Seedcake and Shingles

Quaker’s-seedcake and cobbler, and the Castor-oil for whooping and shingles; yellow-linoleum scuffed through to tacking; and me in the corner with rickets, colic and lyme, me fader's bootprints wet with muck and scoff.

CFP: The 2007 International James Joyce Conference

"JOYCE IN AUSTIN"

"Bring a stranger within thy tower." (Ulysses 14.365)

The 2007 International James Joyce Conference, Endorsed by the International James Joyce Foundation, The University of Texas at Austin, June 13-17, 2007

The 2007 International James Joyce Conference will be hosted by the English Department at the University of Texas at Austin. The event will feature plenary presentations and readings by Vicki Mahaffey, Paul Muldoon, Tom Staley, and Sean Walsh; a round-table discussion with all the plenary speakers; panels on Samuel Beckett‚s letters (Lois Overbeck and Martha Fehsenfeld), Elizabeth Bowen (Elizabeth Cullingford), Tom Stoppard (Ira Nadel), contemporary Irish poetry, and such other Joyce-related topics as copyright (with Carol Shloss, David Olson, and Robert Spoo), the Harry Ransom Center, film, gender, music (Charles Rossman and Martin Dowling), race, Shakespeare (Dolora Chapelle Wojciehowski), and "the wake of the Wake"; live performances of Stoppard's Travesties by the Austin Shakespeare
Festival; Joycean music and film; a small exhibition of Joyce and Stoppard holdings at the Ransom Center; a boat cruise on Town Lake.

We welcome proposals and abstracts for both additional panels and individual papers, and especially encourage submissions of work linked in some way to the Harry Ransom Center holdings. Proposals and abstracts should be limited to 250 words. Non-plenary papers and presentations are limited to a maximum of 20 minutes. Submissions must include name, contact information, institutional affiliation or independent scholar status, and a list of any special equipment needed for your presentation.

** DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: MARCH 1, 2007 **

Proposals may be sent via email or snail mail to Alan Friedman friedman@uts.cc.utexas.edu , Charles Rossman rossman@mail.utexas.edu, or James Joyce Conference, Department of English, University of Texas, 1 University Station B5000, Austin, TX 78712.

For more information about the conference, including registration forms, please visit our website

Seine-fein (cursed-roil)

Cunningham begs for biscuits and tea; bitters to slough the lye and foggage; seine-fein (cursed-roil) Mervyn (misses) Tallboys, whose job it is to clean pottage-trap and cistern; Dignam, Dillard and Doyle, with Crofton-of-Gumley, skink a pot of ale and lager, to drown the scourge of Eire. Kearney (of bastard-at-whore) eats jellies scoffed from tinsmith’s pantry, in lieu of bitter-stout and kidney, surd of Bloom and Dylan, offal of mincemeat and Cornish pastie.

Chamber Music (for voice accompaniment)

The Lass of Aughrim

Here is me singing the song from 'The Dead'.

e-pluribus-ex-communion tabula rasa

Is is not, was was not, being becoming be, classless déclassé. Yes I will, Yes, I said yes, yes…The affirmation of the body, the yes that is the yes to saying yes, I will, yes…Molly’s soliloquy represents, if such things indeed exist at all, the avowal of the body, bloomers soiled, cinched round neck and wattle, the yes to Leopold’s neutrality, his yes that is a disavowal of the body, a no to body as body, a viscera without a bowel, the tripe without innards or lining. It’s no chance of happenstance that Bloom skillet-fries a kidney, the sweetmeat, the pancreatic yes to the no that is the Yes. Plumtree’s potted meats and Molly’s thighs, butter pats, sebaceous, rosin, the lubricant that oils the Yes that is yes, I will, yes, yes…the avowal of the yes, the Yes that is the no to the body within the body, the déclassé of the body, the classless body within the body.

E-pluribus-ex-communion tabula rasa impugns. A fine and gentlemanly day, so it is; transubstantiate ex-glorious, wafers, biscuits and Port, a lolling good time {e-pluribus} on the nip of the tongue, exsanguinations from mud and water; Ipso recto abracadabra etcetera in VERITAS HUBRIS, one more for the kipper on rye Melba and lox.

