 Alright, I admit it, I'm never gonna finish. Ty -- April 8, 2009
A while ago the Final Jeopardy was about ULYSSES and I got it right. Today I saw a drawing of a dog reading ULYSSES. We're reading THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV now but I don't have a blog about it. Ty -- FEBRUARY 1, 2009
I read ULYSSES in several airports. I tried to read it on the airplane but this girl was rubbing her knee against my leg and it was too distracting so I acted like I was asleep. I have been reading it for a year and six days. On January 1 me and Matt are starting THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV for book club part three but don't worry I'm not giving up on ULYSSES. TY -- DECEMBER 6, 2008
The last chapter of THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS is called "The Return of Ulysses" and I listened to a tape of Wendell Berry talking about Odysseus. There was a really windy day and for part of it I sat in my truck, reading ULYSSES with the windows rolled down. Book club is going to a movie in an hour. TY -- NOVEMBER 8, 2008
When I got my tickets to see Sarah Palin I opened up ULYSSES and put them in there. A while ago I read an interview with her and they asked her how she got so smart and she said she loves reading, she she reads all the time, when she's not hunting or being a governor or taking care of her kids she's reading a book, mostly biographies. I hope I never read mostly biographies, even when I am the world's most popular governor, even when some fighter pilot I've never met asks me to be his vice president.
If I want to have taken a year or less to read ULYSSES I've got five weeks. yuhohh
Book club ate a pizza, but we didn't talk about ULYSSES, we talked about all the other books we're reading and about the economy. I haven't read a single page since my last update, oops. TY -- SEPTEMBER 17, 2008
I'm going to go get some chicken strips and eat them while watching the news, and then read some ULYSSES. My goal at this point is to finish it within a year of when we started. Got about three months. That's probably an average of like a page a day, CAN IT BE DONE TY -- SEPTEMBER 1, 2008
Monthly update: it's back in my backpack! TY AUGUST 14, 2008
On Saturday night I stood around in the library for a long time cuz I didn't think I would know anyone over in """the coffee ethic"""" and I found this book called NO-MAN'S LAND that some guy wrote because he liked THE ODYSSEY so much. But the only reason he knew he liked THE ODYSSEY was because all his friends loved ULYSSES and made him be in a book club about it but he still hated it, but while he was hating it he found out he loved THE ODYSSEY because ULYSSES is about THE ODYSSEY. I mean it supposedly is, I have no idea what it's about. I figured out who the main character is though, was that pretty smart of me.
Matt says now that he lives by himself instead of with his mom he can read ULYSSES more often, so maybe book club is real again. Remember way back when Matt's mom hugged him when she found out about book club, that remains the cutest moment in book club history.
In Colorado I successfully used ULYSSES as a prop in both a board game and a card game AND I even read like twelve pages of it. One night I got really mad and sat in the corner reading Nabokov, is that a good joke. Also I joined two family book clubs where we pass around THE OMNIVORE"S DILEMMA and THE RIVER OF DOUBT. There is actually a third family book club that I wasnt invited to but that's alright because I am morally and aesthetically opposed to it. I have been thinking a lot about Christianity - and also Judaism and Islam and probably others but I don't know hardly anything about those - as the world's most popular book clubs, it's a really obvious and exciting idea and I can't talk to anyone about it. TY JULY 7, 2008
At the bookstore I was trying to figure out what Thomas Merton thought about St. Ignatius but instead I found out some stuff he thought about James Joyce. He's the opposite of me, he read ULYSSES a couple times but couldn't ever finish A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN. One time he was meeting a priest and the guy he was meeting the priest with told the priest that Tommy turned Catholic because of reading James Joyce. I'm not going to do that but I moved the carrots into a different window so I could get to ULYSSES: very slow progress. TY JUNE 12. 2008
Last Sunday, June 1st, was book club's birthday, we'd started reading MOBY DICK a whole year ago. I carried ULYSSES and MOBY DICK around in my backpack all day and after trivia me and Matt were going to have a formal book club meeting for the first time in months but instead I got all grumpy and went home. I accidentally started reading A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAIN again, also PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA which is the same thing. My copy of ULYSSES is in a window, with carrots growing on top of it. If I remember right, MAtt's copy of ULYSSES is also in a window. TY JUNE 5, 2008
A while ago I had a dream that me and Knathan were trying to get some really huge heavy chairs out of this house before the people that lived there got back, and when we lifted up one of the chairs my copy of ULYSSES was under there, all beat up and faded. I'm trying to think of where in my house ULYSSES is right now, in real life, but I have no idea. I know it has a pack of fishing lures inside of it. Tonight at trivia I'm going to remind Matt that we're in a book club and we'll see how that goes. TY MAY 25, 2008
Tonight I kicked ULYSSES further into the corner so I could do hamstring stretches. A few hours later I put several avocado leaves between its pages. Book club was supposed to go see IRON MAN but I went with my family; we were supposed to go see PARANOID PARK but Matt went by himself. A song by that band NATION OF ULYSSES just came on. BOOK CLUB RULES TY MAY 13, 2008
I was so full of ice cream that I didn't go running before trivia, I just rolled around on the couch and tried to read some pages of ULYSSES. But I cou;ldn't even do that, I just fell asleep and had a dream about collies. I never liked collies very much, but now that i've had this dream I'm very fond of them. The same thing happened with bulldogs a few years ago, I'm sure you heard all about it.
