mundi. A shock to the heart. Nosey’s ambush, unintentional presumably. Collateral damage. Think about something else. Something else. Nice quiet bar, Davy Byrne has. Nice counter wood; like the way it curves. Nicely planed. Look how the light touches it just there. Gentle.