Ulysses Whiskey x Art

Thank you for the positive energy and support during our first year of this epic journey! It’s been a rollercoaster ride, with trips to Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, Scotland, England, Croatia, Greece, Switzerland and beyond — meeting with so many wonderful people dedicated to their craft and willing to lend some time to our ever-so-slightly eccentric international collaborative art project! Notable highlights included our launch on Bloomsday / June 16th on the roof of the Martello Tower in Sandycove with friends and family, the packed masterclass at Whiskey Live in the RDS, the extraordinary kindness and support from Ally Alpine and his team at The Celtic Whiskey Shop, David McWilliams and the his team at Kilkenomics, my mother Karin and father Paul, who have very carefully been tending to our Clongowes Wood College oak saplings. I am especially proud of the dozens of blog posts we managed to publish this past year on all sorts of insightful, coincidental and often bizarre tapestry of stories that connects Joyce, Ulysses and all of us, as much today as when the novel was first written. Thank you Tereza, Oliver, Dominika, Nina, John, Alex, Sam, Derek, Sean, Gavan, Alexander, Sarah, Karl, Stuart, Jan, Ajit, Tomas, Pavel, Matouš, Darragh, Ladislav, Enda, Bobby, Dan, Marcel, Jamie, Matej, James, Elisa, Stephan, Eoin, Julia, Darko, Konstantin, Mirko, Nathalie-Anne, Daniel, Tom, Donnchadh, Donal, Robert, Barry, Patrick, Sietse, Eoin H., Ben, Ryan and everybody else for your support, encouragement and above all -- for sharing the journey. We look forward to celebrating the publication of Ulysses on Joyce's birthday, February 2nd 2025, and to releasing Ulysses Whiskey x Art, Episode 2 - Nestor on Bloomsday, June 16th 2025. See you there! Best wishes, Paul https://wix.to/sH7knxb

Ulysses Whiskey x Art – Episode 18 – Penelope   Scene: The Bed Hour: - Organ: Flesh Colour: - Symbol: Earth Art: - Technic: Monologue (female) Episode Storyline and Characters The final episode consists of Molly Bloom's thoughts as she lies in bed next to her husband. The episode uses a stream-of-consciousness technique in eight paragraphs and lacks punctuation. Molly thinks about Boylan and Bloom, her past admirers, including Lieutenant Stanley G. Gardner, the events of the day, her childhood in Gibraltar, and her curtailed singing career. She also hints at a lesbian relationship, in her youth, with a childhood friend, Hester Stanhope. These thoughts are occasionally interrupted by distractions, such as a train whistle or the need to urinate. The episode concludes with Molly's remembrance of Bloom's marriage proposal, and of her acceptance: "he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes." https://wix.to/qXs5Qyn

Ulysses Whiskey x Art – Episode 17 – Ithaca   Scene: The House Hour: 2am Organ: Skeleton Colour: - Symbol: Comets Art: Science Technic: Catechism (impersonal) Episode Storyline and Characters Bloom returns home with Stephen, makes him a cup of cocoa, discusses cultural and linguistic differences between them, considers the possibility of publishing Stephen's parable stories, and offers him a place to stay for the night. Stephen refuses Bloom's offer and is ambiguous in response to Bloom's proposal of future meetings. The two men urinate in the backyard, Stephen departs and wanders off into the night, and Bloom goes to bed, where Molly is sleeping. She awakens and questions him about his day. The episode is written in the form of a rigidly organised and "mathematical" catechism of 309 questions and answers, and was reportedly Joyce's favourite episode in the novel. The deep descriptions range from questions of astronomy to the trajectory of urination and include a list of 25 men that purports to be the "preceding series" of Molly's suitors and Bloom's reflections on them. While describing events apparently chosen randomly in ostensibly precise mathematical or scientific terms, the episode is rife with errors made by the undefined narrator, many or most of which are intentional by Joyce. https://wix.to/em42gDi

Ulysses Whiskey x Art – Episode 16 – Eumaeus   Scene: The Shelter Hour: 1am Organ: Nerves Colour: - Symbol: Sailors Art: Navigation Technic: Narrative (old) Episode Storyline and Characters Bloom takes Stephen to a cabman's shelter near Butt Bridge to restore him to his senses. There, they encounter a drunken sailor, D. B. Murphy. The episode is dominated by the motif of confusion and mistaken identity, with Bloom, Stephen and Murphy's identities being repeatedly called into question. The narrative's rambling and laboured style in this episode reflects the protagonists' nervous exhaustion and confusion. https://wix.to/SxoubId

Ulysses Whiskey x Art – Episode 15 – Circe   Scene: The Brothel Hour: 12am Organ: Locomotor apparatus Colour: - Symbol: Whore Art: Magic Technic: Hallucination Episode Storyline and Characters Episode 15 is written as a play script, complete with stage directions. The plot is frequently interrupted by "hallucinations" experienced by Stephen and Bloom—fantastic manifestations of the fears and passions of the two characters. Stephen and his friend Lynch walk into Nighttown, Dublin's red- light district. Bloom pursues them and eventually finds them at Bella Cohen's brothel where, in the company of her workers including Zoe Higgins, Florry Talbot and Kitty Ricketts, he has a series of hallucinations regarding his sexual fetishes, fantasies and transgressions. Bloom is put in the dock to answer charges by a variety of sadistic, accusing women including Mrs Yelverton Barry, Mrs Bellingham and the Hon Mrs Mervyn Talboys. When Bloom witnesses Stephen overpaying in the brothel, he decides to hold onto the rest of Stephen's money for safekeeping. Stephen hallucinates that the rotting cadaver of his mother has risen up from the floor to confront him. Stephen cries Non serviam!, uses his walking stick to smash a chandelier, and flees the room. Bloom quickly pays Bella for the damage, then runs after Stephen. He finds Stephen engaged in an argument with an English soldier, Private Carr, who, after a perceived insult to the King, punches Stephen. The police arrive and the crowd disperses. As Bloom is tending to Stephen, he has a hallucination of Rudy, his deceased son, as an 11-year-old. https://wix.to/kvwkdb4

