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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Category Archives: James Joyce

Episode 424: Ronan Ryan!

13 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Blog Post, Episode, Irish Literature, James Joyce

≈ 1 Comment

Episode 424 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

RRAuthorPhoto

Photo by David Whitaker.

In this week’s show, I talk to novelist Ronan Ryan about the dramatic uses of gallows humor, how loss teaches us about our priorities, how elusive reality is, and how to match style to story.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

IMG_0688
lolita-2

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Consider donating to City Lights Books to sustain it and/or buying a book online from Powells.

Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame Cover


Episode 424 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

 

Episode 320: Bloomsday 2018!

23 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Bloomsday, Episode, James Joyce, Live Show

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Bloomsday, James Joyce, Ulysses

Episode 320 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s program, The Drunken Odyssey enjoys perhaps its final Bloomsday live show, and its perhaps final visit to The Gallery at Avalon Island.

Bloomsday 2018 Jeremy DaCruz

Jeremy DaCruz by Steve Erwin.

Bloomsday 2018 Music!

Matthew Davis, Alisha Erao, and Sarah Morrison by Steve Erwin.

Bloomsday 2018 Octavia Finch

Octavia Finch by Steve Erwin.

Bloomsday 2018 Elise McKenna

Elise McKenna by Steve Erwin.

Bloomsday 2018 Erik Branch

Erik Branch by Steve Erwin.

Bloomsday 2018 John King

John King by Steve Erwin.

Bloomsday 2018 Emmi Green

Emmi Green by Steve Erwin.

Bloomsday 2018 Pat Greene

Patrick Greene and Jeremy DaCruz by Steve Erwin.

Episode 320 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 154: Caitlin Doyle!

23 Saturday May 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, James Joyce, Poetry

≈ 5 Comments

Episode 154 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I interview the poet Cailtin Doyle,

Caitlin Doyle

plus Jeremy Da Cruz writes about reading James Joyce’s “Eveline” on Amtrak.

Jeremy Da Cruz

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Dubliners

NOTES

In Orlando, check out Wordier Than Thou, the open mic night that is roving across Florida. On Wednesday, May 27, it’s at Stardust Coffee and Video.

Wordier Than Thou

On June 14, come celebrate The Drunken Odyssey’s 3rd birthday on a monorail line pub crawl.

Polynesian monorail

A teacher in South Windsor, Connecticut was forced to resign after allowing his class to listen to Allen Ginsburg’s “Please Master.”

_______

Episode 154 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 104: Bloomsday 2014!

16 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Bloomsday, Episode, James Joyce

≈ 25 Comments

Episode 104 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this bonus episode, I guide listeners through a lovely tour of Ulysses on today, which is Bloomsday.

Bloomsday 2014 Poster

TEXT DISCUSSED

ulysses-james-joyce

NOTES

Check out Black 47’s music here, or wherever you buy music. “I Got Laid on James Joyce’s Grave” appears on Trouble in the Land.

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Episode 104 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 58: Philip Raisor!

22 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, James Joyce, Memoir, Poetry, Sports

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, Literature, Memoir, Poetry, Writing Podcast

Episode 58 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I talk to the poet Philip Raisor,

Philip Raisor

Plus Melissa Crandall brings us some Xmas in July!

Melissa Crandall and Holly

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Hoosiers the Poems

Swimming in the Shallow End

Outside Shooter

Tuned and Under Tension

A Christmas Carol

NOTES

J.K. Rowling is Robert Galbraith, the author of The Cuckoo’s Calling.

The Cuckoos Calling

Episode 58 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 25: Martin Amis, Irvine Welsh, and Bunny Yeager!

23 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode, James Joyce, Literature of Florida

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bunny Yeager, Irvine Welsh, Literature, Martin Amis, Miami Book Fair International

Episode 25 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

This week’s show is my Miami Book Fair International Spectacular!

I bring you interviews with Martin Amis, Irvine Welsh, and Bunny Yeager.

Here I am with the novelist Irvine Welsh.

A Long-legged Little Red Riding Hood rocks the street fair.

Elsewhere in the street fair, near dusk, Conor McCreery discusses bardicide.

 Texts Discussed

Episode 25 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 19: Don Peteroy!

13 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, David Foster Wallace, Episode, James Joyce

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Burrow Press, Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, Don Peteroy, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary Magazines, Literature, The Silmarillion, Writing Podcast

Episode 19 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I interview fiction writer Don Peteroy,

K.C. Wilson discusses J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion,

And I answer mail while listening to The Intoxicators!

Texts Discussed:

For my Central Florida listeners: Go see Lauren Butler, TDO‘s announcer,  in Orlando Shakespeare Theatre’s Studio production of The Exit Interview!  Now playing through October 21.

 
For my Boston listeners: on Thursday, October 18th at 7:00pm, Andover Book Store presents, An Evening of Fiction with JULIANNA BAGGOTT and LAURIE FOOS.
 
For my Central Florida listeners (again): Don Peteroy—who is this week’s guest—will be participating in two events.

On November 1st at 6 P.M., he will be giving a reading from his new novella, Wally, in room 316 of the University of Central Florida Student Union.

And On Saturday, November 3rd at 7 P.M., he’ll participate in Functionally Literate: A Literary Function, a new reading series organized by Burrow Press and The Kerouac Project, held at Urban ReThink.

