Happy Bloomsday! Come up, you fearful Jesuit!

One hundred twelve years ago today in Dublin, stately, plump Buck Mulligan

CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

-- Introibo ad altare Dei.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:

-- Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit.

Here's a little Turlough O'Carolan (Quarrel with his Landlady and The Musical Priest), by a group of Russian devotees of Celtic music.

Happy Bloomsday

Can't recall if Bloomsday (the anniversary of the fictional day in 1904 on which stately, plump Buck Mulligan and yes I will yes and all the joys in between should have taken place) and Father's Day have coincided to my knowledge before, but there is something in it for me, for my dad, who died in 1996, was both a Bloom and a father, like me (by name rather than nym), and more than a bit of a Joycean, though he liked Dubliners best and really hated Finnegans Wake, whereas I am a Ulysses man first and may well even try to read the Wake some day, if I live long enough.

Here's a little music for the old man:

Happy Bloomsday!

Yes, it was on this day in 1904 that Mr Leopold Bloom began his day with "grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine" and headed out towards Paddy Dignam's funeral.

I tried to find a "classical" setting of text from Ulysses but didn't care for anything I found. This is pretty great—especially the brief second and third pieces.

More Cathy Berberian, and Ulysses too, but no music. Only there is. Text provided if you watch this at YouTube.

And the Shannon Colleens (Sinead Murphy and Darina Gallagher) singing Songs of Joyce at Bewleys Cafe Theatre, Dublin, for the Bloomsday Festival June 2010.