Thursday, 26 May 2016

The reading stopped at: “MRS BREEN (screams gaily) 0, you ruck! You ought to see yourself!” (15.431)

Catherine Meyer sends a painting to illustrate this week's blog. She writes:

To start the episode circe, I think we have to enter mabbot street figuratively. This is also the link to my picture. Relatively chilly without too many emotions. There will be more to come…

Having seen so many pictures in museums and art books the descriptive sceneries from Joyce reminded me strongly of the triptych of the temptations of St. Anthony painted by Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516). St. Anthony has always been a popular subject for art. 

At home, I looked up my notes and I was positively surprised to find one relating to Fritz Senn's telling us that Flauber, admired by Joyce, wrote a play called “la tentation de saint Antoine” (1874). According to Fritz,  Flaubert's play was not performed because it was impossible to follow or solve the problems posed by the stage directions.

Joyce probably saw paintings by Bosch and maybe also the famous altar at Colmar painted by Grünewald: one side of the retabel is dedicated to the various temptations of St. Anthony. And like Bosch, he painted ugly, vulgar and voluptuous little details onto the triptych. Other artists, I have found out, were fascinated by this theme, e.g. David Tenier t.y. 1610-1690, Félicien Rops, 1833-1898 and many more.

After we read some lines in the circe episode, a camel appeared (the camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large mango fruit offers it to his mistress…). In the description of St. Anthony's life a camel appears at the very beginning of his life when a hermit bringing him some food. – Nice coincidence.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 19 May 2016

The group has finished “Oxen of the Sun” and started episode 15, “Circe”. It stopped at Lynch's exclaiming, “Ba!” (15.114).

Catherine Meyer sends an illustration for this blog. She notes:

In the last paragraph of “oxen oft he sun” medical dick and medical davy made another little appearance. Fritz told us about the dick and davy cafeteria at the universitätsspital and that it is worth a visit. So I went to have a look and made a boring illustration of the cafeteria. Cafeterias are sober and furnished with the sole view of being easy to clean. 

But the story around the cafeteria is rather nice. Hannes Vogel, who makes art and installations on objects and in public spaces and is a former reading group associate, designed the dick and davy cafeteria.

Outside the cafeteria are 8 pillars, of which 7 are already labelled with ulysses translations in 7 different languages: swedish, italian, finnish, german, english, french and greek. Not only in “oxen oft he sun” have dick and davy made an appearance, but also in an earlier episode called  “scylla and charybdis”. From the latter chapter, hannes vogel chose the following lines (extracted from quite a long passage): “Stephen (stringendo): He has hidden his name, (…)  Medical Dick and medical Davy (two birds with one stone)” (9.921–1184).

As according to stephen william shakespeare's first name looks like the shape of cassiopia, vogel designed the ceiling with nightspots making a w-shape.

The illuminated logo on the dark wall, dick and davy, is formed out of different characters in various fonts which vogel found in words or places that are somehow linked with joyce. As words they are a little bit of ulysses and as illuminated letter-material a little bit of lightening Zürich (this is what is written in the publication about vogel’s installation).

My little drawing shows the lovely view out of the cafeteria onto the 8 pillars and the rear with the cafeteria's logo.

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

Thursday, 12 May 2016

The reading stopped not far from the end of the “Oxen of the Sun” episode at: “Through yerd our lord, Amen” (14.1527).

Catherine Meyer sends in an image she made to illustrate the passage that was read. She says of it:

The painting for this paragraph shows a glass of beer in warm brownish colours. It is a very painterly glass of beer. The thick foam is the shape of a cloud, which stands for pregnancy, and the light blue eyes in the foam try to look into Molly’s “dishybilly” (deshabillé) (14.1475).

The red is a counterpoint to Mulligan's “pissedon green” fringes the “dishybilly” (14.1456).  The snotgreen, froggreen or pissedon green is also the colour of Molly’s hair. Her sanguine complexion stands in contrast to her white breasts. To the right and left oft the glass are all the different words connected to the booze mentioned in the episode:

The Burke’s

Boosebox

Ex

Bonafides

Beer

Two Ardilauns (Guiness)

Nunc est bibendum (now for drinking)

Au reservoir

Tanks you

 

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

Thursday, 28 April 2016

Please note there will be no reading this coming Thursday, 5 May (Ascension Day).

The reading stopped at: “a faint shadow of remoteness or of reproach (alles Vergdngliche) in her glad look” (14.1378). 

Artist and reader Catherine Meyer sends these drawings for the blog. Sharing the stages of its development, this is what she says about putting her ideas to paper:

It startet with a red triangle and one figure. Then it developed to both eyes meeting, with the poem by omar khayyam that chandra holm has put into her tuesday ulysses blog; until, at the end, there were both their eyes meeting, the triangle of the bass beer and the falling tear, “one only”, as well as the beerbottle, the hair and the line indicating molly’s forehead.

The red triangle stands for love and is also a sign for an adulterous plot. “A tear fell: one only” and “both” (two) “their eyes met” equals three: Bloom, molly and boylan enclosed in the triangle (14.1136, 1191). The second triangle goes from the two ears to the red spot on the figure’s hand showing, as a whole, a jewish star. The cloth has a female touch with its red ornament. Somehow one starts to think in such directions…

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016