Bloomsday in New York

Bloomsday in New York kicked off long before I did behind the library in Bryant Park, where breakfast was served to the assembled James Joyce enthusiasts. Arriving late, I failed to note if mutton kidney was the main offering, but anyone familiar with the Calypso chapter of Ulysses knows it would've been appropriate. Many readers recited lengthy passages from the novel and many of the audience wore period costumes. The Cyclops chapter was a real crowd pleaser. Uninformed parkgoers approached on tiptoe, curious as to what all the kerfuffle was about.













That evening another reading took place at the Brooklyn Lyceum. This one was headed by "resident Joycean scholar," Emmet McGowan. Many volunteers contributed and much Guinness was consumed. The evening was mischievously dedicated to the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.






Yet another event took place at the Housing Works Bookstore in Soho, the highlight of which was a humorous fifteen minute encapsulation of the weighty tome for those who may not have gotten around to reading it for themselves, or for those in need of a quick refresher. Music was provided by the indie all-star band, Bambi Kino. Unfortunately my phone decided not to save any of these photos, so you'll have to take my word that it happened.

Bushwick Open Studios

The Bushwick Open Studios weekend is a good excuse to get inside artists' studios, snoop around and enjoy the complimentary olives. Some of the more eyecatching art, however, can be found outside, down a nearby alley known as Vandervoort Place.

How Books Work

[From Demotivation.us]

Pollock's Toy Museum

Pollock's Toy Museum in Fitzrovia takes its name from Benjamin Pollock, a designer of toy theater in the Victorian age. Inside is a warren of dusty rooms joined by impossibly narrow, winding staircases. Floorboards creak ominously underfoot. Imprisoned behind glass cabinet doors, forlorn wax dolls and broken robots watch visitors pass by as though powerless to warn them of a similar fate should they fail to escape the museum by nightfall.











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A Visit to Sherlock Holmes

Let's face it, the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b Baker Street in the Marylebone district of London is unarguably a tourist trap. Yet one no devotee of the stories could resist.


Inquisitive schoolgirl: "When was Sherlock Holmes born?"
Curator: "He's a fictional character, so he wasn't born."


Detecting equipment.


Holmes kept his tobacco in the Persian slipper over the fireplace.

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More paraphernalia.


A scene from "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual."


"The Man with the Twisted Lip."


Holmes always liked to keep a souvenir of his cases. In this instance, the dreaded Hound of the Baskervilles.

The Troubadour

The Troubadour is a historic coffeehouse in Earl's Court that first opened in the mid-fifties and figured prominently in the British folk revival of that period. The main floor is a respectable restaurant where patrons sip and chat in relative peace, but down the narrow steps in back to the low-ceilinged cellar is another story. Here, driven solo artists wielding guitars or mandolins confront the mic while a gathered audience of aficionados downs tall brews and spicy popcorn. Bands shove their tottering equipment onto the humble stage and hope for the best.

Some notable names that have descended these stairs over the years include Richard Farina, Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch, and Linda Thompson. An unknown Bob Dylan played here the first time he visited London. The place fairly reeks of musical posterity.


The Troubadour on Old Brompton Road.


This soulful young viking maiden performs under the name Mallie.

Broadstairs

Broadstairs is a coastal village in England about 16 miles northeast of Canterbury. In the nineteenth century smugglers dug elaborate tunnels in the chalk cliffs to hide their swag. Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor and finished writing The Pickwick Papers in a house overlooking the sea, now a museum. He also wrote David Copperfield here. John Buchan came to Broadstairs to recuperate from an illness and was inspired to write his novel The 39 Steps, based on a set of wooden stairs he found in the cliff face near his nursing home.

Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery, near Hampstead Heath in North London.

The Andy Monument

I could've sworn this chrome statue of Andy Warhol ornamented with Campbell's Soup cans and flower stems wasn't there last time I passed through the northern perimeter of Union Square.



The statue, designed by Rob Pruitt, is located near the Decker Building at 33 Union Square West, which was the location of Warhol's Factory from 1967-73. It was also where Valerie Solanas, brainchild of the Society to Cut Up Men, delivered to Andy a near-fatal critical review. The building now houses a Puma shoe store.

Marvelous Stories

This Wednesday Neil Gaiman curated an evening of magical realism called "The World of Marvelous Stories" at the Upper West Side's Symphony Space. "Magical realism," he began, was often defined as "stories written by people in Argentina," and conceded it is one of those things where you know it when you see it. He described its effect as looking across a room at a strange and unfamiliar figure, only to realize suddenly you are looking at yourself in a mirror.

The event kicked off with a story called "A Life in Fictions," written by one of Gaiman's former Clarion students named Kat Howard who happened to be lurking in the audience and was promptly outed. This was read by Marin Ireland. Gaiman tackled his own story "The Troll Bridge," a modern update of the Three Billy Goats Gruff folktale. Also on the program were Jorge Luis Borges' mesmerizing "The Circular Ruins," read by Boyd Gaines, and, to conclude the evening, Gaiman's "The Thing About Cassandra," performed by Josh Hamilton with Marin Ireland returning for a dramatic cameo.



Neil Gaiman was charming and affable, and from my balcony vantage looked like a somewhat ghoulish version of Harpo Marx. "He's so talented," I heard the woman behind me gush before the show. He indeed turned out to be the ideal narrator for his own tale, voicing his troll with more vulnerability than one might expect from a matted, salivating creature who lives under a bridge. The audience clung to his every word and I was amazed by how few cellphone glows were visible across the darkened theater seats as he spoke. After the program ended half the population of Manhattan lined up to have their books graciously autographed by the man himself. I stuck around long enough to watch him approached bashfully by the little girl in pink who headed the line.

The evening was recorded and will undoubtedly soon turn up on the Selected Shorts website. Worth a listen.