Mutt comes especially alive, blossoms, indeed, on Bloomsday (June 16) that day of days for all true, blue DUPliners. And this year more than most, for it afforded him a chance to point out to an ineffable Jeff from their unmatched vantage point on top of Liberty Hall, the Feng Shoeprints of Leo Bloom, a wandering Jew, in this, the Zen-enlightened era of Leopold Varadkar.
As the dear literary gliterati on Liffeyside never weary of re-iterating, June 16 was the D-day in 1904 when James A. Joyce first walked sideways out with the crustacean chambermaid Nora Barnacle (what a dame ! what a name !). With whom he was to cling for the rest of his natural, as wedding bells were eventually to ring-a-ding-a-ling. Thus, this is the day the God of Hiberno Irish Letters selected in which to set his magnum opus Dei of the Godyssey and no book for Sissies:
-Ulysses.
Some trace the gritty novel’s origins to another real and by no means itty-bitty event of 1904, the (gulp) Year of the (gasp) Limerick Pogrom. So horrific was this pogrom that 5 Jewish families fled Limerick, while a mere 26 Jewish families remained. Here’s what the Ubermensch of the Understatement had to rhyme about it in a five line dime-store-bought anti-Erse verse :
OFFICIAL POGROM
Sticks were quick to say it foretold Dachau
This wicked pogrom in RC Limerick below
A bloody nose
Trod-upon-toes
And even, Mein Gott, one dislocated elbow.
Such is the measure of the artist known as James Augustine Joyce who, with no known Limerick connections, is considered such a treasure on shoneen Shannonside in these tolerant days while an actual Limerick man of that era, Patrick Weston Joyce (who?), author of the stupendous (the what?) The Origins and History of Irish Names of Places (in 3 Volumes) is hardly known outside the confines of Glenosheen. Where? Yes, his native place whose very name possibly prompted him to become the tip-top topographer he became.
Besides, PW Joyce, was but a lowly native speaker of Leprechaun and so, in Occidental England, is forever tagged with The Green Star / An Réalta Ghlas which less than distnguishes him as a ‘Paddy Stink and Mickey Muck’. A term which was later upmarketed by that acute Observer of Oirish foibles, Congo Crisis O Brain, as:
-The Bog-Oak Monolith.
So, where then did the the unusual surname come from, sir? Bloom.
Could J. A. Joyce have been inspired by the Slieve Bloom Mountains for his hero who occupies the summit of serious literature in the Q’s Hiberno English ? Let us consider what PW Joyce might have to say on the matter. Tar éis an tsaoil / After all, this secondary Joyce also had a book published in 1910:
–English as we speak it in Ireland.
Pause here again at Limerick Junction / Sos eile anseo ag Stáisiún Acomhail Luimní
ReJOYCES
JAJ agus PWJ beirt síolraithe on Seoighe
An difríocht eatarthu ná: marbh agus beo
Ag Gleann Oisín
Nil aon mheaisín
Sa chathair mar sin níl ach an t-aon Seo.
Anyways/ Pé scéal é, Slieve Bloom actually started life as, cor blimey, Sliabh Bladhma, back in the Day of the D, D for Dinosaur. Bladhm is the uncouth crocodile word for ‘flame / flare up’. A factoid which may, or indeed may not, be of interest to those jolly Georgie Girls and Teddy Boys who blithely gallivant around the streets broad and the streets narrow of Molly Town on June 16. Which is when this literary Murphia morph DUPlin from being a Georgian into an Edwardian City as they don and subsequently doff their straw boaters and bonnets alike on sniffy Liffeyside.
Hmmmm.
Over now to Hammerstein, as Bloomsday has already lengthened to Bloomsmonth and has the tetchy stretch marks to show for it. Truly, has the small anti-clockwise roundabout in the backgarden of Baile Átha Cliath contorted into a politically correct Clockwise Carousel of Cultural Con-celebration:
-June is bursting out all over
March went out like a Leo, oops, Lion.
A whippin’ up the water in the bay;
Then April cried and stepped aside
And along come pretty little May !
May was full of promise
But she didn’t keep ‘em quickly enough for some
And a crowd of doubtin’ Thomases
Was predictin’ that the summer’d never come.
Take away those lines, Leo:
-May was full of promises / But she didn’t keep ‘em quickly enough for some
Hmmmm.
Perhaps, the once and future Oscar Hammerstein was really Oscar ’Ammersmith?
Oddly enough, another Oscar, one who was to walk on the wild side, doo-doo-doo, doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, Lou, he too had his truppenny’s worth to say in his reedy voice on scéal an lae/ trending story:
–Ignorance is a delicate fruit: touch it, and the bloom is gone.
Hmmm.
Like say, if the blooming sleeveens actually got down to read the book of uncommon fanfare, the book by His Lardship, not, they so like to worship, would the bloom disappear? Would then they lay down their bowties, boaters, bonnets and blazers, their moustaches and monocles, their Chaplin canes, plimsolls and their pink Belle Epoque parasols?
