En Joyce-text, del 6

 

Luck, Penny and Sissy: Fully clothed, we´re born that way.

And throw away a piece of garment every day.

Until half naked at mid year and high noon

we´re on the – ta da – sweet sixteenth of June!

 

Penny: Short glory. And so long a song. A so long song.
From the razor sharp beginning to the dreaming streaming end.

We are all a song, every silent word of us.

The whole damned screeming silence of us.

The holy silence of a sigh.

 

Enter rest of the artists (from all direction, walking slowly, joining the others in a line, facing audience)

 

All (in unison): All of us always coming to the same conclusion in our own labyrinthian ways.

Secret of life is there is no secret. Just life.

Narrator: As the humblest of God´s creatures could readily inform you.

Penny Hope: So don’t stop.

Luck Molligan: Don´t let go.

Sissy Carefree: Hold on.

Apron Lady: Hang in there.

All: Don’t succumb. Be old and bold. Age before nada. Age, age, against the dying of the day. Stage, stage, against the dullness of it all. The lions bloom when we are standing hand in hand

and take a bow. Against the fright of night.

 

Exeunt omnes.


/ r i d å

En Joyce-text, del 5

 

Enter Home Err and Jay-Jay (leap-frogging)

Jay-Jay (panting slightly): Ah, feel the air! La mére!

Home Err: Hearken! I hear Time walking the waves.

Jay-Jay: I can still see them. And the sails, too.

Home: Defending …

Jay-Jay: … the deaf ending.

Home: Was du verlacht wirst du noch dienen.

Jay-Jay: Great. And no need to translate.

Home: Those also serve who only stand and wait.

(they stand holding hands)

Exit Sissy Carefree and Luck Molligan

Enter Dad-A-Loss

 

Dad-A-Loss: Sails, you say! It was father invented them. And the statues coming to life. And the labyrinth. And wings, of course. With wax to glue them on. Father and son a-flight together, flying high, flying low, like an arrow from the bow, and the son so near the sun. Wax melted and, well, he fell. Dead alas!

(turns to the two men holding hands)

Jay-Jay, who are you anyway? Jimmie Juice? Or Johannes Jeep, singer of sleep?

Von der Sirenen Listigkeit we fall like counting sheep and call and weep and stream a moving movie of Meryl Streep to help us not to fall asleep. Exits.

 

Enter Luck Molligan

Luck: A sleep? Perchance to dream, ay, there´s the rub.

Home Err: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow´s the most present you can be.

Jay-Jay: The best present you can receive.

 

Enter Sissy Carefree

Penny: Hallo! We want to sing together, I don´t know, anything together, maybe walk or talk. Do we have a speech together, besiege together, marooned on a beach together?

Luck: We have the hand that rocks the cradle. And the cradle that rocks the hand.

Penny: The tail that wags the dog.

Sissy: Il y a deux choses, mes amis. The destination that wags the voyage. And the voyage that wags the destination.

 

Enter Ben Smackeroonie

Ben: It is a day and a hundred years and a city and a sea and a book that is a novel and a poem and drama and associations and entertainment and excitement surging through your body. Full stop. Exits.


/forts i del 6

En Joyce-text, del 4

Buck: Wasn´t there a Desmond in the book somewhere? Yes, a barrow Desmond has.

Sissy: Desmond has a barrow in the market place.

Luck: Molly is the singer in a band.

Sissy: Ob-la-di ob-la-da, life goes on bra.

Luck: Bra?

Sissy: Yep. Burning of the midnight bra.

 

A thunder backstage. Enter A-Kill-Ease (limping)

A-Kill-Ease: Yes, an arrow he has. And I, I have a narrow escape. He just hits my heel, see. It will soon heal. Exits (limping).

                          

Enter Penny

Penny: Who was that?

Sissy: Just someone from that other book. Don´t worry about it.

Penny: I was just thinking about Marion. How is she doing? And Mary?

Sissy: You know Marion and Robbing Hood got married.

Luck: Molly stays at home and does her pretty face. Her city face.

Penny: As we are criss-crossing the city. The pocketa-pocketa secret life of Walter Mitty city.

Sissy: Zigzagging every nitty gritty bit of it.

Luck: The witty city.

 

Enter mystery lady (wearing colourful apron)

Luck (watches her a sec, then continues): Now I remember. Not Desmond. Dormond. A pub in Dub. Everything in Double Inn is happening twice.

Sissy: Encore!

Luck: Every thing. In Double Inn. Is happening. Twice.

Penny: Have you read the book twice?

Luck: No.

Penny: Once?

Luck: Yes, of course. At least the beginning. (reciting) Stately, plump Buck Mulligan.