I'm reading this book INTO THE PORCUPINE CAVE and this other book THIS CRAFT OF VERSE which is some lectures by Borges. Borges wants to talk about THE ODYSSEY, just like Wendell Berry did, but he also wants to talk about James Joyce and even ULYSSES in specific. He says that novels don't know what to do anymore so they're decomposing and that even if you know lots of facts about the two characters in ULYSSES you never get to KNOW them. And I'm like DURRR way to GO, BORGES but I thought there was only one real character in the book, whoops. To help the novel to decompose I want to put ULYSSES in my mulch pile but not because I'm mad at it, I just want to put all kinds of stuff in the mulch pile, I bet it feels good in there.
Me and Tony tried to have a book club side project but it was too elaborate. John said ULYSSES was Nabokov's favorite book and he says he's in book club but no one knows if book club is even real, I just carry it around in my backpack all day cuz it feels good and heavy. Book club is still real it's just waiting for summer? TY APRIL 17, 2008
I'm at the new downtown library right now, it's really cool in here. The other day while I was helping Jandyn move I looked in this magazine that was laying around and some celebrity I'd never heard of said she was reading ULYSSES in her book club. I haven't read it in two weeks and I think it's been more like two months for Matt. N o one is allowed to judge us for this or tell us we're not reading it because we are. TY APRIL 5, 2008
I went to Kansas again but I forgot to take ULYSSES with me. Not that I ever read it when I'm there, but I just like to take it with me whenever I go places so there's more chances for things to happen. A few days ago there was a good part about a guy baptizing himself in a bull's water trough. It might have been making fun of the pop,e, I'm not sure. I was hoping there would be a good Easter scene in time for Easter but there wasn't. When I was in high school I read THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT around Easter and it has people going to church on Easter and having moral dilemmas on Easter and in the end someone decides not to jump in a lake because his daughter wrote a poem or someting. Books with Easter scenes: THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT, RABBIT RUN i think, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA. Books with talking cats: THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, THE TALKING CAT AND OTHER STORIES OF FRENCH CANADA, uhh ALICE IN WONDERLAND. It's MAtt's birthday right now. TY MARCH 24, 2008
Today I went to the St Patrick's day thing on the square and I guess I look like someone who needs to be given a lot of tracts but not someone who wants to sign petitions. An old man came up to me and said "This is what I'll always remember about Ireland! People standing around in the cold and eating those things!" (corndogs) Then I went and read ULYSSES in my truck while I waited for the parade to come. The parade didn't come and eventually I realized I was two hours early and in the wrong place.
Matt met someone who had read ULYSSES fifteen times by the time he was fifteen years old and who has now written fifteen westerns. It's week fifteen of book club.
WHile I waited for Katie in the parking lot I read ULYSSES for two minutes. It gets really cold and sometimes I have to rub on it to warm it up. Every time it rains I wonder if I left the windows down in my truck and imagine the book's in there getting soggy and I'll have to bring it in and put it on the heater but it'll just poof all up. I had a dream that someone carved a hole in the middle of it and put some drugs in there and they wanted me to take the drugs somehwere for them, but when no one was looking I opened the book up and splashed the drugs into a puddle in the street and they floated on down the gutter. Grandaddy's BBQ is second or third best BBQ in Springfield, casually recommended. TY MARCH 4, 2008
What if somebody had a son and daughter that they named James and Joyce, but they weren't twins. I wouldn't be mad about it. TY FEBRUARY 20, 2008
Had a dream that the guy who played Samwise Gamgee in the LORD OF THE RINGS MOVIES was accused of committing murder. He kept going on tv and saying all these things about ULYSSES and I became nervous about letting anyone know that I too was reading ULYSSES. Except from the things he was saying on tv I realized that he wasn't even talking about ULYSSES, he was talking about THE ODYSSEY. But Don Cheadle was the only one who would believe me, and he turned out to have been an accomplice to the crime! TY FEBRUARY 15, 2008
I reread the part about the Irish hero and the long list of other Irish heroes and wondered whether WB Yeats was before this or during this or after this or what. So I looked it up and I guess WB Yeats was just sort of a constant throughout all time. I feel like I've written a hundred papers and Christmas cards about WB Yeats and last night I answered a trivia question about WB YEats. There's this one stupid poet who his only good poem is about WB Yeats. ULYSSES is not about WB Yeats. TY FEBRUARY 11, 2008
Last week book club went to Lawrence, and everyone else went to Lawrence too. We saw a good band and everyone bought their own copy of my favorite shirt, and book club saw a FOX, just as I had prophesied. Next day book club met my parents at Starbucks loollool. Are we even reading this book TY FEBRUARY 10, 2008
I thought it was pretty famous but no one who asks me what I'm reading has ever heard of it, and I don't like it enough to like trying to explain what it's about.
