Thursday, 15 September 2016

The last reading stopped only a couple of pages away from the end of the episode: BLOOM: Night. (15.4907)

Catherine Meyer sends a picture to illustrate the last reading and writes:

At one point we experienced two voices: that of the blessed and that of the damned; the left side and the right side, the good ones and the bad ones, hell and heaven.

The voice of all the damned: “Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella!” (15.4708); and the voice of all the blessed: “Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!“ (15.4713). Then Adonai (meaning ‘Lord‘ in Hebrew) punned with Doooooooog and Gooooooood. (15.4710 ff.)

The “Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth“ is from Händel’s Oratoria “Messiah“. In an earlier chapter we had learned that this famouse Oratoria was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742.

While I was thinking about how to put this scene on paper, I realized that right and left, bad and good can be reversed – it depends only on the angle from which you're looking. From the painter’s point of view, right is on the right side. From  the painted Allmighty's point of view, facing the beholder, right is on the left side.

You can see from the picture which angle I have chosen and, of course, not only the many familiar characters that  appeared in the chapter but also the dogs (do all those different appearances of dogs mean that there could be many other Gods?) are captured in my painting.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich

Thursday, 8 September 2016

The last reading stopped with Stephen's words: “I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull” (15.4497)

Catherine Meyer has made a drawing to illustrate a passage. She writes:

My drawing for the blog shows a slightly drunken Joyce standing at a bar in Dublin and, as the joke goes, the barman says, “you have taken a drop too many Mr. Joyce. Non serviam”.

Of course Fritz told us this joke when we had read Stephen saying “with me all or not at all. Non serviam”. He added that Lucifer didn’t want to serve and Joyce certainly didn’t. The same goes for me – I don’t like it too much either.

So, in order to make a “non serviam“ drawing I chose to do Joyce standing at the bar. After all, this genius of man hasn’t appeared once on any of my paintings. Now is the time to show him in a casual posture.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 1 September 2016

The reading stopped with Stephen at, “he stops dead” (15.4154).

Catherine Meyer sends the painting she made for the last reading and a few words about it:

The Thursday afternoon is very well attended and the group is still in a jolly good mood, although Fritz Senn keeps telling us he is bewildered by this chapter. Nevertheless, he was amused by adverbs like “yellowly” and “japanesily” in, Bloom “smiles yellowly at the three whores”, and “Mrs Cunningham … in merry widow hat and kimono gown … she glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily” (15.3831–58).

I quoted “yellowly” and “japanesily” (the smile and the kimono) and combined the two words with what I liked most: “the morning hours run out, gold haired  slimsandalled, in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands” and “the hours of noon follow in amber gold. Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms” and “the night hours … steal to the last place”. They are masked with “daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells” (15.4054–83).

The idea that the different hours are dancing and waltzing away is terrific, I think. They do that every day. They come and go in our common life, sometimes we appreciate their appearance, sometimes we hope they will never come. So, the picture is a mixture of all of these topics provided by Mr. Maginni, who “clipclaps glove silent hands” (15.4060).

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 25 August 2016

The reading stopped at:

LYNCH:

(points) The mirror up to nature. (he laughs) Hu hu hu hu hu! (15.3820)

Catherine Meyer sends her rendering in image: 

A painting of the three girls Kitty, Florry and Zoe – one on which, funnily enough, the sunny weather had its influence. Unconsciously I drew the interior of the brothel and the three prostitutes in shiny yellow and light colours. It seems to me that, in the brothel chapter, the three are having quite a good time, chattering and squabbling and, with a bit of luck, earning at last a few coins.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thank you, Catherine!

Thursday, 18 August 2016

The reading stopped at: 
BLOOM: Done.Prff! (15.3390)

Catherine Meyer sends her painting with these words:

In the last reading we were still surrounded by the same characters: Bello, Bloom and some others such as Milly, Nymphs, Voices and the Echo. Still insulting Bloom. That’s why I clung to the lovely limerick that Fritz recited to us 5 minutes before the end of the reading. The sentence that reminded him of the limerick was:

“The wanton ate grass wildly.” (15.3357)

It is the paragraph in which Bloom confesses his first adventure with a girl named Lotty Clarke. Joyce describes the sex appeal of springtime and Lotty. At reading “the wanton ate grass wildly”  Fritz recited, with a chuckle, the following limerick.

