Second Time Around :)

I am still alive. Though my life is now empty. Thank God for friends. But I want to die. Call me 3rd Act Hamlet if you will. My life is so empty......... I thought it was going so great. I've lost my laughter.

My laughter!

Still in the acid-trip of Ulysses. Pray for us. I actually like this section a lot more-- Bloom's dream sequence seems to make more sense.

Even if this is your first time with Ulysses, dive right in! It's all poetry :).

Ulysses! It's all beautiful...

Notes from the City of Lions

You wouldnât have thought it, but Singapore is filled with mosquitoes in the autumn. They buzz in the breeze, heading toward you: dinner; you: warm; you: succulent; you: pulsing. They know. They see you. And there are swarms of them. Great, black clouds of mosquitoes rise from the marshes around the island. They rise and then they head right toward you, right into the cities, right into your room. Even if you were careful, even if you kept your doors shut, your windows closed, and your lights on low, when you go to bed youâll hear them circling. Bzzzzzzzzzz! Their little wings like wound up rubber band toys hitting bits of paper. Theyâre like a baseball card in bike spokes, and then that buzzing is right in your ear, intensified by that marvelous saxophone in your head, and you jolt up! And you hear it fly off to the farthest corner in the ceiling, near the closet, where it knows that you can do nothing.

One might say that Iâm tired of Singapore, so tired that all I do now is notice the mosquitoes. But thatâs not true, I just happen to notice something thatâs so prevalent that no one here, no natives, seem to even see anymore. Like mountains that you pass every day of your life while driving to work and then one day, while driving home from work, it dawns on you. Mountains! You never knew. And their glory and majesty, their presence, holds you captive as you drive by, and maybe for most of your drive home. And then itâs gone, and then due to the same traffic that keeps your eyes focused on the bumper ahead of you and the times when thereâs a space in front of you and someone is trying to merge in, though they donât have enough room and you just know, you know itâs going to slow you downâ well, you donât see the mountains anymore. Not until you realize, again, that theyâre there. They remind me of lovers. They remind me of what I could be one day. A lost mountain, there and yetâ like mothers to small children. Recognized for brief moments as the need arises, then sunk into the background of a theater burgeoning with video games, primary colored balls, and other squealing children.

They say that boredom is what creates psychotic tendencies in the normal psyche. So even the perfectly, absolutely, swearing with my left hand in the air normal person can develop psychotic tendencies due to the desk job. The only thing that keeps psychotic tendencies, induced by long hours with little to do, under control is adventure, excitement, the act of doing something new. You could say that thatâs why I decided to move to this once fishing island, to this island occupied by the British in World War II, this abundance of plant life, exotic birds and natural resources. One could say that thatâs why I moved. Or one, like myself, could say that the craziness lead me to it. That Singapore, now, is, as Antilla Joez said, like a Diamond Consciousness. It is my poem, it is the outpouring of all that I know and all that I can know, concentrated into a fine beam, a laser, and then crushed into white, sparkling, laser diamonds. And I wear these diamonds, on my wrist, in my watch, on my ears, and I know that then I have no reason for soundness, no reason for tranquility of the mind. My mind is on my wrist and dangling from my ears. Iâve crystallized it with the pressure of a millennium, and now Iâm free. Free to go where I want, to be who I want to be. A Diamond Consciousness. Free to move from the weight of the mountains. Free to reclaim this Singapore, the city of the lions.

Hi Everyone!

One of my listeners was so inspired by Joyce and his love of Joyce and the literary scene in Paris that he vacationed there and took all sorts of photos! I'm going to post the photos with his descriptions here, and I hope that you all enjoy them :). It's like a literary tour through La Belle Paris.

Ulysses XI, Bloom and the funeral, the duality of things, and some poetry at the end (original stuff! yay.). Maybe more poetry if people like it. I don't know, let me know -- isispal @ gmail.com.

If you haven't been listening, dive right in! It's all good and crazy, so it doesn't really matter. Dive in! :)!!!

Episode VII, where I almost read excerpts from my lastest novel, Gay in Italy, but don't get to it. Bloom, Bloom, Bloom! He loosens his bowels and everything. Oh, the Joy that Joyce takes us through. If you haven't been listening along, who cares? Jump in; it's all beautiful. If even painful sometimes.

Just dive in! Meet Bloom for Breakfast, then finish with a tad of poetry.

Episode IV!!! If you haven't been listening along, don't worry! It doesn't matter, it's all beautiful. Plus, there's no static and I made a ton of mistakes this time....allllll beautiful. Podstyle classic. Ulysses, by James Joyce. Read by Paigerella. Enjoy!

Oh goodness, it's more James Joyce. Sit back, relax, and listen as I read from deliriously beautiful poetry and trip over all of the fun words. Also, in this episode, my cat attacks the printer and it clatters to the floor. In the first part of Ulysses, Stephen is mirroring Telemachus who goes off in search of Ulysses. Joyce follows Homer's Odyssey for the text. If you haven't listened to previous episodes (or, the previous episode, since so far there's been only one), no problem! That's the beauty of it all! It's so crazy that you can pick up anywhere, so please feel free. The Siamese cat is now asleep beside her favorite peacock feather. Look, darlings, it's midnight and I'm reading Ulysses on Podcast. That, perhaps, is the coolest thing in the world. And excuses all excuses. Perhaps. Magari!

Ciao tutti,
paigerella