| Tuesday, June 16, 2009 |
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Statue of James Joyce Dublin, Ireland |
SpotlightOn June 16, 1904, Leopold Bloom set out on his own personal day-long odyssey in James Joyce's Ulysses. Joyce patterned his book on Homer's The Odyssey, and Bloom and the Greek hero Odysseus (Ulysses) have similar experiences. It took Joyce some seven years to complete the novel; he worked on it from 1914-1921. The Little Review began to publish it as a serial in 1918 until protesters, outraged by some of the episodes in the story, brought obscenity charges against the editors of the journal. In 1919, the book was banned in England and two years later censors outlawed it in the US. Early in the 1930s, the ruling was reversed. Ulysses is now considered one of the prominent pieces of literature in the English language. Happy Bloomsday!
Quote"I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day."
Question of the DayWhat did clay symbolize in James Joyce's 'Clay'?
It symbolized death.
The primary game that Maria and the girls play is a traditional Irish Halloween game. In its original version, a blindfolded girl would be led to three plates, and would choose one. Choosing the plate with a ring meant that she would soon marry; water meant she would emigrate (probably to America); and soil, or clay, meant she would soon die. In modern times, a prayer book was substituted for the third option, suggesting that the girl would enter a convent....... More
Word of the dayshovel ready
A project is considered shovel ready if it has advanced to the stage that laborers may immediately be employed to start work. The term is used in reference to projects which are candidates for economic stimulus spending: money put into a shovel ready project will have a more immediate impact on the economy than money spent on a project on which a great deal of time must elapse for architecture, zoning, legal considerations or other such factors before labor can be deployed on it.
President Barack Obama used the term to describe projects for his stimulus plan on a Meet the Press interview on December 6th, 2008.
Last week, on June 10, English was supposed to have passed the one-million-word mark, according to this story by the Global Language Monitor. The word neologism, or "new word," was coined at the start of the 19th century, making it a neologism at the time. This week let's take a look at some newer neologisms.
Today's History
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| Valentina Tereshkova |
- Battle of Stoke: marked the tail end of the Wars of the Roses (1487)
- House Divided speech: Abraham Lincoln, as a senatorial candidate, warned that the Union must become either all-slave or all-free (1858)
- Valentina Tereshkova: Soviet cosmonaut became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6 (1963)
Today's Birthdays
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| Phil Mickelson |
- Geronimo (1829-1909): Apache leader
- Barbara McClintock (1902-1992): Nobel Prize winner for discoveries about genetic mobility; also, scientists Julius Plucker (1801-1868), Edward Davy (1806-1885) and Georg Wittig (1897-1987)
- Irving Penn (92): prolific fashion photographer
- Erich Segal (72): author, Love Story; writer Joyce Carol Oates (71) shares this birth date
- Laurie Metcalf (54): Emmy Award-winner for Roseanne; other actors born on this date include Stan Laurel (1890-1965), Joan Van Ark (66), Eddie Cibrian (36) and Missy Peregrym (27)
- Phil Mickelson (39): pro golfer; boxer Roberto Duran (58) shares this birth date
- Tupac Shakur (1971-1996): rapper, 2Pacalypse Now
