Note: Me in 2025. I cannot remember the assignment (I know I took liberties), but I do remember writing this while listening to the Portishead album ‘Dummy’ on repeat and also experimenting with BeOS … which I even mention in the Critique section. Looking back, I’m fascinated to see how I combined my interest in technology with literature at the time.

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Table of Contents

1. Molly: Re-Entrancy
2. Bloom: Thorough Generality
3. Stephen: Parallelism
4. Critique

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1 - Molly: Re-Entrancy

11 and 10 yes just a few more I suppose he couldnt stitch these himself if he wanted a seamstress he should have married one when he had the chance Josie Powell can sew does that mean I have to smell of his socks enough I have to sleep with his feet lord knows where he walks all day this thread through this needle I will see Boylan today 9 am and still no breakfast where is he down at the Independent I suppose still trying to get Keyess ad everything for a price that cant be paid last night he came home with blood sausage and corn -/8 Kernel Bloom I said Count Virag perhaps 7 and 6 pretty I don’t stick myself O I suppose I do have to do that now myself when Boylan isnt around and Poldy hasnt stuck me in 11 no 6 left and then ill be through with these socks I bought these for him last winter we had a terrible storm stuck home cold as blazes he said and with nothing but no thing to do and there he was going on about atmosphere when at most here it was -5° and no socks for his boots theyll say I dont love him which I do even when he wants nothing from me couldn’t we have another Milly is much better at this than I am into the fabric out of the fabric simple really in and out in and can’t he be here tonight when Boylan comes he could watch me like he watches those sluts sewn up in their imported silk with blue indigo scarves and never before did I see rings that glittered like the stars that night on the shore he said that the light that we see in the heavens are what the stars were years ago and that each brilliant moment was a lifetime pushing to a tiny death in the night Rudy must shine in his mind as he walks to the tram or crosses O’Connell Bridge yes two Keyes and a cross lord I hope he hasnt told him yet what ideas he has 4 once I’d like to see him see his idea to an end not that it would bring in any more money but I suppose he wants his thoughts and I want mine but I dont have to speak my mind even if I dont mind when he does O talk about Parnell and O’Shea touché I say he should look in bed sometimes and see that what he has in it is not so much different our lives could have been different Mrs Josie Bloom or Molly Mulvey singing in the concert halls of Vienna or Rome and the flowers thrown on the stage the sweet sweet smells but names can’t be used since there’s no guarantee theyll stay the same Poldys changed since we first met when his touch felt like silk and he said I tasted like a pear he might taste like a blood sausage or a sheeps trotter for all I know thats what he eats I suppose it could have been the same if I was Molly Mulvey horrid Ms if I had to be called Ms Molly Mulvey bad enough were have a Molly Milly Melly Christmas is what those foreigners say when you buy a pomegranate from their stand on Barnaby street the feel of sticking your fingers inside it and ripping the seeds out of its pulp and its juice and softly bringing its meat to your lips and the sugar sweet sweetness as sure as sucking and the redness that drips onto the sheets not a hole in them that needs sewing he can lie right again in them after Boylan leaves where is he do I leave without him perhaps hell come with some bacon we can put on the fire with toast and the blackberry jam we saved picking berries in the country before Milly before Boylan letting their prickles tickle our hands and he used to lick my fingers clean and dry 3 more stitches with these dirty hands must find that soap he brought home last week when he went to Dignams funeral Mulvey died I suppose and Rudy died and poor Poldy will die 2 but just once before perhaps he can hold me like used to when he showed me the stars and said I tasted like a pear this is his one pair of socks soon theyll be like new again and soon hell be home op_open the door and well go to the concert and Ill watch him look at the girls on stage and hell watch me glance at Boylan and fools as we are well look away from each other I suppose did you realize no one can see inside of you did you realize the world inside belongs to you rocks the last of these damn stitches I suppose he might have called our second daughter Moira sew so soon Boylan and I will meet and yes where will he go when he’s inside me and Ill be inside him somehow yes in his thoughts as he walks around Dublin waiting for him to leave and then reenter our bed if it could be our bed again 1 more time Poldy slip into me instead of these old socks and yes come inside and take off your shoes come nearer yes and free and warm and perhaps we wont go to the concert and finish the final stitch that can make me freely yours

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2 - Bloom: Thorough Generality

