June 16, 2009
Joyce Gets A Literary Handjob (1904)
Fans of James Joyce gather in Dublin and other places to celebrate the most famous handjob in literature. I'm not talking about "Ulysses," in which Leopold Bloom's odyssey around Dublin is set on this day, but Joyce's first date with his future wife, Nora Barnacle, a chambermaid he picked up on the street. As he recounted later in a letter to her, the couple took a walk, and at Ringsend, a small park near the harbor, she "slid your hand down inside my trousers and pulled my shirt softly aside and touched my price with your long tickling fingers and gradually took it all, fat and stiff as it was, into your hand and frigged me slowly until I came off through your fingers, all the time bending over and gazing at me out of your quiet saintlike eyes."
That Joyce would assign the date to his now-classic novel is only one example of his risque sense of humor. When a female fan asked if she could kiss the hand that wrote “Ulysses,” he replied, “No. It did lots of other things, too.”
Also on this day in literary history:
1936: Dorothy Parker awoke to find her husband, screenwriter and drunk Alan Campbell, dead beside her. Later, when someone asked what she could do for her, Parker said, "Get me a new husband." When another visitor accused her of being sensitive, Parker apologized and added, "You can go to the deli and get me a sandwich."
1952: Anne Frank's "Diary of a Young Girl" is published in the United States.
Born today: John Howard Griffin, author, photojournalist, Dallas, Tex., 1920; Katherine Graham, newspaper publisher, New York City, 1917; Erich Segal, novelist, professor, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1937; Joyce Carol Oates, novelist, short story writer, Lockport, N.Y., 1938; Torgny Lindgren, author, poet, playwright, Vasterbotten, Sweden, 1938.
Died: John Ballantyne, publisher, literary agent, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1821; Duboise Heyward, novelist, playwright, poet, Tryon, N.C., 1940.
Quote for the Day: “When you're 50, you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity — but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.” — Joyce Carol Oates, prolific writer, who was born today in 1938
Also from “Writers 365”:
- Last Act for Chekov (1904)
- When the Shift Hits the Fan in Dublin (1907)
- Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein Meet Cute (1907)
- The Love Song of Edith Wharton (1908)
- James Joyce: ‘My Love, My Life, My Star, My Little Strange-Eyed Ireland’ (1909)
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