Hog’s-breath, cock-chutney, Molly warbling arias in the cuckoldry of Leopold’s ear, conch-bone hard as milk-curd.

Joyceorama

Here goes: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: A sketch of the perpetrator as a childish bloke; An outline of the architect as a babyish chap; A diorama of the ballroom dancer as an infantile schoolboy; Finnegans Wake: Finnegans come-round; arousal, stimulation, provocation, excitation, stir, rousing, kindle(ing), (un)stifling; Exiles, banishment, send-away, deportation, expulsion, cast out, émigré, deportee, refuge(status-lessness), outcast(ing), ostracism; Stephen Hero: Stephen Champion; male-leader, conqueror; protagonist; brave-man, idol; Chamber Music: Assembly-room melody; cavity tune; compartment concerto; antechamber masterpiece; vestibule opus strip-mall song; and finally, The Dead: The departed; the lifeless; the boring; the deceased; the (very)still; the obsolete; the done-with; the extinct; the (not)quite-there; the late.

Waiting for Heidegger

Act one ends:

Estragon: Well, shall we go?Vladimir: Yes, let's go.
(They do not move.)

Act two ends:

Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?Estragon: Yes, let's go.
(They do not move.)

E: Let's go.
V: We can't.
E: Why not?
V: We're waiting for Godot
V: Moron!
E: Vermin!
V: Abortion!
E: Morpion!
V: Sewer-rat!
E: Curate!
V: Cretin!
E: (with finality) Crritic!
V: Oh!

(He wilts, vanquished, and turns away.)

Vladimir and Estragon are never quite in-the-world, but on the periphery, the edge, the outside (in) of the world. In and out at the same time, simultaneously, yet neither one nor the other, a blank Lacanian slate, the Heideggerian ontological misstep. The Heideggerain circle has neither a beginning nor an end (Derrida showed us that) but an infinite number, or juncture of jumping-in point(s): ontological hopscotch. A being-there, a being-amidst, a being-with, a being-in, a being-in-the-world, a coping-in-being-in-the-world, Being-out, never in. Moron! Vermin! Abortion! Morpion! Sewer-rat! Curate! Cretin! Critic! Oh!

Joycean Wordplay (with a sideplate of Beckett)

A bawling comes across the blue. A tincture of Luvox and Lobe to quell the jimmying in the scourge of my thoughts, reconnect, disconnect repeat ad nausea. Do you remember that morning 25 years ago when you awoke in a dither and chugalugged a pint of sour milk, a wail of blue sky, connected, disconnect, repeat? Remember to forget; forget to remember, it’s all the same, a Moyle’s shears, Darwin’s prepuce, an excise tax to quell that jimmying in the fob of your trousers. Morning has spoken: I have yet to awaken, knees pulled tight into the heave of my chest. Now everybody—dance!

A blue-quail morning, grey perhaps, oilseed, peroxide, mercurochrome scabbed over knees, brindle, puck black. I slept the sleep of the devilish, a bromide without a watershed, a crumpet without the butter-lard and pot-marmalade. Now I will pull a rarebit from the trumpet of my ass, a blaring, sonorous Dantean annunciation issuing from the scullery of my rectos. Gods’ morning to you all, rat’s asses and halyards cinched taut around Leopold and Blum. Molly’s skivvies hung out to dry, commode paper, Sears and Roan-buck, a kidney surd skillet-fried with onions and compote of barley. Daylight craving time, so much to get done, assonance, bad grammar and syntactical patricide.

Corn syrup solids, hydrogenated soybean oil, sodium caseinate, dipotassium phosphate, sugar, artificial colour, mono and diglycerides, carrageenan, soy lecithin, artificial flavours, rats’ asses, zithers, monorail grease, machinist’s oil, e, gummy white crap, salver, parturition sweat, an old sweater with tattered cuffs, pre-seminal fluid, a snippet of cocks’ wattle, (yES) a cockscomb, brushed flat, (nO) protein, penicillin, uppers, downers or PCP.