Mind that puddle, Bloom. It must have rained last night. The flowers did seem wet when I left the house, but that could have been dew. Condensation from the atmosphere settling on its petals. Cooler in the morning or perhaps it is cooler at night and then warmer in the morning. Feet are wet as well. That tram driver should know not to stop beside a puddle. Did Molly say what she wanted for breakfast? Darn the darn socks, she said. Could the moisture inside my boots repel the water on the street? Wet is wet. Could have the trams stop on elevated platforms. Sloping at an angle of 20 degrees so that the water runs off into the sewers. Oh, my stomach hurts from those sausages and corn. A new world vegetable, they say. My boot is a tiny atmosphere. My feet are exothermic, capillary action draws the sweat from my skin to the leather where it is absorbed. The leather retains my moisture disallowing its expulsion into the greater atmosphere. Little bacteria then grow and feed off my sweat. Must get bacon for breakfast.

Clock tower ringing: one, two … two shillings a strip for bacon is outrageous … three … Dulgacz’s is cheaper, mind you the quality is poorer that Buckley’s: right; four, five and six … eleven years Rudy died … seven, eight, nine. Nine ante meridiem. Latin for before noon. That’s a palindrome: no on. A.M. U.p:up. Two keys and a cross. Nice fellow, that Keyes. Wonder if he’ll accept the advert. Latin for to the green.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on;

Perhaps a nice pork kidney instead browned in butter with a thick slice of black bread with blackberry jam. McIntyre’s could sell bread by the slice: six pence per loaf and 12 slices. Can’t split a pence. Hear it is against the law to defame national currency. So, if McIntyre charges one pence per slice he doubles his sale. Good profit, I say. Might have to buy a loaf in case he does.

Still a good idea in that.

Perhaps a pear for Molly. She does love them. Singing Là ci darem and Love’s Old Sweet Song today. Sweet pear, sweet Molly. Must get her that blouse she saw in Landry’s shop window. Silk. I told her silk came from Chinese worms. Worm shit, she said. O, those sausages! Nine a.m. If I didn’t hear the bells, would it still be nine o’clock? Time must be peculiar to the individual. Nine a.m. here, not even morning in New York City and perhaps tomorrow in China. If I get Keyes’ ad, perhaps I can buy that blouse tomorrow. Would be nice to see her in silk. She could have used it today for the concert. Boylan will be there. Wonder if she would sew his socks.

Bacon: bread: butter: pork kidney? Spicy pig’s blood. Kidneys are filtration systems sifting and shifting the impurities of the body. Religion is the same, generally. Maybe I should say a few Hail Molly’s. Count Virag, she said. Two and four and eight, a shilling and, yes, fine. And she will be my Countessa Marion. Bacon she said. They say Bacon wrote Shakespeare. Must ask Stephen Dedalus.

Eppss cocoa, Molly’s photograph, ashplant, loan repaid, dogs, Mina Purefoy in labor, lame girl at the shore, Dignam’s funeral, metempsychosis. Dearest Papli.

Ow! stomach pain. Bread in French. Black bread and jam. Maj. Brian Tweedy. My sun colored Countess from Gibraltar living on the seashore.

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3 - Stephen: Parallelism

Sun colored blue: moss on stones: inertial me. Morning. Deasy’s plucked. Stay. In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram. Earth-bound I. With a pain in my back, still. When I was; Bloom.

Rue du bac.

The sea will break me under a melon empty sun. Me alone. Rust covered, snot-kissed: sheets. Time, I pawned you and prizes too. Dilly is learning French. Milly Dilly Molly. M.D. Mulligan. At the hospital means it is already after seven. Try teaching that to Cochrane. Pyrrhus Tarentam hockey at ten, sir. Square ditch at Clongowes. Who owes me money? To whom do I owe money.

Trees, Sandycove Harbor, shore, Martello Tower. Brueghal’s Landscape With the

Fallen Stephen. Martello Tower: tin of potted meat. Am I hungry? Ate yesterday. But, then again I don’t know the time. Could be yesterday or could be tomorrow. Ate. Past eight: the sun is about the roof poles. Say, nine then. Nine today/tomorrow/yesterday a.m. Is the concert today?

