Bloomsday, y'all.
The internet informs me that today is the day to put on your best turn-of-the-century togs and swan about Dublin, honoring the events of James Joyce's Ulysses. Thanks to Gabs and her brilliant idea that we read said tome together - a plan on which she totally bailed - I've come to realize exactly what a weird practice Bloomsday really is, because that book's plot isn't much with the rip or roar.1 My comprehensive reenactment would go something like this: shave, put some organ meat in my pocket, buy some soap, think a lot about women, remember the soap, sing in a bar, remember the soap again, drink an inadvisable quantity of absinthe, GO ON ABOUT IT FOR ONE HUNDRED OBNOXIOUS PAGES, and head home to perform an epically unpunctuated monologue on the subject of ass.2 No, wait: my favorite characters in the book, if we don't count the single-line appearances of, like, Robert Boyle, mashed turnips, and the Magna Charta during the drug trip, are the guys walking around wearing sandwich boards, so if I were forced at gunpoint to participate in this holiday, I would want to either be them or Mr. Dignam, who has the good sense to die shortly before the story begins.
The notion of getting out and living a book is a solid one, though, and I've entertained myself a good deal today by imagining how you might celebrate, for instance, Shaftoe'een, on whatever day is most sacred to readers of Cryptonomicon: handle some gnarly code, eat cereal, make an excessive number of references to ejaculate, get leprosy, plot a graph of desire using furniture in a parking lot, and BLOW. SHIT. UP. For Philipsgiving (Of Human Bondage), you fall in love with a green-skinned waitress, act basically gormless and pathetic (being careful not to generate any sympathy), engage in a bit of art, and abruptly turn around at 11:57 PM.
On Dickens de Mayo, you are a young man who nobly endures the horror of having to work for a living and then probably turns out to be the heir to some fortune, unless you aren't, because wealth is a plague of suffering and it's more important to be decent and modest; or a young woman whose loveliness and virtue win the day, unless they don't, because you totally bite it; or else you are an old geezer who delights in causing young people to suffer because of your wealth, unless you aren't, because you are a beatific elder of shining visage. I follow you around all day, savoring your sentences. For Good Flanders (The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brother], Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv'd Honest, and Died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums), you do all that stuff I just mentioned, but in the span of just twenty-four hours.
To celebrate The Tin Drum on Ash Oskar, you walk around on your knees, DJ an impromptu party for Nazis, lose an acquaintance to a predatory statue of a mermaid, and then stand up.
For Gaimanfest, you have several options: ride around on the Tube looking for mythic creatures and be kind of a Gary Stu, team up with your Manichean counterpart to save the world from God, or make your grim way to Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and turn out to be a freakin' [SPOILER]. Those are all pretty good choices, for the record. National Pratchett Month is also fun times. Wooster Week is when I don't have to justify myself to you. Those books are awesome and I don't care if they *are* as formulaic as the Sweet Valley High series.3 And of course every night from five to six is Henry James Hour, when you fix upon a metaphor and talk that fucker to death.
The second Foer'sday in August is a day for traveling to another country as a fictionalalized version of yoursef, making inquiries of personal interest, and narrating all your actions twice: once in fluent-but-self-deprecating prose, then another time in comical English of dubious idiom. On Dune's Day, gather a crowd with a display of bareback worm riding, and then talk about water conservation and strategic alliances, or else wrap an anti-grav belt around your paunch and just act evil all the time. (You may also marry someone for purely political reasons/be okay with it when your partner does.)
A Farewell to Armistice Day4 offers a choice of roles including Passive Man, Guy Who Never Stops Saying "Baby" And Might Have The Syph, and Woman Who Suffers Cruelly From Plot Madness, a disease manifesting in bizarre contradictory behaviors that create drrrrama; although, if even Passive Man is too active for you, I guess you could be a mountain and be fought over... or a bottle of any kind of booze at all, and get drunk. When you see the first Rainbow of summer, do whatever you want; just bear in mind that you can only use six distinct words all day, so choose wisely. Maundy Hardy, meanwhile, is observed in total silence, mostly because we are afraid to open our mouths lest something unpleasant fly into them.
Seriously, composing these agendas is the new Sidewalk Game. Try it and you'll see.