I have a dream, he said, an ineffable, marvellous dream. Molly sidles up close to me, her breath sour with whey and Paddy’s, bloomers cinched round her neck, a cock’s wattle. She leans in close, the cinnamon sweet treacle of her hair cussing the bevel of my cheeks, and whispers, Yes I will, yes, Yes…I said Yes. I collapse, implode in on myself, a rasher of kidney and allspice, a page of Sears and Roebuck’s clutched between fore and thumb, her whisper like diamonds in my hand.

A pullet blue sky: commode chain given a fair to middling jerk, a colostomy of neither this nor that, that nor this. I am the commode pot, the a posterior, posterior. Adman Bloom, mollycoddler of Sears and Roebuck, skillet-fried with Paddy’s and Parnell, a most delectable treat, not for the faint of stomach or kidney, a colossus of import and Liffey. Gad morning, I have awoken.Bloom in commode eating kidney soiled, fetter of surd. Denham dead rotting in bog peat, no such luck with trackman’s stub or adman’s commission, or coitus in porkpie hat, a wee Stephen begging foreskins for alms and mother, dog’sbody, jellyfish and undertow, and the Liffey runs round and back, over hillock, copse and morgue.

Bootblack blackstrap molasses black coffee, a sewage best imbibed ad-dulia, tongue lolling, feet shuffling, a spicy oleic treat. Goes down like rue of castor, a cure-all for heel sores, Gomorrah and colic whooping.Good morning, please commode your mucking-boots at the door, remove all partial and full dental-plates, prosthetic stemmers, hairpieces, and wipe that silly smile off your face. While a guest at the theta-not-theta syllogism hotel, you will be required to suspend all belief in commonsense, logic, formal and informal, deductive reasoning, inference, axioms and dialectics, material and immaterial. Here we regale in the Socratic monologue, the soliloquy, the deferral of rational discourse, the blather of blather, yes, philosophical cuckoldry.

He represents the representation of citation, the citation of representation. In this manner all representation is citation, citing the citation of the representation, which is the conational representation of the citation, the representational citation of the conation. I, on the other hand, represent the representation of conation as the citation of citation, the citing of the citation, the representation of the citation of citation.

My mind is a blunderbuss, short-armed and full of pebbles, an excerpt, a mention, a reference extracted from a citation, a conational citation of representation, a blunderbuss without a shove-stick or powder-sac.I awoke scribbling in the stockyard of my thoughts, a binary of tropisms and gabble.

I await the final metempsychosis, the transcendent lollygag that will send me careening into the next millennium, perhaps further: Quantum mechanics, a good sturdy slide-rule, or a loose wheel on a child’s bicycle. Tinkering with a splashguard or chewing Black Cat gum until your jaw hurts.

I prefer, he said, a sideplate of toast smeared with oleo of lard, perhaps, he said, a curd of allspice with a Burgee’s nM4*, or a pumpernickel, black as the ace of spondees: Or, for that mutter, a skim of tappet simmered with oil of egress and oxblood soupcon [he said] the kind that sullies the palate and vectors the wee Tilley. I ambulate, he said, with polio boot and ashplant striking the pavewalk like a firewood match, sulfur yellow and quidbrown like Blazes gobspit, Mully’s thingwort slathered with allornothing. No: he said: a marmalade compote, or a measure of jamjelly scone(d) on the farplate next to the cinderbox powdery with oldperson’smints and the odd biscuit, chewed from the insod out. Mansebevel hidden in the rector’s closet, where a knockabout of wee Tully’s eat macadam bread patted with aster of Goethe, Writher’s head shorn clear off his shoulderigging: Or, [he said] a barilla of tin biscuits, the sort that me great aunt Alma made with recto cloth cinched round the coop of her reddress, the (verily) one she wore on Somedays and those that fell between heathen and haycock. Barging that, he sod, a wedge of the bluecheese, the allsorts that grandmamma pressed in briecloth, the wee buggers playing the loop-de-loop in the barrows of her skirts. [He said] nary muck of impute [he said, saying], I prefer a Burgee’s nM4*, or a cold August night boiled in a samepot with boxthorn and pumperknuckle, a sideplate of skimming and quillworst.