Bloom wants me to teach his wife Italian. Photographs: cheap memories for the people. I can walk Dublin in my mind. Get up? What was Bloom talking? U.p:up. Piss over side the Tower. Drinking last night. Which? All Pat’s. Pater noster. Sea piss with a splash of portered whisky. Water: not this monsieur, I said. The reigning rain falls atop Dublin. A paralysis of thought within the misty streets. Me, write for the Independent? They miss the meaning of their newspaper. Still.

Me sits here, sock torn, snotkercheif worn, endless fight. She trusts me, the priest. Confess to my pleasure. Confess with my sin. Sinn Fein. Feigning sin. All temporary perspectives of darkness. The darkness melts into day with a sap twisted syrup of life. Absolvo, absolutely. Father, rector, pope, cardinal. Red bird perching on a limb. Songbird: concert. L Boom! Wake! Funeral and mother.

God bless my father and my mother and spare them to me.

Newspaper obituaries read of death by dying. Perpetually dance the cosmos only to stumble. Fall. Remembering thee, O Sion!

Ocean knocks upon the shore. Who is there? Ocean knocks on my body. No answer.

Ocean knocks at my soul. Take me, I say. I will find myself.

Reach perhaps for a cigarette. Is there? No. Must if I get out. Teeth, too.

Sometime.

Yes. Concert. Who there? Ocean. No, Bloom. Bloom and everyone not Bloom. I am not Bloom; I will be there. If Bloom does not come, is he not Bloom? Principles of Identity. I: universe.

Villanelle, ballad, sonnet, free. Fly free above the crust. Bread. Communion.

Dublin town.

Down.

Soft shelled feathers. Goose, geese, gander. Irregular forms. Quite. Mulligan sayed that I payed for the milk before I goed to of Dignam funeral. To bury a man with ‘dig’ in his name. Or, bury one with ‘dead’ in his. Manifestations of naked aggression.

Disconcerting. Chaos of sounds. Fly buzz, wave crash, chirp, wind, echoes rocks: incessant noise.

Buzz, buzz!

Wait. Heaviness. Inertia. Go. Free will. When is will free? A will necessitates a determination. Determined to stay. Will I? Teach her Italian, no. Did he ask? Tasks. Today. Monday. Concert today. Not convincing. Write for the Independent.

Write:teach:learn:wake:sleep:go:stay:leave:end:begin:no:yes:listen:

Hear the bells. Nine. Mine. The day. The life. The will. I will.

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4 - Critique

What is significant to the titles of the three sections?

The three section titles were taken from a Be, Inc. Newsletter (Issue 52, December 4, 1996) article entitled “The S in FS Architecture” by Cyril Meurillon. Be, Inc. of Menlo Park, CA, designs software operating systems for their new machine, the BeBox™. As described in the article, the basis for their File System revolves around their multitasking architecture: the ability to process and communicate many tasks simultaneously with little degradation in speed. This Be architecture resembles the acute thought processing each Molly, Bloom, and Stephen reveal.

What can be interpreted by “Communication, in this case, could be through a pipe or port.”

This resembles the way humans communicate. Non-verbal gestures aside, communication is heavily achieved through verbal expression, whether expressed or internally thought. The pipe or port is the medium through which communication is achieved. The pipe, then, in this case, is the unique mind of each Molly, Bloom, and Stephen.

Is “Re-entrancy” an obvious pun regarding the sexual relationship between Molly, Blazes Boylan, and Bloom?

Yes. So would be “thread-safe,” but it went unused as the author could not envision Molly uttering such a phrase.

Is there a countdown in Molly’s section?

Certainly. The Be specifications say that the node which connects a file to memory is only “freed when the reference count reaches zero.” As Molly counts down the number of stitches needed to mend Bloom’s sock, she is freeing herself from the pleasure she once knew in Boylan. She tries to free herself in order to be taken by Bloom.

Sew?

Penelope weaves; Molly can sew.

Why is the sharp biting voice of Molly not contained in the section?

The author couldn’t recreate it effectively.

Does Molly cite any song lyrics?

Yes, however it came from the 1994 Portishead album ‘Dummy’ track five titled ‘Wandering Star’: “Do you realize…” The author happened to be listening to it at the time he was writing. The author would have liked to include lyrics from songs Molly knew and/or sang, but was unable to uncover such lyrics.

What are Molly, Bloom, and Stephen doing?

