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

Thursday, 7 April 2016

The reading stopped at, “The spry rattle had run on in the same vein of mimicry but for some !arum in the antechamber” (14.737)

The group seemed particularly amused by the bull story, Catherine tells us, maybe also because it never fails to trigger laughter and stories from Fritz Senn. The description of the bull with a full belly and soon to “rear up on his hind quarters to show their ladyships a mystery and roar and bellow out of him” (14.907) also always makes him think that Joyce must have seen the bull at the Bürkliplatz (near the lake in Zurich). This was enough to tickle Catherine Meyer's creative nerve. She sends the following:

On Sunday I wanted to pay the bull at Bürkliplatz a visit and fix the rearing creature on paper. Unfortunately, the place was full with the fun-fair and the only side from which I could focus on the bull and its master was from the right. I would have preferred drawing the bull from the front, showing its rearing up „on his hind quarters“ at its best. But there was no place to put myself with half an hour's peace. The monument is made out of shelly sandstone and was donated to the town by Arnold Geiser, Stadtbaumeister 1876-1907. Now there is a bit of Zürich bull  history on Thursday-Ulysses-blog.

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

Thursday, 31 March 2016

The reading stopped mid paragraph at, “but God give her soon issue” (14.515). 

Catherine Meyer sends her visual rendering. She notes the following:

As a contrast to my mental fatigue (french influence in the elizabethan time) I have decided to paint a realistic scene  which does not ask you too many questions.

In Chandra’s blog for the Tuesday Ulysses group, I found the roundup of who is present at the maternity hospital and, therefore, I have put them around a table, drinking and talking. Stephen is leaning against the window being struck, figuratively, by lightning.

I'm sending the watercolor and the sketch, which is to my mind always interesting to look at.

The blog for the Tuesday reading group can be found at:

http://tuesdaysulysses.blogspot.ch

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

Thursday, 24 March 2016

The reading has advanced to, “Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium till she was there unaided” (14.348) but will probably pick up again from the beginning of the paragraph, “To be short this passage was scarce by” (14.323).

Catherine Meyer sends this lovely drawing for the blog with a comment:

Poor bat – it is used for all kinds of mysterious phenomena, gloomy films and, last but not least, for the immaculate conception. In Stephen's long monologue he quotes  the church, the two philosphers Averroes and Moses Maimonides and reflects about how conception could have taken place without committing the great sin: 

“by wind of seeds of brightness or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius saith, by the influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower or an she lie with a woman which her man has but lain with, effectu secuto, or peradventure in her bath according to the opinions of Averroes and Moses Maimonides” (14.243).

Thank you very much – I prefer the sin. But, in the drawing, there is a bat trying to kiss the bride. The little mark in its throat shows the cross signifying its inevitability. The girl is lying on a virginally white cushion covered with a blue garment, which stands for the Virgin Mary.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Note for Thursday, 24 March 2016

Next Thursday, 24 March, the group is meeting as usual, regardless of the public holiday.

Since there was no reading last week, Catherine sends a painting inspired by a previous passage from “Oxen of the Sun” “to fill the gap”. Remembering a reference to “the spaceless labyrinth of the human conscience and the physical space of the womb”, she adds that:

“Beside the difficulties of the language,  the chapter will treat anothere big purpose in life, which is birth. This is the link to the picture.”

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 10 March 2016

The reading of episode 14 has started and got as far as: “and of the scales of these serpents they brew out a brewage like to mead” (14.159).

Note that next Thursday, 17 March, due to Fritz Senn's absence the group will not be reading but watching a film.

Catherine Meyer sends this painting for the blog with a note on the process of its making:

not understanding one thing might be a good requirement to try to paint the first few pages of “oxen of the sun”.

With no clear idea in mind I worked my way through dark colours to very shiny ones, wiped and moped till the paper got pulled to pieces, and I was not happy at all with the result.

Not understanding Joyce I looked for some explanation in Frank Budgen's James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses. I wrote down two of his comments and, with this help, I fought my way through to the attached painting.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 3 March 2016

The group has now finished “Nausicaa”, episode 13.

Catherine Meyer – artist, regular attender of the reading groups and by now regular co-blogger – sends this painting. It emerged from the reading and she explains:

My challenge was to summarize the chapter in one picture. I patterned the picture with a sense of the chapter's closing lines:

Mr Bloom with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just for a few

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest’s house cooed

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Because it was a little canarybird bird that came out of its little house to tell the time and Gerty Mac Dowell noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was sitting on the rocks looking was

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

I love the idea that the cuckoo might be  the holy ghost, hidden in the dark of its little house and, knowing and seeing everything, tries to coo its revelations, repeating them every hour – and nobody will ever understand it.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Tuesday, 25 February 2016

The reading stopped at, “Not my fault, old cockalorum” (13.1165).  