I ate, no goblet(ed) a bologna sandwich this evening on primpknuckle and lye, a soft whereabouts in the labium of me mouther. She, she did, tied a lariat round the wattle of my neck(tyke), cinching it tight with a Scout’s knot, fleche(ing) the knead to butter me wrongsideup, like a sideplate of melbas, cracked wheat and wry. Fucking cough medicine’s going to be the end(son) of me. Beckett’s crockpipe finger between thumb and fore, no endgame for Ham or Plink or some ruffian in a tackman’s hat; now tell me please, if you might, whereabouts the clubmaster with the frottage cheese and cowslip lip, the one with the baby tuk tuk and Dedalus smile, and wee Aquinas first principle, be that Muslix or Cripper, or a vicar’s surplice fleeced with hopscotch, applejack, or a Eucharist Jell-O in a firkin’s jampot wrongsideup.

Pencil prehensile, Damsel washerwoman, scullerywhore, impetigo, Tobago, that fucking Winnebago you bought for a song, dirge(y) bastard, scant knowledge of vectors and algebra, logarithms are the devil’s work, Samuel Johnson ate mutton jerky, sicker than Hemmingway’s cow(lick), my proctor, doctor greatcoat soiled with Cooper’s oil and jampot jemmies, silly fuck with a tonsure cut round river runs past and on, patchy cunt with a satang bunnyclip(ity) clop goes the rector’s closet full to brimming with wafers and jamjuice made from plums and civet seeds cowl(ed) from the boot of me daddy’s Buick with the fiveanddime beebonnet on the fader’s mirror image of Mr. T. Mann’s postseminal chappings, sad mixed up Buddenbrooks with the blackest pair a lungs you(will) ever see.

Begin: Epsom salts: allocate: electrocute: turn off the damn radio: Slim Jims: taste like Fantail: orange: but without the bitterness: I am a jammy: jam: scone: no butter pats: nor: brine Ricky: a cool soda treat: but hard on the oesophagus: it is: goes down like a scullery whore: Timmy feet: and half an ear: shorn off: for malediction: and: bad faith: illocution: naysayer: in a gabardine-pullover: mute as a sprig of celery: you will pay: for: this: this: is: nonsense: but without: the: bitterness: and colicky aftertaste: StopRobin’s egg-blue, nature, nurture, pollute, corrupt, soil, profane, infinitude, destitute, refute, confute, salute, rebuke, collate, reprobate, allocate, falsify, dolomite, hard Etruscan bone, white, whiter, whitest, pale-white, junk-worry white, whitest white, whiter. And tongue balanced lolling in the chance of her mouth, sullying saltlick-cowing cud and grassland muddy with Dublin dirt and tenor’s railhead siring poor mad-footed Lucia dancing madly, mad. Patchy-eyed ginstone, hiking trousers to knee and ankle and foot and arch, mollycoddling commode wiping ass with Sears and Roebucks and Atlantis Monthly. Joyless’ eyesore, river runs round pound, errata, drowsing never to awaken to quillwort, barnacle and tackman’s stub: End.

I was just now thinking about philology and Nietzsche’s inkpot, and those head seizures he was prone to, and Saint John’s Wart, a panacea for whooping, and Goethe’s Writher, the whole side of his head blown clear off, Margarita’s garden a mess of burl ends and steak tartar. I should be sleeping, counting the slaughter, the pickaxe sloughing neck and breastplate. But I am not, I am stuck thinking thoughts about philology and Nietzsche’s inkpot and seizures and Writher’s head blown clear off and the mess it made of poor, dear Margarita’s garden, fucking thoughtless bugger. Then I thought, thought now, why it is that such men of great genius and mien loose they’re eyesight, patchy-eyes and Lucia dancing mad-footed in the Liffey, which has neither a beginning nor an end, but runs in a circle round Martello tower and Bunion’s hip.

There is enough wind today to blow a super kite to Uranus and back; blusters of windy wind; bluffs of wind, a gale-force wind that blusters and bluffs. The wind is separating the leaves from the marrow, the twigs from the branches, the stemming from the stipule. This is a Uranus wind, so strong and efficient that it will surely blow us all to Uranus and back, like super kites bluffing and blustering in the bluestone blue sky. If Beckett were still drawing breath he would approve of this windy wind day, flying is own super kite, tugging gently on the string, pulling the bobbin close into his chest, heaving with delight and faro. I recall flying a box-kite, a Chinese cube with a fiery red tail, reeling the string into the bobbin of my chest, my friends jumping for joy, faces red with madness and wind.

