Her Scalloped Shore

Notes from the Journal of Steven H. Cullinane, April 1-3, 2005.

Introduction

April 2, 2005, was the day that Pope John Paul II died.

"There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling....

...of the undying snake from chaos hatched,
Whose coils contain the ocean,
Into whose chops with naked sword he springs,
Then in black water, tangled by the reeds,
Battles three days and nights,
To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore...."

-- Robert Graves,
   "To Juan at the Winter Solstice"

ASOCIACIÓN ESPAÑOLA JAMES JOYCE--

XVI Encuentros James Joyce: Estudios Irlandeses (2005). Dña. Anne MacCarthy y Dña. Margarita Estévez Saá reiteran el ofrecimiento expresado en la última Asamblea de organizar los próximos Encuentros en la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, por lo que se acuerda que los XVI Encuentros tendrán lugar en Santiago de Compostela los días 1 y 2 de abril.

Review of The Scallop of Saint James, An Old Pilgrim’s Hoard--

"Most of the essays gathered in this volume find their origin in the 16th Meetings of the Spanish James Joyce Society, held in Santiago de Compostela in April of 2005. In a first success, the editors have organized neatly and coherently the heterogeneous materials that conferences such as the one named usually bring together. In a second editorial move, and as the title of the volume indicates, readers are taken to be pilgrims, their destination being Saint James (Joyce, that is)."

James Joyce at Santiago,
composite photo from
Vicente Risco's
Dedalus in Compostela.
(Log24, Dec. 20, 2003)

Friday, April 1, 2005  12:00 AM

For graphic-novel fans:

The Cruellest Month

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050401-April.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

April O'Neil, Issue #1, January 1993

Those desiring more literary depth
may consult Nick Tosches, Trinities.

Friday, April 1, 2005  11:32 AM

April 1 continued

"In Finnegans Wake, the number 1132 appears
in each chapter in one way or another."
-- noseyflynn.com

Time of this entry -- 11:32:55.

Friday, April 1, 2005  12:00 PM

April 1 at Noon

"Philosophers ponder the idea of identity: what it is to give something a name on Monday and have it respond to that name on Friday."

-- Bernard Holland, C12, N.Y. Times, 5/20/96

From Nov. 24, 2002:

Searched the web for "Joyce and Aquinas" "William T. Noon".  Results 1-5 of about 15:

Dogma
... Dogma, theological" -- entry in the index (paper, not marble) to Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon, SJ, Yale U. Press 1957, 2nd printing 1963, page 162. ...
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-20-dogma.html - 9k 

The Matthias Defense
... Contemplatio: aesthetic joy of, 54-5" -- index to Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon, SJ, Yale University Press, second printing, 1963, page 162. ...
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-22-matthias.html - 6k 

Wag the Dogma
... One economy would be to teach the trivium using only one book -- Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon (Yale, 1957), which ties together philology, logic, and ...
m759.freeservers.com/2001-04-06-wag.html - 6k 

Shining Forth
... Please go away, Paz begged silently.... "De veras! It's so romantic!". -- Let Noon Be Fair William T. Noon, SJ, Chapter 4 of Joyce and Aquinas, Yale University ...
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-15-shining.html - 10k 

Midsummer Eve's Dream
... notions... The quidditas or essence of an angel is the same as its form. (See William T. Noon, SJ, Joyce and Aquinas, Yale, 1957). ...
m759.freeservers.com/1995-06-23-midsummer.html - 12k

See also Monday's entry.

Saturday, April 2, 2005  11:07 AM

Lucky (?) Numbers

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050402-Numbers.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

From Dogma, a link in yesterday's noon entry:

"Sky is high and so am I,
If you're a viper -- a vi-paah."
-- The Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West (1939),
    New Directions paperback, 1969, page 162

"Mystery surrounds the death of young actor River Phoenix.... The actor... was declared dead at 1:51 a.m. PT Sunday. Phoenix died about 50 minutes after collapsing in front of the Viper Room, a new club on the Sunset Strip...."
-- Karen Thomas, USA Today,
    Monday, November 1, 1993

On the night of October 30-31, 1993, also known as Devil's Night, there was a full Hunter's Moon and the Pennsylvania Lottery number was 666.
-- Steven H. Cullinane, 03/20/01

"Do Catholics believe that when you die your soul goes up in the sky? To heaven, if they go to heaven?"
-- Hope of Heaven, by John O'Hara (1938),
    Carroll & Graf paperback, 1985, page 162

Pennsylvania Lottery Daily Number,
April 1, 2005:
666.

Sunday, April 3, 2005  3:26 PM

Wager

Pennsylvania Lottery Daily Number
for yesterday evening,
Saturday, April 2, 2005:

613

Related material:

From 6/13 2004 --

An 8-rayed star:



Another 8-rayed star:

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050403-StPetersSq.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

St. Peter's Square in Rome
 
From 6/13 2003 --

A link to a 2001 First Things essay,

The End of Endings:
"Here is the heart of the matter:
The underwriting of Hebraic–Hellenic literacy, of the normative analogue between divine and mortal acts of creation, was, in the fullest sense, theological. As was the wager (pronounced lost in deconstruction and postmodernism) on ultimate possibilities of accord between sign and sense, between word and meaning, between form and phenomenality. The links are direct between the tautology out of the Burning Bush, that 'I am' which accords to language the privilege of phrasing the identity of God, on the one hand, and the presumptions of concordance, of equivalence, of translatability, which, though imperfect, empower our dictionaries, our syntax, our rhetoric, on the other. That 'I am' has, as it were, at an overwhelming distance, informed all predication. It has spanned the arc between noun and verb, a leap primary to creation and the exercise of creative consciousness in metaphor. Where that fire in the branches has gone out or has been exposed as an optical illusion, the textuality of the world, the agency of the Logos in logic—be it Mosaic, Heraclitean, or Johannine—becomes 'a dead letter.'
That passage bears rereading."

-- Richard John Neuhaus quoting
   George Steiner's Grammars of Creation
   (Yale University Press, April 1, 2001)

 
Postscript

Whether the above notes indicate that James Joyce is a saint-- or, as one of his alter egos' names, Stephen Hero, suggests, a hero who battled Graves's undying serpent-- the reader may decide. Freethinking readers will of course applaud the hero theory. On the other hand, some conservative Catholic readers of Finnegans Wake may feel that Joyce is not the hero but the serpent. Perhaps, like the protagonist of Fritz Leiber's classic "Damnation Morning," he was destined to fight on both sides.

Page created December 29, 2008.