N.B.: Please sign my petition requesting Disney Online to offer Disney historian Jeff Kurtti (our guest on episode 15) something like a straightforward, sensible space to blog in.

 
 
Check out this fine magazine from this week’s sponsor:
 
My short story “The Stars Are Bouncing Tonight” appeared in issue #20.
 
 
Episode 19 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Image

‘Tis Bloomsday Eve

15 Friday Jun 2012

Bloomsday in Orlando is happening tomorrow evening, from 6 to 9 p.m., at Urban ReThink in downtown Orlando!  Join us as we eat, drink, carouse, and in all ways celebrate James Joyce’s Modern epic novel, Ulysses.  This event will also be recorded as episode 2 of The Drunken Odyssey podcast.

Among other wonderful things,

you’ll hear the shy giant Godrick read from “Telemachus,”

that John King fellow read from “Nestor,

the poet and cultural blogger for The Orlando Sentinel Tod Caviness read from “Calypso,”

the great Vanessa Blakeslee read from “Cyclops,”

and show announcer Lauren Butler perform Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from “Penelope.”

Dear listeners, there is room for you, too, if you want to join these and our other readers.

Irish fare provided by The Spork.

Get more details about the event at our facebook event page.

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey | Filed under Bloomsday, James Joyce

≈ Leave a comment

How to Read Ulysses for the First Time

13 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Bloomsday, Drinking, James Joyce

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

James Joyce, Literature

First, get quite soddenly drunk.

Second, sit yourself outside, in a comfy place, like a hammock, rocking chair, settee, or else a blanket spread on a tufty patch of lawn, and remember of course to bring more drink with you.

Third, and this stage pertains only to the more radical readers, read the book.  This stage is not absolutely necessary to read the book, for several studies of Ulysses can furnish you with readings of the book that will prove to be much less inconvenient to your brain than actually reading the book.

Now for those intrepid readers who will read Ulysses by reading Ulysses, I offer this plain advice: in reading Ulysses, two types of nonsense shall manifest themselves: (1) nonsense worth translating into sense, and (2) nonsense that cannot be translated into sense.  Regarding the first: this category can be greatly reduced if you read the entirety of the literary canon first (only a suggestion), and in regard to the obsolete references to the Dublin of 1904, consulting Don Gifford’s Annotations to Ulysses helps (incidentally, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume two, contains smallish portions of Ulysses with useful footnotes, and Oxford paperbacks has an edition with somewhat comprehensive endnotes).  About the second type of nonsense: that is what the extra drink is for, so have plenty of it.

Once the fun of beginning to read Ulysses has begun, you should expect the malaise to follow, for U. innately invites the universal disintegration of mental faculties (which ought not be confused with the mental disintegration of university faculties), thus transfiguring its ardent readers into pedantic dizzards with all the social graces of Coleridge’s ancient mariner, or as Robert Burton says in The Anatomy of Melancholy, “silly, soft fellows in their outward behavior.”  Like a drunk attempting to look sober, so should you too attempt to look normal; for though you will deceive only the fools, everyone else will at least appreciate your consideration in making wanton stabs at social decency despite your thorough lack of success. Remember: real people are not doing this thing you are doing.  Also, your brain is like the gullet of a person who is drinking, so you should consistently give your brain equivalents of foodstuffs (whatever your fancies are) with which to slacken the boozy stream of Joyce’s prose as it courses down your helpless esophagus, lest your brain, as Burton warns, “by much study is consumed.”

Image

Once the preliminary chapters are read, the really debilitating material appears–for myself, it occurred somewhere in the–well, as things turns out, I forget which chapter (at this point, I recommend that you check the status of your supply of drink).  My memory at this point becomes unreliable, and it will only become more so, for the distinctions between what I felt and what I feel (or, as often as not, what I do not feel) are too subtle for me to make (thus, the provisional myth of a significant difference between 2012 and 1993 becomes as mimsy as that of a significant difference between 1998 and 1922 (and likewise, that of a significant difference between 1922 and 1904)).  I feel (and here one detects the whim of providence) compelled not to go making things up since I only promised to help students read Ulysses, and yet I hardly have done a thorough or otherwise adequate job of telling them how to read Ulysses, which is how I planned to end this missive, and, as I go, I offer only this last advice: read as quickly as possible (and even more quickly than that if possible).

Come see the facebook event page for our Bloomsday celebration.

Download the podcast.

Getting in the Mood for Bloomsday

11 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Bloomsday, James Joyce

≈ Leave a comment

Episode 2 of The Drunken Odyssey will be a live recording of our upcoming Bloomsday celebration at Urban ReThink in downtown Orlando, with Irish fare by The Spork Café (place your orders now).  If you can, join us as we frolic with James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Here are some items to whet your anticipatory impulses.

********

The great Stephen Fry opines deliciously about the book.

Love’s Sweet Old Song, as performed by Patricia Hammond (mezzo-soprano) with Michael Brough (piano).

 

Black 47’s I Got Laid on James Joyce’s Grave, from their album Trouble in the Land.

Sinead O’Connor sings Molly Malone, a song (and a lass) that Leopold Bloom thinks about on his odyssey through Dublin.

 

And let’s not forget the book itself. The cover of this vintage edition is the one I first read. It is the color of my brain when I laugh in my sleep: words darkening out of sulfur, with negative shadows licking the sky.

See our event page on facebook.

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