I find myself in a state of estrangement when I realize that Beckett’s Murphy, Malone, et al, live in my neighbourhood, on the very street that I trudge, feet shod in holey shoes, greatcoat flapping like sailcloth, breathing the same air, seeing the same sun, experiencing the same frustrations as I. They are everywhere and nowhere, a ubiquitous ubiquity. Beckett’s characters are a part of all of us, whether we like it or not. They exist in the excess of our thoughts, in the deepest recess of our ‘not wanting to think at all’. His characters represent the ‘unnameable’, our disaffection with cause and effect, with this and that, that and this, the ‘unnameable’. Beckett taught us to be wary of thinking, to be cautious of the things we think we know but will never know; the impossibility of knowing the insensate, the Platonic, the form within the form, the essence of what we think we think, but never think at all, the impossibility of escape, the closure that opens up into the possibility of thinking thoughts about thinking, the ubiquitous ubiquity, the ‘unnameable’ that is named then quickly forgotten, our estrangement from ourselves, our characterlessness

Joyce, Beckett, Proust and Habit Blogging

'Habit is a compromise effected between the individual and his environment, or between the individual and his own organic eccentricities the guarantee of a dull inviolability, the lightning conductor of our existence.' (Samuel Beckett on Proust)

In his essay on Proust, Beckett set out the groundrules for his view on 'habit'. As he defines it, habit represents the relationship between the individual and the environment, or between the individual and the self, as can be seen from the quote above. The individual who blogs, must accommodate him/herself to their surroundings, through discussion of life, love and destiny. By doing this, the person develops their own set of habits. Writing is a form of habit for me, a destiny. The reason that I must do this, according to Beckett, is because the world of habitual dullness is preferable to the world of reality which can only consist of suffering, this is the best that man can possibly hope for - writing, art and love.

'Suffering represents the omission of that duty whether through negligence or inefficiency (my illness) and boredom of its adequate performance (my artistic/quiz failures). The pendulum that oscillates between these two terms: suffering that opens a window on the real (art and writing) and boredom with its host of tophatted and hygienic ministers (the doctors/controllers/Patriarchal monsters/Janet Street Porters/who have nothing to do with art).'

Therefore, habit blogging, which is what I engage in, is not a positive characteristic of the human race, because it consists of boredom and its attribute of 'Time-Cancer' (the fact that nothing ever changes/my art is a worm that eats at me/the fun/pain dialectic of life)and yet, I suppose, it is not preferable to the suffering of reality and existence. I would rather have the suffering and reality and existence than the hidden grogginess of medication. Bring on the reality I say. I would rather experience the real highs (talking with you lot) and lows of life than say a medicated and induced plateau of feeling. I can experience a fleeting habitual smile, but I would like the belly laughs of last night to be a more prominent feature. And if some people say it is self-indulgent, who am I to argue? The twinkle that is not there anymore. If every action is deconstructed to its simplest form, it can be seen as a habit, because to Beckett, even 'breathing is a habit' and 'life is a habit' or rather life as a succession of individuals, the world becoming a projection of the individual's consciousness. Every part of life consists of habit and if for one moment, the habitual blogging ceases, the individual is faced not only with reality but also the fact that woman/man is predestined to suffer and die. If I stop writing, will I have to suffer more? Will Janet Street Porter condemn me to that? I'm not sure. I'd rather have the non-medicated suffering of reality and writing, knowing that no-one will know of me. I wonder if the art would be the same?

The Beckettian view of habit allows individuals to escape (writing/spewing up feelings, passions/sharing/flirting/inter-connecting) and therefore reject reality (I'll never make it in the art world because I just won't fit in/YOU'RE JUST NOT SERIOUS ENOUGH GIRL!) and so I plunged into a flux of boredom and dullness (employment)abandonment(loss of memory/happiness) and paralysis (the meds). But no more. Even though habit leads the individual to this state of being, it is still the 'lightning conductor' of our existence (my constant will to fight, write, fight and my passion for others)it is a source of energy, but not really positive energy, that is manages to sustain man in a bearable existence (continue to write and create art) implying that without it we would fail to exist. Existing with habit, we fail to look objectively at ourselves (face up to the crushing blows of rejection form the art/world/life) and therefore language and energy are deadened. Without the fight, there is no energy. 'Anger is an energy.' Etc. We publish ourselves, yes. Who are we hurting?