Ulysses Whiskey x Art – Episode 14 – Oxen of the Sun   Scene: The Hospital Hour: 10pm Organ: Womb Colour: White Symbol: Mothers Art: Medicine Technic: Embryonic development Episode Storyline and Characters Bloom visits the maternity hospital where Mina Purefoy is giving birth, and finally meets Stephen, who has been drinking with his medical student friends and is awaiting the promised arrival of Buck Mulligan. As the only father in the group of men, Bloom is concerned about Mina Purefoy in her labour. He starts thinking about his wife and the births of his two children. He also thinks about the loss of his only ‘heir’, Rudy. The young men become boisterous, and start discussing such topics as fertility, contraception and abortion. There is also a suggestion that Milly, Bloom's daughter, is in a relationship with one of the young men, Bannon. They continue on to a pub to continue drinking, following the successful birth of a son to Mina Purefoy. This chapter is remarkable for Joyce's wordplay, which, among other things, recapitulates the entire history of the English language. After a short incantation, the episode starts with latinate prose, Anglo-Saxon alliteration, and moves on through parodies of, among others, Malory, the King James Bible, Bunyan, Pepys, Defoe, Sterne, Walpole, Gibbon, Dickens, and Carlyle, before concluding in a Joycean version of contemporary slang. The development of the English language in the episode is believed to be aligned with the nine-month gestation period of the foetus in the womb. https://wix.to/zRBqBCU

Ulysses Whiskey x Art – Episode 13 – Nausicaa   Scene: The Rocks Hour: 8pm Organ: Eye, nose Colour: Grey / Blue Symbol: Virgin Art: Painting Technic: Tumescence / Detumescence Episode Storyline and Characters All the action of the episode takes place on the rocks of Sandymount Strand, the shoreline that Stephen visited in Episode 3. A young woman, Gerty MacDowell, is seated on the rocks with her two friends, Cissy Caffrey and Edy Boardman. The girls are taking care of three children, a baby, and four-year-old twins named Tommy and Jacky. Gerty contemplates love, marriage and femininity as night falls. The reader is gradually made aware that Bloom is watching her from a distance. Gerty teases the onlooker by exposing her legs and underwear, and Bloom, in turn, masturbates. Bloom's masturbatory climax is echoed by the fireworks at the nearby bazaar. As Gerty leaves, Bloom realises that she has a lame leg, and believes this is the reason she has been ‘left on the shelf’. After several mental digressions he decides to visit Mina Purefoy at the maternity hospital. It is uncertain how much of the episode is Gerty's thoughts, and how much is Bloom's sexual fantasy. Some believe that the episode is divided into two halves: the first half the highly romanticized viewpoint of Gerty, and the other half that of the older and more realistic Bloom. Joyce himself said, however, that ‘nothing happened between Gerty and Bloom. It all took place in Bloom's imagination’. ‘Nausicaa’ attracted immense notoriety while the book was being published in serial form. It has also attracted great attention from scholars of disability in literature. The style of the first half of the episode borrows from (and parodies) romance magazines and novelettes. https://wix.to/5ZPGhQK

Ulysses Whiskey x Art – Episode 12 – Cyclops   Scene: The Tavern Hour: 5pm Organ: Muscle Colour: - Symbol: Fenian Art: Politics Technic: Gigantism Episode Storyline and Characters This chapter is narrated by an unnamed denizen of Dublin who works as a debt collector. The narrator goes to Barney Kiernan's pub where he meets a character referred to only as "The Citizen". This character is believed to be a satirisation of Michael Cusack, a founder member of the Gaelic Athletic Association. When Leopold Bloom enters the pub, he is berated by the Citizen, who is a fierce Fenian and anti-Semite. The episode ends with Bloom reminding the Citizen that his Saviour was a Jew. As Bloom leaves the pub, the Citizen throws a biscuit tin at Bloom's head, but misses. The chapter is marked by extended tangents made in voices other than that of the unnamed narrator: these include streams of legal jargon, a report of a boxing match, Biblical passages, and elements of Irish mythology. https://wix.to/Em52fct

Ulysses Whiskey x Art – Episode 11 – Sirens   Scene: The Concert Room Hour: 4pm Organ: Ear Colour: - Symbol: Barmaids Art: Music Technic: Fuga per canonem Episode Storyline and Characters In this episode, dominated by motifs of music, Bloom has dinner with Stephen's uncle at the Ormond hotel, while Molly's lover, Blazes Boylan, proceeds to his rendezvous with her. While dining, Bloom listens to the singing of Stephen's father and others, watches the seductive barmaids, and composes a reply to Martha Clifford's letter. https://wix.to/wL8ttI4

Ulysses Whiskey x Art – Episode 10 – Wandering Rocks   Scene: The Streets Hour: 3pm Organ: Blood Colour: - Symbol: Citizens Art: Mechanics Technic: Labyrinth Episode Storyline and Characters In this episode, nineteen short vignettes depict the movements of various characters, major and minor, through the streets of Dublin. The episode begins by following Father Conmee, a Jesuit priest, on his trip north, and ends with an account of the cavalcade of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, William Ward, Earl of Dudley, through the streets, which is encountered by several characters from the novel. https://wix.to/7ArxuCE