Stately? Is he stately or is he doing something in a stately way? Adjective or adverb? Still pondering that one. And that´s how far I´ve got.

And who´s who in the book? Keep getting them mixed up. Is the hero Molly or Buck?

Apron lady (arms akimbo): It´s not Buck and it´s not Bucket, It´s Bookay!

Luck: Oh, sorry. I stand corrected. Mollified.

Apron lady (with a salute to the gallery): Ahoy there, brisk sailors! Exits.


/forts i del 4

En Joyce-text, del 3

 

Enter Luck Molligan

Luck: Well, the sea, the ocean, the blue horizons, we´ve always liked to go there, I suppose. Or do you want an analysis, I mean of that text?

Narrator: If you would like to, yes.
Luck: With a little help from my friends, then.

Enter Penny Hope and Sissy Carefree.
Narrator: I leave you to it. Exits.

Penny: Ulysses is wow, but what can I say? I´m not Anthony Burgess. But I liked the part with the hand. Like a wind caressing my cheek.

Luck: Don´t be cheeky. Every time I say Ulysses, it sounds like “useless”. But that´s me. Exits.

 

Sissy: Makes one think, Penny. Merely a day are you and I. It´s a butterfly book.

Penny: Du bist ein Schmetterling longing to Ireland from a beach in Paris. On the left side.

Sissy: The father and the son and the lonely boy left to perish on a beach.

Penny: There´s a lot of searching for a father in the book. And Shakespeare. His father was John, you know.

Sissy: Yes. Shakespeare´s father, too. John the glover. I glove you dearly, my son.

Penny: And Hamlet´s father? When he saw him he was flabbergasted.

Sissy: Flabberghosted. Can´t look you in the eye. Or feel ya.

Penny (absentmindedly): No, that was his sweetheart.

Sissy: Molly, you mean? Or Gertie MacDowell?

Penny: Gertrud? No, that´s his mother. And the brother of his father married his mother and became his stepfather. Claude the lord.

Sissy: All fathers are flawed. And sons, too. As all fathers are sons.

Penny: Shakespeare was a twin father. With twin plays. Always liked to place a play inside his plays.

Enter Luck Molligan.

Luck: Shakespeare? Hmm, seem to know the name. A bookstore somewhere?

Penny: Well, we´ve always got Paris. Exits.

/forts i del 4

En Joyce-text, del 2

titeln är
Short story betwixt Maternity Strasse and Rue Morgue

och så här går den:

Introibo ad altare Dei.

I’ve always liked to say that.

In the name of Mock Hooligan and all the rest of us.

 

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the show! I’m your ghost tonight. Or narrator, should you prefer.

Amen. Ad altare Dei. Aiming at alter your day.

 

Language, for a start. What you just heard, Latin and English is it? Different tounges? Surely not. There is no such thing. Just put your tongues out all of you. And behold! They all look the same.

Now hearken to this.
(reads from an invisible piece of paper)

 

o dystre Odysseus

din gamle snedseglare

     målet är en

ursäkt för färden

även för oss

     som om vi också

skrivs av en

blind

 

Incomprehensible? From another tounge? Nah. A wee bit wet perhaps from walking the waves. Just (blows on paper) there. That´s better. Now … hearken once again, please.

 

o blue Ulysses

criss-crossing the sea

     the destination is

an excuse for the voyage

also to us

     as if we all are written

by a blind man’s

hand


 /forts i del 3

En Joyce-text, del 1

 

I somras hoppade jag plötsligt in i Ulysses och läste. Jag hade mest läst om den från skoltiden och aldrig tänkt att jag faktiskt skulle läsa den. Men det var en tävling som Irländska ambassaden I Sverige hade utlyst som en del i att fira att det var 100 år sedan Ulysses gavs ut. James Joyce är ju irländare, även om han var i exil när boken skrevs och den trycktes i Shakespeares bokhandel i Paris.

Man fick skriva på valfritt svenska eller engelska men med en svensk twist och det skulle vara en ”short story” som var inspirerad av någon av de tre huvudpersonerna i boken; Leopold Bloom, Molly Bloom eller Stephen Dedalus.

Jag ville göra ett försök. Inte för att jag trodde att jag skulle vinna, utan för att utmaningen var oemotståndlig. Jag är som Pierre de Coubertin, det viktigaste är att deltaga. Jag är som honom i ett annat annat avseende också, han skrev dikter. Tävlade i poesi i OS i Stockholm 1912.

Jag läste den tjocka boken, skrev mitt bidrag på engelska men med svensk twist och skickade in. Gjorde den inte som en novell, det blev mer som en pjäs. Med titeln ”Short story betwixt Maternity Strasse and Rue Morgue”.

Här kan du läsa den, uppdelad på flera inlägg. Se del 2 till 6.