The study of Proust and Beckett's elucidations of the term 'habit' can be seeing in 'Waiting for Godot' (waiting for them to listen to me)where Mercier aptly states, 'nothing happens twice'. The characters of Vladimir and Estragon are trapped in a state of habit because there is 'nothing to be done' and 'nothing to show' (I cannot post, I cannot comment). The habit follows Beckett's theory, as reality can only bring suffering. Vladimir and Estragon are caught up in a state of habit because they escape reality to adjust themselves to their predicament. Thus, I sit here, writing to free myself from thoughts that plague me. I have faced it, but I lose myself for a moment in art. I lose myself in the eruptions of the repressed. Vladimir and Estragon make the best of the world by improvising and inventing (poetry/prose/drama/comments) which leads to a never-ending situation:
(Substitute characters names with the critical voices of others)
Estragon: And if he doesn't come?
Vladimir: We'll come back tomorrow.
Estragon: And then the day after tomorrow.
Vladimir: Possibly.
Estragon: And so on.

If the boredom of habit is broken man/woman/blogger must face the reality of his own existence and also his imminent suffering and death.(He said it in jest, but on one of his Podcasts, Robert said, 'Just filling in time before imminent death.' So Beckett, it hurts.) There is one moment when Estragon has a dream and wakes in total fear (the terrible nightmares). The dream-world is often a place where the truth exists and where man is forced to face his own destiny (as Bloom does in 'Circe' in 'Ulysses' - it is interesting that Estragon goes on to tell a story about a man in a brothel (think of our crude words last night - very Beckettian), thus linking the two authors.) The reader has no insight into the dream-world of Estragon, unlike Bloom, but it is suggested that the this world is a kind of reality which Vladimir and Estragon cannot face.

Some of my blog entries have been shocking. On the old blog especially. Sometimes they might make the reader uncomfortable especially when juxtaposed with something light and humorous. Some, I have removed because of personal reasons. I have toyed with the idea that they might shock. I like the dialectic between high/low, pleasure/pain, anger/laughter. We should not be afraid to reach into the repressed or the taboo in art. We should not really self-censor our blogs. We should nurture freedom of speech for everyone. The reality of life is a joy that we should explore. We create our own worlds (our own writings) and the world of others (our comments) through our actions. The macrocosm, or the world of reality, allows the real nightmares to exist...so leave me to my art and creativity, Janet.

I have asked for forgiveness (apologies/explanations/tears of sadness) making so many mistakes in my writing. I'm not sure if I regret anything I have written, on my old blogs, other blogs and this one here. Perhaps it is best to explore the limits of what you can take and see how you come out at the other end. Pozzo tries to reject reality as false - I did not want to leave my feelings unexplored or left false. I always knew they were there, a kind of experimental writing that forced things to erupt. I did not expect a lot of what has happened to me, but it has changed my perceptions of my own personality. 'The ballast that chains a dog to his vomit' was broken for a moment and everything turned upside down for me. Hypothetically, if the dog is allowed to wander freely away from his predicament (exploration through art) there is always the possibility of being whipped by his master. I think what has happened to me wasn't exactly getting 'whipped' but facing up to the reality of the past and present. Reality does not offer a more positive alternative to habit in Beckett's work, but in my life, the reality was, I would say, enlightening to explore, both on and off my blog. Some things were too horrifying to publish. The bubble is always there. Writing was the only way I could prove I existed.

I continually create signs and gestures (a smile, a word, a message) and I try to be kind in the world in which I exist. In some ways, the only way to go forwards, is to go backwards and face things that we don't want to do. Perhaps, even now, I go round and round in circles like Molloy, returning to a kind of reptilian state, that bores the pants off people. The notion of the reptile, which exists before the time of man, before memory, before meaning and most importantly language is a state taht we all need to get to before we truly know ourselves. A kind of regression beyond nothingness to the minima of existence (I remember nothing).