I like when they talk about foxes. Book club has a history of foxes. Separately. Individually. We have never seen the same fox at the same time. All that is about to change.
Got blood on it. TY JANUARY 16, 2008
Last night Matt was finally in bike gang for the first time so I was thinking now that all of book club is in bike gang, what if all of bike gang was in book club. No one in bike gang even knows about book club, even though for a while book club was significantly more famous. I tried to tell Matt that I was sick of this book and he said he wasn't sick of it, but I've read a lot more of it than he has. He said something about how James Joyce didn't have depth perception and I reminded him that I don't have depth perception. Everyone always waves their hands around. I don't want them to talk about Shakespeare, I just want thtem to talk about the Old Testament. I don't want them tot alk about anything. TY JANUARY 12, 2008
It's day 35 of book club and I'm on page 163 and Matt won't tell me what page he's on. Book club hasn't met in several weeks, we just play each other in internet scrabble. I reread the parts about Moses while my brother said WHAT"S TY DOING IN THAT ROOM and my dad carried out the christmas tree in a giant bag and I yelped when I saw. I'm not in back in Springfield but I'm going back tomorrow. TY JANUARY 3, 2008
Hvaen't been reading ULYSSES at all, too busy hanging out with my family, throwing up iin the snow, reading TRAPPED IN SPACE, etc. I was thinking I was maybe going to read some more today but I left it in my mom's car and she took it to work. TY JANUARY 2, 2008
It's hard for me to put this book into any kind of context since I've never been to Ireland and I don't know anything that ever happened there and I never think about it. One time Margaret Thatcher came to my town and the IRA marched behind her in a parade and no one would look at them or tell me who they were.
A few weeks ago I was falling asleep at a party and trying to tell everyone about Moses and everything Moses did and Michaelangelo's horned Moses, and now here he is, having an important part in ULYSSES.
Book club brought books to a restaurant but we would never just read at a restaurant. I mean I wouldn't. Matt does sometimes. Our books are very attractive, physically. It's day twenty and I have read a hundred pages more than Matt so ULYSSES really is the opposite of MOBY DICK. Also ULYSSES is really catholic and MOBY DICK is really protestant. Matt told a gross fact about James Joyce. TY DECEMBER 18, 2007
Remember when Berneta Haynes said I was a better writer than James Joyce TY DECEMBER 17, 2007
I took the cover off, so I guess we don't match anymore. I want to do a photoshoot. My book is always in my truck, I never read it in there but that's where I want the photoshoot to be. No one knows about this blog. TY DECEMBER 16, 2007
This whole book is about snot and phlegm and urine and an unobnoxious appreciation of the alphabet. A few years ago I read A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN but the only thing I remember about it is when he was trying to make himself a priest and was always subjecting himself to all these tests and there was a line like "the only smell he could never learn to tolerate was the stench of long-standing urine" and I think about that a lot. In one of Brett's best songs he says "I could get used to anything/that is not a talent and I am not bragging" and I think about that lot too. TY DECEMBER 10, 2007
Does everyone feel like they actually wrote every book themselves, there's big wind and fishgods in the same paragraph. I don't feel that way about this book, I'm just saying. It's going to be hard to talk about. Book club is going to a movie tonight. TY DECEMBER 4, 2007
I woke up at 7:30 this morning and started reading ULYSSES. There was a whale on page nine just for us, in the middle of a classic shaving scene. It reminded me that I ought to shave but I still won't do it. Things I usually think about while shaving: everyone in my family, everyone I've ever been friends with, EVAN ALMIGHTY, FRANNY AND ZOOEY, PETER PAN, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, THE SPANISH BIT or whatever, and now, ULYSSES. TY DECEMBER 1, 2007
We're doing it again. This time ULYSSES. This time matching books. This time is the opposite because I have no idea what the book is about but I already have tons of things to say about people named James, James Joyce, and Ulysses. Seventy-one years apart, we're doing them six months apart. TY NOVEMER 28, 2007
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