Having my way with Ulysses

Squeezed up with the laughing

• Cyclops

Weeping shouldst not thou be when man falls but that divine scheming ever adoring be. So you be either man or mouse and you be neither fish nor flesh.5:10 pm

I tell you I don’t think anything could have beat it for entertainment, I swear to Christ. You should have seen it.  I still can’t stop laughing what with Breen running all over hell like a lunatic idiot in his slippers and his wife chasing after, and Doran drunk and blubbering about God and dead Dignam and Christ and one eyed Moses I’m still not sure he’s dead or they’re just busting my balls, and then the citizen wanting to crucify Bloom dancing around bizarre outside just give him a reason and he gave him one.  Jesus H. Christ where do I start!  My sides.  Oh I can’t breathe.  I’m sorry.  I can’t.  It’s just too funny.  You had to be there.  Give me a minute.  I’ll tell you.  Give me a minute. Where do I.  Holy Christ.  I’ll be needing another beer for this.  So.  So.  Shit I can’t breathe.  Breen.  O hell!  Breen wants to sue for lib.  I can’t.  Libel.  He waited outside John Henry Menton’s empty office half the morning then went to Goulding’s to see if somebody there wouldn’t piss themselves laughing in his face.  O God I can’t.  It’s just too.  And then.  And then.  Hoo.  Ok.  Ok.  Let me drink this.  Yeah.  And then Tom Rochford sent him to Long John Fanning and holy Jesus you can imagine how that went!  Whooo.  Tears in my fucking eyes.  I haven’t laughed this hard.  And now he’s looking for a cop.  What a dumb ass!  Such a douche.   And all because somebody sent him a postcard.  God it’s beautiful.  U.P.: Up!  Can you just?  I swear to God.  People think I’d done it but damnit I wish I had.  Beyond funny.  There’s more.  I’ll tell you the story but I.  I.  I gotta stop laughing first.  Give me a minute.

Now in a kind of retrospective arrangement.

• The Wandering Rocks

Caution! Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear.Ow at ush a good gim, ah I ooked gook rinkig ig oo.  Resh uh parg ah en shome ah awayg agept uhgever hey offer: appearansh an pawmp weshponshivish ish uh key oo gook shawesh.  Nice to spend a little time with John Henry Menton in the pub just now.  Haw awking pawicish. Amewica, give ush your poor, your ire, your huhwew mashesh, jush ot roo our shoushern bowerer ash we’ew buiwing a waugh.  Elijah is coming to save us all!  Aw awe equaw hewe bu immigwantsh fwom shome cowtwiesh awe mow equaw tham oshersh.  Caw kew a shawe.  Denis Breen, impatient, gives up waiting for John Henry Menton to emerge from his inner office and, with his wife following close, carries dangerous stacks of papers and books toward the offices of Collis and Ward.  Angewoush woute oo go dowe.  Covershatiow ca gew ow of cogtrow an hen you oosh a shawe.  Am goo giw at wash.  Oooks goo.  Shame oshe cawsh mishe sheeing ush.  Uh pweshieng!  Shame.

Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.

• Lestrygonians

Sons of the sun, mother of living creatures. Fiercely met and loved, with all the hypocrisy of longing: importation, exchange, and tourists. In the country of the big snake. 1:16 pm

Ran into Josie Powell today.  Breen.  Still beautiful eyes.  Womaneyes.  How are you, How’s Molly, Milly at a photographer’s, yours?  Not sure how many.  I didn’t ask.  Sad to lose old friends she said when I told her about Dignam.  Was once Molly’s closest and mine too, well that’s quite enough about that.  Asked about her lunatic husband.  Hard to get around to that.  Just: quietly: husband?  She answered by looking in her purse, chipped rattlesnake.  He’s a caution to them she said.  Women’s purses.  Rummaging, wide open.  Money, change, credit cards, used tissues, tampon, lipstick, lipstick, lipstick, phone charger, clean diaper, altoid that was: fell, receipts, hair clips, wrappers, take a number: D26, phone, checkbook, who carries those around anymore, medicine bottle, postcard.  Up?  U.P.  U.P: up.  Somebody taking a rise out of him.  He went to oyster eyes Menton wearing slippers on his feet; sue for libel.  Well he has kids, so there’s the proof of that particular pudding.  If that’s what, I don’t know.  Up?  Meshuggah.  The guy is nuts.  Not as nuts as Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell who swung past us on the outside of the lampposts.  That rat fell into a brewer’s vat and never recovered.  Can say the same for Josie Powell.  Breen.  Shabby, old clothes.  Used to be a tasty dresser.  Beautiful eyes that night at Luke Doyle’s.  Only a year or so older than Molly.  Lines around her mouth.  Lunch on her shirt.  Smells, maybe from her, of butter, flour, demerera sugar.  A rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior.  I could still eat her up.