In 'Happy Days', Winnie is embedded in a mound (oh I am stuck and my art goes nowhere) of habit. She is continually chatting (how many comments do I make?) and she seems to resign herself to the fact that things are 'no better, no worse, no change'. However, she is unusually optimistic in her situation. I am a very optimistic, jolly person. I view the glass as half full, I really do. However, there is always a dark-side. The feeling that I have to escape the past, protect my sister. I opened the boxes. It was bloody dangerous and I did it here on my blog. But, that was my moment of danger. 'The impossible moment when something enters life to give it eternal significance.' I've always, always done the right thing, been the eternal optimist, the carer, the worker, the fighter. I took a risk. For once in my life, I defied every convention, explored the danger. Part of me enjoyed it. Part of me was alive. For that moment of reality and danger, would I do it again? Yes, I think I would. To escape the eternal, artless wasteland...yes I would...if I hadn't broken the rules, my life would have been reduced to meaningless gesture, a dark larval state that I didn't want to get stuck in. Just one moment as the butterfly explorer, that's all I wanted.

Through my writing, I want to move forward. I want to blaze with feeling for once. I want to challenge art. I want to be a woman in my own right. I'd like to be accepted as someone who has something to say...someone worth listening to...I want to sense the fluid and the vital...face my destiny like Molly in 'Ulysses'. Language at once becomes fertile, passionate and alive. I have made a conscious effort, like Molly and Bloom, to remember the past here and create hope for the future. I am glad that I have explored parts of my character through blogging that I never thought I would, because I have escaped fomr the boundaries of a sanctuary that has protected me all my life. I am glad that I have met you all along the way - you do all mean so much to me in your different, refreshing ways. I have found parts of it strangely liberating, because now I am able to start afresh with my life. For once in my life, I took some risks.

Elvis Meets James Joyce

When I read Joyce...I sense the moment of epiphany. When I listen to Elvis...the beginning of 'Devil in Disguise'...I hear 'You walk like an angel' and I get a shiver down my spine. When I read 'Ulysses' I see quotes like this and get a shiver down my spine: 'Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows (Priscilla), brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves (Elvis impersonators).'

When I write here, I feel epiphany. I listen to Elvis. I feel epiphany. To understand the Joycean term 'epiphany', it is fundamental to acknowledge the role which Thomas Aquinas plays in its beginnings. In the famous speech that Stephen Dedalus gives to Lynch in 'Portrait', he explains the Thomist theory of art, in which the term 'epiphany' relates to Stephen and Aquinas' theory of the apprehension of beauty. I like to see the beauty of all things. Looking at Elvis' face is surely the apprehension of beauty. I like to see the beauty and truth in the clarity of thought in the writing on these blogs. I like to learn about others. We all learn about Elvis from his words, the words written about him, the words other people thought they heard him say. But what kind of stream-of-consciousness was really going through his head? I hope he had some epiphanies in his life. He gave the screaming crowd moments upon moments of joy. He was a mirror of beauty. Almost God-like, ethereal, other-worldly. Un-natural in his beauty. Enough to take your breath away. I like to trace the art with my eyes. Art in the face of Elvis and art on the page of Joyce. To Stephen, the art of beauty is akin to truth (what is the truth about Elvis' death? Even today there is a news item about a reward for his whereabouts)truth is approached through intellect (people don't give Elvis credit for his intellect)and beauty and art through apprehension. We all look at the iconic images of Elvis. We all study his face. We all study the text. Everything is a text to be deconstructed. To understand beauty itself, there has to be a knowledge of aesthetic comprehension. It is here that Stephen explains the three stages of apprehension. Firstly, there is 'integritas', the 'esthetic image is first luminously apprehended as selfbounded and self contained upon the immeasurable background of space or time which is not it.' Think of the timeless Warhol images of Elvis. You apprehend it as one thing. You see it as one whole. You see Elvis' face.
The object is therefore perceived as one perfect whole before the backdrop of all time and space (his face on a photograph, painting, image, magazine, the World Wide Web).

