Julio Cortázar

Julio Cortázar, 1914-1984.

‘Andábamos sin buscarnos pero sabiendo que andábamos para encontrarnos.’

Thanks for everything, Julio.

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So long as it’s grey.

Samuel Beckett, 1906-1989.

While I was in Paris, I paid a visit to Sam.

There was a little joke on pebbles on his grave.

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Bloomsday article.

On reading and performing Ulysses on Bloomsday.

I asked her whether she thought the book lends itself well to performance. “The book just comes alive when you get other artists to read the text, so we wanted to create a show that was accessible to as many people as possible and bring together as many different types of performers and other sound artists and writers to put their spin on their particular section of Ulysses so that someone who’s experiencing it for the first time can get a way into the text.” This year, O’Brien cast “the quintessential Jewish New York playwright” Wallace Shawn as Poldy, surrounding him with Irish performers, such as the novelist Anne Enright, who read “Calypso” in its entirety, and Muldoon, who revisited “Proteus,” while Jerry Stiller was on hand to read from the Hebrew for “Aeolus,” thereby bringing out “the Jewishness of Joyce.” O’Brien herself performs Molly each year and explained that “what’s so intimate about Molly’s monologue is that most of our readers listen to it in bed and she’s in bed and so you have somebody else’s stream-of-consciousness wafting over your head.” In this way, Radio Bloomsday reminds us of something else that Joyce is trying to convey: that ordinariness is an improvised patchwork of the commonplace and singular, the close to hand and the exotic.

Read more at the link.

[via The Paris Review]

I missed Bloomsday this year because, well, I was on holiday, as you know. Won’t miss it next year! (I hope!)

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Radiohead x Glastonbury

Radiohead were at Glastonbury too.

[via YouTube]

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“Tightrope” x Glastonbury

Janelle Monáe performs “Tightrope” at this year’s Glastonbury.

[via YouTube]

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Moving News

“Time’s Flow Stemmed”, a blog which I enjoy, has moved to here: http://timesflowstemmed.com/.

Update your blogrolls and RSS feeds.

[via Time’s Flow Stemmed]

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Deborah Eisenberg story.

A new Deborah Eisenberg story. [via NYRB]

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New Joyce biography.

Gordon Bowker has a new biography of James Joyce.

Yet Bowker’s biography – packed as it is with incidents, ideas and sympathy – proves inspiring. It shows Joyce’s recognition of his creative vocation as a gift to the world, though it cost so much in the way of poverty, misery and mortification. Joyce’s meanness about trifles was redeemed by expansive generosity in great matters. Although childish, wilful and ruthless, he was devoid of vanity, fiercely disciplined about his work and showed heroic perseverance.

[via The Telegraph]

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Singapore Theatre Festival website up.

Here’s the official website for the 2011 Singapore Theatre Festival. [via Man Singapore Theatre Festival 2011]

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RIP, Clarence Clemons

While I was in France, I saw on the BBC that Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band fame had passed away. RIP, big guy.

Bruce Springsteen delivered the eulogy at the funeral.

[via All Headline News]

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