1. Amazingly, many a country thought this novel was lucid enough to be a corrupting influence, and banned it for obscenity. True, 'round about page 300 a lady's bloomers are described in some detail, but if you make it through 300 pages of Ulysses, you deserve fifteen farm-fresh tons of the genitalia of your choice, not a knee-high view of cotton flounces. The pre-war pornography scene was a real seller's market, I'm thinking.
2. There's no need to limit yourself to a single character. Live a little.
3. In the television adaptation, Hugh Laurie would obviously be Jessica, and Stephen Fry would be Elizabeth - and Gabs and I would watch the whole run. Giggling.
4. Pushing it, I know.
The notion of getting out and living a book is a solid one, though, and I've entertained myself a good deal today by imagining how you might celebrate, for instance, Shaftoe'een, on whatever day is most sacred to readers of Cryptonomicon: handle some gnarly code, eat cereal, make an excessive number of references to ejaculate, get leprosy, plot a graph of desire using furniture in a parking lot, and BLOW. SHIT. UP. For Philipsgiving (Of Human Bondage), you fall in love with a green-skinned waitress, act basically gormless and pathetic (being careful not to generate any sympathy), engage in a bit of art, and abruptly turn around at 11:57 PM.
On Dickens de Mayo, you are a young man who nobly endures the horror of having to work for a living and then probably turns out to be the heir to some fortune, unless you aren't, because wealth is a plague of suffering and it's more important to be decent and modest; or a young woman whose loveliness and virtue win the day, unless they don't, because you totally bite it; or else you are an old geezer who delights in causing young people to suffer because of your wealth, unless you aren't, because you are a beatific elder of shining visage. I follow you around all day, savoring your sentences. For Good Flanders (The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brother], Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv'd Honest, and Died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums), you do all that stuff I just mentioned, but in the span of just twenty-four hours.
To celebrate The Tin Drum on Ash Oskar, you walk around on your knees, DJ an impromptu party for Nazis, lose an acquaintance to a predatory statue of a mermaid, and then stand up.
For Gaimanfest, you have several options: ride around on the Tube looking for mythic creatures and be kind of a Gary Stu, team up with your Manichean counterpart to save the world from God, or make your grim way to Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and turn out to be a freakin' [SPOILER]. Those are all pretty good choices, for the record. National Pratchett Month is also fun times. Wooster Week is when I don't have to justify myself to you. Those books are awesome and I don't care if they *are* as formulaic as the Sweet Valley High series.3 And of course every night from five to six is Henry James Hour, when you fix upon a metaphor and talk that fucker to death.
The second Foer'sday in August is a day for traveling to another country as a fictionalalized version of yoursef, making inquiries of personal interest, and narrating all your actions twice: once in fluent-but-self-deprecating prose, then another time in comical English of dubious idiom. On Dune's Day, gather a crowd with a display of bareback worm riding, and then talk about water conservation and strategic alliances, or else wrap an anti-grav belt around your paunch and just act evil all the time. (You may also marry someone for purely political reasons/be okay with it when your partner does.)
A Farewell to Armistice Day4 offers a choice of roles including Passive Man, Guy Who Never Stops Saying "Baby" And Might Have The Syph, and Woman Who Suffers Cruelly From Plot Madness, a disease manifesting in bizarre contradictory behaviors that create drrrrama; although, if even Passive Man is too active for you, I guess you could be a mountain and be fought over... or a bottle of any kind of booze at all, and get drunk. When you see the first Rainbow of summer, do whatever you want; just bear in mind that you can only use six distinct words all day, so choose wisely. Maundy Hardy, meanwhile, is observed in total silence, mostly because we are afraid to open our mouths lest something unpleasant fly into them.
Seriously, composing these agendas is the new Sidewalk Game. Try it and you'll see.
1. Amazingly, many a country thought this novel was lucid enough to be a corrupting influence, and banned it for obscenity. True, 'round about page 300 a lady's bloomers are described in some detail, but if you make it through 300 pages of Ulysses, you deserve fifteen farm-fresh tons of the genitalia of your choice, not a knee-high view of cotton flounces. The pre-war pornography scene was a real seller's market, I'm thinking.
2. There's no need to limit yourself to a single character. Live a little.
3. In the television adaptation, Hugh Laurie would obviously be Jessica, and Stephen Fry would be Elizabeth - and Gabs and I would watch the whole run. Giggling.
4. Pushing it, I know.