There once was a girl from Madras

Who had such a beautiful ass

It was not round and pink

As you probably think

But had two ears, a tail and ate grass. 

From here, I began to think about donkeys and how I could put together a pink round ass with no pink round ass but long ears, a tail and grass:

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 11 August 2016

The next reading will be picked up at, “The sins oft he past (in a medley of voices)” (15.3027).

Catherine Meyer sends in the following image to illustrate the reading, with a few accompanying words: 

The Bella Cohen paragraph seemed an obvious choice. It is full of hints and descriptions and I have made a charcoal drawing of it.

Bella is dressed in an ivory gown, her eyes are deeply carboned, she has a dark fan and a sprouting moustache. Bloom has been humiliated by Bella and has to kneel down to lace her hoof.

In the background the devil is in the door, Richie Goulding sitting is in a chair and indefinable next to him are Zoe and Kitty.

But the main topic is the rendering of Bloom, who is enslaved and treated as an inferior character. I painted him three times in a kneeling position, face covered and hiding his lust and reluctance.

Not really a summery picture but a rendering that tells a long story about human beings and their wrong ways.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 28 July 2016

The last session stopped at STEPHEN'S “Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw.” (15.2653)

Local artist Catherine Meyer sends a picture to illustrate the last reading , a “stately, rubicund Ben Dollard”, as she calls it, and continues:

I love the adjectives Joyce uses to describe his characters and I am delighted with his fantasy and imagination that seem to be endless. So the following paragraph triggered my curiosity as to wether and how Ben Dollard would appear on the paper. The description of Ben Dollard by Joyce is:

“Ben Jumbo Dollard, rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled, hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fatpapped, stand forth, his hoins and genitals tightened into a pair of black bathing bagslops.” (15.2604–7)

Enjoy Ben Dollard's self portrait.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 21 July 2016

The reading stopped at Bloom's two lines: 

BLOOM

Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I … (15.2430).

Catherine Meyer sends a painting for this week's entry and comments:

For my picture I have taken the title «the end of the world» with the description of the two paragraphs («a rocket rushes up the sky and bursts…», 15.2174), and it goes with the next stage directions («...over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah’s voice,…», 15.2183).

The End of the World, a tow-headed octopus, is depicted as a man’s and woman’s head in the form of the Three Legs of Man, the three feet dancing the keel row. The zenith and nadir line is part of the thigh, out of which the three feet come. Elijah is up in the sky with the banner of old glory. The scotch accent and the kilt have their rendering in the pattern of a scottish fabric. For once the dreadful twoheaded octopus shows up in two „normal“ profiles and the fearful proclamation of the end of the world appears as a white bursting star. The trumpery insanity is disguised as Elijah.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 14 July 2016

The reading stopped at the end of a stage direction: … and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.) (15.2153)

Catherine Meyer sends in her painting with these words:

We have entered the brothel now and the depiction of the brothel-room was the eyecatcher for my imagination. it so happens that I was looking through my old book about toulouse-lautrec searching for a picture with the title „chocolat“. the dancer and clown appear also in ulysses (you may remember) and were one of lautrec's models when he made sketches in the irish and american bar in paris. thanks to lautrec I immediately got the atmosphere of dim and filthy surroundings. Based on the long stage directions I tried to catch the intimate interior.

As in the text, “a shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the chandelier. ... The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids.” Kitty Ricketts sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over the mantlepiece (15.2040 ff.). (my own painted mirror is handing on the table).

I was very entranced when I found the „chocolat picture“!!!

Catherine Meyer © Zürich, 2016

Thursday, 7 July 2016

The group read through to the end oft he begetting list: “et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel” (15.1869).

After this, artist and long-standing member of the reading groups Cahterine Meyer, sent this illustration with the following comment: 

I loved the idea of the “new womanly man“ and chose to render the episode of Dr Dixon reading the bill of health. Bloom is in the centre of the picture as a rather quaint fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. He has an arched mouth but with no lipstick yet, and the feature seems to be very harmless. A good man on the whole. But somehow he feels a pang of conscience and, therefore, has to scourge himself every Saturday.

