Happy Bloomsday 2011!

On Blooomsday 2011 in West Palm Beach, Florida my husband stood in O’Shea’s Pub on Clematis Street waiting for the Bloomsday event to begin. He wrote this to me via his iPhone: “Good evening love, I'm standing in O'Shea’s with a nice Guinness in hand waiting for the show to start. The mayor of WPB is here to lead the reading. Leslie Streeter and her hubby are here too. 2 women who led one of the arts seminars I attended yesterday are here organizing. Just got some Guinness swag for you. A bottle that lights up and a bottle opener. Is it really big over there? I heard that NY was doing a 13 hour reading at symphony hall.” I was proud to hear that an Irish pub in my city was involved in this day celebrating James Joyce’s Ulysses. It would have been fun to attend. Next year I will make it to O’Shea’s with my husband. As for New York City, I was not amazed or actually interested to learn that they were participating in Bloomsday, they always work to be impressive.

My Bloomsday experience was different from both of these U.S. events. First, I remember a typical grey and cold day in Dublin; I’m sure it was sunny and hot at home. I followed the regular posse lead by our self-appointed leader, who always claimed that she was not the leader, to Sweeny’s Chemist. To the side of the door to Sweeny’s was a male mannequin dressed as Bloom, it was kind of tacky. Jen and I posed next to it for a photograph. Jen often has to play-up to the camera (it’s the stage actress she hasn’t become yet impulse). We went inside to find a cramped place. There were books immediately welcoming us to our left, and we began picking them up. We did this while people began piling in the store. I bought Yeats at Work by Curtis B. Bradford. I’ve become a Yeats fan since going through the National Library’s Yeats exhibition and reading about him in Anne Gregory’s Me & Nu. The man who sold me the book behind the counter had crazy directionless white hair. He was wearing a chemist’s coat and a blue and yellow bowtie. I left him and sat down on the bench behind the pile of books. The performance was going to begin very soon.

An actor from the Dublin Shakespearean Society began singing behind the counter and the sign that read “Compounding Department”. He was out of our sight. I gazed at the wall behind the counter across from me. The wall had dark wood shelves with mirrors and glass bottles resting (for how long!) on them in a row. I drew a picture of it in my small notebook. The bottom shelf that was level with the counter had decorative boxes on it. I couldn’t see what the product was, maybe the lemon soap bars? In front of my neighbors and me under the books were cardboard boxes that were marked lemon soap bars. The reading continued and I could see mainly the actors’ heads from where I sat. It was becoming stuffy in the room—you certainly couldn’t get out easily. Not that I wanted to, I just think of these things sometimes.

I listened intently to the performers, and I especially enjoyed the actor who played Bloom. His face blushed from the temperature of the room and from his efforts. Near his head Oscar Wilde’s face came into focus. A book to the side of my head was reflected in the mirror across the room. The cover of the book had a large image of his face on it against a lime background. I have not read Wilde yet, but I have a collection of his work at home. I also have an odd book titled something like The Shame of Oscar Wilde. I’ve looked through it; the book is about his trial. A hearing not so distinctly varied from Bloom’s harassments.

There was a mixture of Bloom’s epoch and ours in the shop. The individuals dressed in period garb were acting very authentic to Joyce’s time it seemed, though none of us really know what that was like. They had the famous citrus soap, but it was in the company of common white electric Christmas lights. The actors gave a splendid performance, but I had to giggle a little when one reached over and pushed the button on the boom box to turn on the sound of horse hooves on pavement.

I recognize my luck at being in Sweeny’s Chemist on Bloomsday in Dublin, Ireland; and will remember it fondly. Next year I will celebrate it again. I shall have my fingers around a Guinness and the others around my husband, and we’ll be in O’Shea’s Pub standing in the air conditioned room, probably a little tipsy.