All depends, methinks, if, once having started to read they actually got round to the hard part, yes, she said, yes, finishing it. Ignorance is one thing but, it must be averred, alas, pig-ignorance is a particularly indelicate fruit, a mucky, grunty pot of slime, stuff, grime and all-round offal of the porcine truffle-hunt variety.
Now, Anti-Semitism, or more specifically, the dissing of same, is the central theme of this tome known as Ulysses. Its trope, as it were. (Trope, dope, is a modern day motif which has regained its mojo). And so Bloomsday / Bloomsmonth 2019 got off to a particularly busting-out-all-over start.
First the New York Times dropped the hundred-years plus habit of publishing political cartoons, on the basis of one perceived Anti-Semitic cartoon, which somehow slipped by the Garryowen at the Gate. As the sublime Paul Simon of NY might have versed in a way understandable even to Mutt or indeed, the Palestinian-dissing pal we choose to call Al (see below):
–Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bonedigger Bonedigger
Dogs in the moonlight
Seemingly, this offensively inoffensive cartoon featured Netanyahu and Trump in a blind-yahoo-leading-the-blind-yahoo-type situation:
–I dtír na ndall is é an té aonshúileach an Rí.
Ní gá a rá / Needless to say Cyclops shall be keeping a rheumy eye on the rumoured and imminent developments in The Unionist Times.
Mar a thuaraigh an Draoi o Dhún na nGael tráth siar sa lá / As St. Colmcille of Londonderry, the Nordie Nostradramus, once foretold:
–Mar a théann Dealbh na Saoirse, mar an gcéanna le Halla na Saoirse / As the Statue of Liberty goes, so follows Liberty Hall.
Nearer Home and Hume Street (see anon) Bloomsmonth was ushered in by the metaphorical shattering of glass akin almost to Kristallnacht.
This occured when Al S (see above) chose to launch his new book through the windows of every studio and editorial office in DUPlin:
–Frenzy and Betrayal: The Anatomy of a Political Assassination.
A timely reminder that Al S does indeed still live nextdoor in the Free Southern Stateen. Al S? Who the focal is Al S ?!
That would be, gan dabht, Alan Shatter, former shy and, yes, retiring Minister for Justice / Aire Dlí agus Cirt in a shirty Fine Gael Cabinet. Read on:
–When a motion of no confidence in me as Minister for Justice in 2014 was proposed accusations of my being arrogant were commonplace……and surfaced several times during the debate. I assumed that most, if not all, of those who resorted to it had no understanding of the backdrop to the narrative used by them, were not consciously anti-Semitic and would be outraged if accused of anti-Semitism.
Lest we forget, lest we forget. Firehose ahead, Al S:
–The ‘arrogant Jew’ is a centuries-old anti-Semitic depiction of Jewish people who stand up for themselves, have the courage of their convictions and who are neither servile nor compliant.
Phew ! Thought for a few febrile moments there that Al S was referring to all Semitic-speaking folk, including the Palestinians. But then Al S, this Dual in the Crown of the Free Southern Stateen, is palpably no Pal of the Palestinians.
This is a trait which he shares, sir, peculiarly enough with another Al S who lives next door to other palaces in toney Chigwell. Once more into the breach:
-Al S? Who the focal is Al S this time?
That would be Sir Alan Sugar, self-ogling mogul of all that is sweetness and light, who featured very recently in a civilised contretemps on dear Piers Morgan’s show: Good Morning Britain. When he kindly suggested to one, George Galloway, to ‘zip his lip’ or delicate words to that effect.
Topic du jour were the blue and white Israeli flags being tauntingly flaunted at a recent Tottenham Hotspur game. A red rag which caught the ire of George and the counter ire of a spicy Sugar.
-Thataway, Galloway, pal of the Palestinians.
And so, Galloway for similar reasons, went the way of the political cartoons in the NYT (see above). By being summarily told that the jig for him was up on an airwaves gig on TalkRadio he had been making a big splash upon. Thus, is it dust to dust.
Truly, is June blooming out all over.
Especially as it had been decided, at long last, and not before Times, NY or Unionist, to drop the folly of naming the main train station on the North side of DUPlin, Connolly Station. And to revert to the original name: Amiens Street Station, located a mere train dispatcher’s whistle away from Liberty Hall.
Just in time to welcome the recently baptised fast-track train linking Yunes North to Yunes South, and all done for the very best and purest of locomotives:
-The Orange Blossom Special.
A most apt choice of name, as it gives Jeff the Ineffable a ripe chance to keep his pipes, his pipes, in shape while the legal imbroglio, Molly-o, in which the Difficult Second Single of Mutt and Jeff is currently mired, Kevin, and which is being sorted out by the heaven-sent copyright lawyers and other liars-for-hire.
–I’m going down to d’Free Stateen
And get some sand in my shoes
Or maybe even DUPlin
And get some bland in my views
I’ll ride that Orange Blossom Special
And lose those Sandy Row Blues.
TUILLEADH LE TEACHT: TO BE CONTINUED
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