The last of the three painted Blooms shows him as a new womanly man, who is about to have a baby. The crowd in the background and Dr Dixon at the very left of the painting  frame the centre in dark colours so that the light is on the three central characters.

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

Thursday, 30 June 2016

The reading stopped where Alexander J. Dowie ends his proclamation with, “Caliban!” (15.1760).

Catherine Meyer, working on a image to render some of what was read, sends this sketch – a “first step of the drawing”, as she calls it – and a few words:

I have been deliberating some time about how to put a scene packed with so much information (stage directions) on paper. Maybe the following idea could be a solution for more of this kind of stage directions in the circe episode. 

I pencilled all the characters and objects mentioned in the passage (a cannon-shot, the man in the macintosh disappearing …). I chose a thick watercolour paper that leaves the option to watercolour the drawing afterwards.

I will think about how i am going to colour the sketch. Actually, it is already more than a sketch. We will see.

Otherwise, i must say, i like the circe chapter. It gives me a whole range of inputs.

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

Thursday, 9 June 2016

Please note that there will be no reading next Thursday, 16  June 2016. The Foundation remains closed all week due to the Joyce Symposium held in London, which the staff are attending.

The last reading stopped at: 

THE QUOITS

Jigjag. Jigajiga. Jigjag. (15.1138)

Catherine Meyer, local artist and regular member of the reading groups, sends in the following:

Bloom is in an imaginary court and four women are accusing him having behaved indecently and obscenely to them. Mary Driscoll (scullery maid), Mrs Yelverton Barry, Mrs Bellingham and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys are shown on my painting. In the background is the court room with Bloom and in the foreground a rendering of the four furious ladies. The story gets more and more crazy and the various  allegations link back to Sacher Masoch's book Venus in Furs (Venus im Pelz). Technique: charcoal and pastel.

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

Thursday, 2 June 2016

The reading stopped at: 

BLOOM 

(indistinctly) University of life. Bad art. (15.840)

Catherine Meyer sends an illustration for one of the scenes read with the group. She says:

For my charcoal painting, I have illustrated Bloom together with various dogs at the moment when he gets rid of his crubeen and trotter in a “dark stale stunk corner”. In the foreground another dog “drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, wagging his tail”. At the same time a “wolfdog sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his long black tongue lolling out”. In the background “two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant” (15.663–67).

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

Thank you, Catherine!

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

Thursday, 21 April 2016

The reading stopped mid paragraph at, “In the sunny patches one might easily have cooked on a stone a batch of those buns with Corinth fruit in them that Periplipomenes sells in his booth near the bridge” (14.1149).

The watercolour Catherine sends in for this blog depicts a scene read earlier, though (the previous week). Here's what she writes about it:

The passage in gothic style with some impressive sentences such as “the spider pitches her web in the solitude” and “the nocturnal rat peers from his hole” had inspired my imagination (14.1034–37).

I have put the scene on the stage with buck mulligan reciting the gothic story, Haines with a portfolio of Celtic literature in one hand and, in the other, a phial marked “poison”. The black panther is with Haines as a ghost who reminds him of the killing of Samuel Childs.

I chose a thick paper, which allowed me to work with watercolour, gouache, coal and drawing ink. I also used brushes, pens and a sponge. The rest was some imagination and a steady hand.

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

Thursday, 14 April 2016

The reading stopped mid paragraph at: “the cases of human nativity which Aristotle has classified in his masterpiece with chromolithographic illustrations” (14.977).


The many medical terms made it rather confusing, even dizzy in Catherine's case. She began to scribble around on an empty notepad and ended up with an umbrella as a diaphragm for the sentence: “One umbrella, were it no bigger than a fairy mushroom, is worth ten such stopgaps” (14.785). Then, she tells us:

I scribbled some Tête de femmes, because of the note

“their testiness and outrageous mots were such that his intellects resiled from” (14.850). « mots » is french, but in irish it also means girl, girlfriend. Pronounced mu. In french môme is also a young girl. And I drew other objects that I happened to see next to me such as pencils, fingers, hands, books etc. Maybe that is why my contribution to the blog is a scene of the reading group. The composition was of course made at home, composed of various sketches.

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016