Catherine Meyer sends in her own rendering in colour and comments: 

Soon after we startet the reading, we reached the passage about scents: “Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That's her perfume” (13.1007). „hm, hm“, I said to myself, that could be a painting theme. And a few lines later I knew I would try to paint Molly's seductive scent. Joyce describes that fragrance so distinctively that all I had to do was paint what we'd read – the scent: “It's like a fine fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what do you call it gossamer, and they're always spinning it out of them, fine as anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it” (13.1019). 

And then: “Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too. Reminds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There or the armpits or under the neck” (13.1024). I was smiling at myself when I had the idea of painting a strawberry bosom and a milk creamy arm. As Fritz said, “gossamer” can mean both 'very fine' and it can refer to Indian summer (“Altweibersommer”). So the colours are held in autumn tones.

Sending it in for this blog, Catherine jokingly refers to her painting  as „here comes everybody’s armpits“. We are enthralled by them. Thank you, Catherine!

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 18 February 2016

The reading stopped at, “That young doctor O'Hare I noticed her brushing his coat” (13.962) but will probably resume from the beginning of the paragraph with, “Place made me think of that I suppose” (13.949), right after the two-liner:

Her maiden name was Jemina Brown

And she lived with her mother in lrishtown. 

Catherine writes:

as an echo to bloom's long inner monologue I have drawn the working-progress of his thoughts, not linear but layered and, because I love the idea that our thinking can be colourful, I made it in strong crayon strokes. 

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 11 February 2016

The reading will resume at: “Tight boots? No. She's lame! O!“ (13.771).

Artist Catherine Meyer writes:

after a few pages in nausicaa i thought about a „because“ picture or an exclamation sketch  from fritz like „isnt’t that beautiful“.

But now that we have been listening to this soft and convincing voice from the tape, which whispered ohhhhs and ohms, again i can’t ignore the climax oft he chapter. So there you go – bloom is

„upside down you’re turning me“ reffering to the song form diana ross.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 4 February 2016

The reading stopped at: “That would have been a very charming exposé for a gentleman like that to witness” (13.488).

Artist and member of the reading group Catherine Meyer writes:

My issue was the summer evening that had begun to fold the world in its  mysterious embrace linked with the litany of our holy virgin, the “stranger” who looked towards the girls and Gerty mcDowell who wanted the man to fall in love with her. I made two watercolours and I don’t know which one we should take for the blog. Could you two choose?

Of course I couldn't.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 28 January 2016

The reading progressed to: “Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I'd look at him” (13.269). 

These lines have been inspiration for Catherine Meyer:

“The waxen pallor of her face was almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth was a genuine Cupid's bow, Greekly perfect” (13.86-89). 

She comments:

blue is the colour of the virgin mary and the rosebud mouth, a genuine cupid’s bow, refers to the god of physical love – usually you can’t have both – although contradictions are the spice of life.

« my » gerty mc dowell is imprisoned in her daydreams and sad, because any kinds of expectations usually don’t come true.

Her rendering in colour:

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 21 January 2016

The group has now finished "Cyclops" and read the first paragraph of episode 13 ("Nausicaa"), stopping at "Mary, star of the sea" (13.8).

Catherine Meyer sends a watercolour and says:

During the reading I was drawing a little sketch to the idea of a wheel of nymphs surrounding the ship. I like the idea of the wheelwright fashioning the heart of his wheel with spokes (rays) "whereof each one is sister to another" and then "he binds them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men" (these lines from "Cyclops are at 12.1777-79).

Enjoy this work that has "a touche of symbolism", as Catherine says, "but enough space for imagination and a lot of dynamic speed to race away over the sea to an aim faraway".

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 14 January 2016

The reading of "Cyclops" (episode 12) has progressed to: "Off with you, says Martin to the harvey" (12.1771).

Thursday, 7 January 2016

The reading has resumed and reached the following line of Cyclops, episode 12: "So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts reading out:" (12.1513).

Artist and reader Catherine Meyer is back, too, this time tickled by the line "All wind and piss like a tanyard cat" (12.1311). Enjoy the tankard cat:

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thanks, Catherine!

Thursday, 17 December 2015

The group will resume the reading on Thursday, 7 January 2016 from where it left off: " — As treeless as Portugal" (12.1258)

Thursday, 10 December 2015

The reading has progressed to: "A nobody, two pair back and passages, at seven shillings a week, and he covered with all kinds of breastplates bidding defiance to the world." (12.1070)

Here is Catherine Meyer's rendering of the Irish growling tower encountered in a scene from last week's reading:

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2015