Secondly, there is 'consonantia' by which you 'apprehend it (Elvis) as a balanced part against the part within its limits; you feel the rhythm of its structure. Think of those fantastic images of Elvis with that slightly turned foot. The leg-stance. The rhythmic pulses of his movement. The unbelievable Elvis moves that many try to copy...but few can pull off. The object is now not just one thing but 'a thing', something in proportion and harmonious in its environment, since it is complex, multiple and divisible - how many images of Elvis are available to us now? Millions. You can read anything into an image or blog...a veritable feast for me!

Finally, the term which relates specifically to the Joycean epiphany is 'claritas' or 'the artistic discovery and representation of the divine purpose (how many fans view Elvis as 'The King' or the 'God' of Rock 'n' Roll? Some of his tracks come close to perfection...)in anything or a force of generalisation which would make the esthetic image a universal one, make it outshine its proper conditions.' Elvis is indeed a universal icon. And he certainly does outshine his 'proper conditions'. This is the whatness of a thing - the comprehension of the object in the imagination. C'mon...who hasn't imagined him in some form or another...? He is 'that thing' and no other, he is beautiful, clear and more importantly radiant. This sense of radiance is the basis for the Joycean epiphany. The only other person who has this effect on me...is Marilyn...and perhaps Judy too.

Even though the theory of Aquinas is foregrounded in 'Portrait', the actual concept of the epiphany is expounded in the earlier draft, 'Stephen Hero'. Isn't Elvis such a hero...think of the poignant photos of him in his army uniform, waving. Here, Joyce sets down exactly what the terms of epiphany are. On hearing the following dialogue, Stephen is touched by the impression it leaves on his sensitiveness despite its triviality.

The young lady (drawling)...O, yes...I was...at the...cha..pel...
The young gentleman (inaudibly)...I (again inaudibly)...I
The Young Lady (softly)...O...but...you're..ve...ry...wick...ed...

When we think of when Elvis first 'arrived' he was viewed as 'wicked' too. He was seen to be the devil, contrasting with the God-like status he later had. Stephen hopes to collect such trivial moments as 'epiphanies' - screaming girls' faces...mindless interviews...photo-shoots. Some might view his 'pop' as trivial...but it has touched so many people and represents the universal truths of life...love, laughter, joy, family, heartache. Interestingly, Joyce himself wrote some twenty-two epiphanies between 1901-1904, none more than a page long (cor! think of the perfect 4 minute Elvis pop song!). These epiphanies, Stephen explains, are a 'sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in in vulgarity of speech or gesture (some would argue that Elvis' words are vulgar and his dancing too...but oh, how lovely I think) or in a memorable phase of the mind itself' The epiphany is 'delicate and evanescent' therefore a moment of exact focus. When Elvis was on that stage...he lived for the music, but still retained that delicate, fragile edge like Marilyn and Judy. This is not unlike Shelley's 'visitations of the divinity' or Wordsworth's 'spots of time', thus taking on Romantic implications (God, Elvis was THE Romantic!).

I am the voyeur with Joyce and Elvis. I observe the object (the writing, the icon) this being, in Thomist terms, 'integritas'. Elvis and Joyce are one thing in themselves, but symbolically, they are images of freedom and creativity for me, separated from the desperation of real life, alone and still. The metaphorical or symbolist technique of singing/writing/being an icon is not only important to me because it renders the experience of pain to magical or possibly a spiritual manifestation in the real world. It is also reminiscent of the European Symbolists such as Flaubert and Baudelaire who stated that common objects (oh...let me be...your teddy bear..)can be expanded to 'infinite possibilities'. We notice the form and structure of Elvis' face and body (wahey!) and the form and structure of Joyce.

The final epiphany of Stephen in 'Portrait' shows that he has to learn 'what the heart is and what it feels'. I have learnt to know of my heart through late night listening to Elvis...late night readings of Joyce. I think that Elvis and Joyce explored the heart...finding reality, exploring the limits of their existences through tragedy (think of the death of Rudy in 'Ulysses' and Elvis' tragic death)and through their interaction with others. In a moment of revelation...I realise that they had more in common than I thought. I think about human existence in relation to the real, the vital and the dynamic.