Ulysses, genealogy
Two and a half years ago I started reading Joyce's Ulysses. I read a good part of it, but never did make it through the whole book. Now I have started reading it again. This time it was prompted by coming across a weekly podcast by one Frank Delaney (well-known writer, journalist, commentator in Ireland) called 'Re:Joyce', in which he it going through the entire book of Ulysses, noting all the allusions, etc., as he goes. It is quite entertaining as well as illuminating. However, it is now a year and a half since he started (on Bloomsday, 14 June, 2010) and he is only part-way through Chapter 2 of 18 chapters, many of them much longer than these opening ones. He is about 1/40th of the way through the text, so at this rate, he will be at it for about 60 years! (but death will overtake him before that)
There's an app for that. I was surprised to find that there is an iPad app for Joyce's Ulysses. It is a comic-strip version of the book. It includes translations of the Greek, Latin, Gaelic, etc. as well as a page or so of background notes on each pane of comics. It, too, has only completed two chapters, in this case the first and fourth. It seems to be a problem with Joyce-related projects, I can hardly think of one that I have come across which is even close to being finished. Anyway, for the time being I am amusing myself at least some of the time with this stuff.
Back in 1993-95 I spent quite a bit of time working on my family genealogy. I set it aside then, although in the interim a number of new bits and pieces came along, I just put them in a box. So now I have started going through all that again. I have learned a number of things which I simply missed the first time around. It is also striking how much information is now on the internet. Back in 1993, I don't remember anything being available that way. I was quite tickled yesterday to find that there were passenger lists available on the web pages of the National Archives of Canada, and I actually found that the Moorcrofts came to Canada on a ship from Belfast in 1973. What was interesting was that the ages of the various family members were wildly different from the information given later on census returns - Maybe they were just having fun with the officials taking down the information. I also managed to find the families of several of my great-uncles in Toronto in the 1911 census, which is also available on line now.
There's an app for that. I was surprised to find that there is an iPad app for Joyce's Ulysses. It is a comic-strip version of the book. It includes translations of the Greek, Latin, Gaelic, etc. as well as a page or so of background notes on each pane of comics. It, too, has only completed two chapters, in this case the first and fourth. It seems to be a problem with Joyce-related projects, I can hardly think of one that I have come across which is even close to being finished. Anyway, for the time being I am amusing myself at least some of the time with this stuff.
Back in 1993-95 I spent quite a bit of time working on my family genealogy. I set it aside then, although in the interim a number of new bits and pieces came along, I just put them in a box. So now I have started going through all that again. I have learned a number of things which I simply missed the first time around. It is also striking how much information is now on the internet. Back in 1993, I don't remember anything being available that way. I was quite tickled yesterday to find that there were passenger lists available on the web pages of the National Archives of Canada, and I actually found that the Moorcrofts came to Canada on a ship from Belfast in 1973. What was interesting was that the ages of the various family members were wildly different from the information given later on census returns - Maybe they were just having fun with the officials taking down the information. I also managed to find the families of several of my great-uncles in Toronto in the 1911 census, which is also available on line now.