freitag 13. dezember mmxiii

 

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Yesterday I googled “james joyce message board” in search of some Joycean conversation. I didn’t see what I was looking for so this blog has been created to initiate the dialogue. It’s not going to be a strictly Joycean space, but he has engendered it and that’s important to note. He’s its base.

The November before last was the Beguiling‘s 25th anniversary celebration at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto. Charles Burns, Adrian Tomine and Chris Ware were there and Seth was emcee. At the autographs table I pulled a detached bookcover out of my rucksack for them to doodle on. I asked each cartoonist to draw the first image that came to mind. Burns was first and provided an illuminated bone in pencil. He asked if I wanted him to sign his name and I said “I don’t care” and he wrote it. Adrian Tomine was next, pigment-lining the fat kid taking a bite out of food for thought. Chris Ware was third and he started talking about his admiration of Joyce before giving me the eyepatch with what must have been a 0.05mm.  As I exited the cinema Seth and Chester Brown were sitting beside the concessions stand. For good measure I asked the same from them and received a hat and a pair of underwear.

Envoy, a Review of Literature & Art was published out of Dublin in 1951. I bought this collection of superb Joyce essays that morning at a university booktable. Someone had written the Joyce family motto in ballpoint beneath his name. It reads Mors Aut Honorabilis Vita which translates to something about death or an honourable life. My Virgil scribbling from that morning at the library, Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causus, says that a person who knows the causes of things is fortunate.

Look at this work as a very small web-lit supplement to the works of these artists. A collab impromptu. Maybe now you’ll notice a little Joycean lilt in something like Jimmy Corrigan. Maybe you won’t. Either way it’s fun to think about.

NEXT TIME…

I’ll start telling you about my literary pilgrimage through South America to Buenos Aires. ¡promo teaser below!