Molly is darning one of Bloom’s socks and awaiting Bloom’s return before going to the concert; Bloom is out fetching something for breakfast; Stephen, having quit his teaching job, is somewhat awakening at Martello Tower.

Why organize time like that?

By having each of the characters in their individual space while sharing the communal and universal element of time, the author hoped to demonstrate that while each of their thoughts may be unique to them, they are wildly interconnected. Also, by reversing the chronology from Stephen-Bloom-Molly to Molly-Bloom-Stephen the day structure repeats without being repeated.

What time is it?

In each section, it is shortly before and after nine o’clock in the morning.

What rhyme is it?

Verbal word play is a vital instrument in language. The characters and Joyce enjoy the acoustic signature of words and how proximity, related features, and orthographic representations strengthen the connection between thought and meaning.

Is the author trying to be funny?

With limited success.

What of ‘Thorough Generality’?

If Bloom is to be an Everyman, then in theory he could be thoroughly general. This thoughts while not Bloom-centric do meander through a general scope of time, hunger, feeling, and Molly. Be concluded that their file system needed to “handle a broad variety of file systems.” In Bloom’s own way, he handles aspects of science, politics, human relationship with the same equal generality.

And ‘Parallelism’?

Be recognized that in their file system, piped commands are “often blocked waiting for more data to show up.” Stephen’s thoughts show that his mind outpaces his ability to express them. This idea could also apply to Bloom’s manner of ending thoughts in mid-sentence.

Why did the author chose a rather esoteric computer article on file systems?

It seemed an interesting challenge: neither Bloom, Stephen, Molly, nor Joyce had a relationship with computers, but since the article discussed information storage, retrieval, and compatibility, the author saw similarities in which both machines and people process information.

What is lacking from the sections?

A sense of causal flow and story. The voices tend to ramble without concrete direction. But, in many ways that was the intent. Not to ramble, but to express impulses of thought that built upon associations from previous sentences and the other two characters’ situations.

Did the author make up any names?

Yes. Landry’s is not the shop in which Bloom saw the blouse. Likewise, Principles of Identity is fictitious. Also, the author is uncertain whether or not Asian immigrants lived in Dublin, so the stereotyped use of ‘Melly Christmas’ is perhaps improper. Brueghal’s painting is in fact titled Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, a poem as well by William Carlos Williams. McIntyre’s is not a bakery cited in Ulysses.

How did the author attempt to connect Stephen with his mythic counterpart, Icarus?

Fear of water, the ocean and associates on feathers. Connect bird to song to concert. Rather conventional.

Does the author feel that Stephen sounds depressed and suicidal in his rendition?

Yes. Too much so, in fact. But, Stephen seemed to go in that direction seeing that he has no employment, no connection to family or support (minus his drinking mates), and a grand sense of ambition with little or no motivation to achieve his goals, Stephen continues a self-deprecating existence paralyzed by his surroundings with little hope for escape except through the intelligent imaginations of a broken spirit.

Does the author achieve an effective response to the article in the Molly, Bloom, Stephen voices?

Not really. But, the article was used to seed the voices.

What does it all mean?

The author tried to see what would happen on another morning in the life of Molly, Bloom, and Stephen on the day of Molly’s concert. Molly, looking forward to another Boylan meeting but still in love with Bloom; Bloom, always thinking about himself and Molly and the world if only it could be Bloom-ified; and Stephen, who has no responsibilities of note and is struggling to decide what his future could be. The idea for Molly to be sewing a sock, attempted to show that she is still connected to her husband. As a phallic symbol, it was rather unsuccessful. But, the lack of wearing socks gave Bloom something to think about as he goes about Dublin to get some bacon for breakfast. Stephen had to be shown separately, because although he has connected with Bloom, the author was uncertain whether or not they would keep up their relationship. While, surely Bloom feels a fatherly kinship with Stephen, Stephen appears to be removing himself from life.

Shortcomings?

Molly seems too sex-crazed; Bloom too obsessed; and Stephen too psychotic. Their voices lacked the precise succinct details that Joyce uses to color their thoughts. Without the details, their thoughts seem detached from much personal experience and approach madness.

Any successes?

The author thinks he was able to demonstrate the peculiarities of language and how each of the characters consciously and subconsciously use language to connect their thoughts. A friend who happened to read this laughed, so perhaps some of the humor worked. Yet, not as brightly tuned as Joyce’s.

Although, rue du bac is funny.