TheFirstSixMonths: Bookish movements- Nora & James Joyce

This was going to be a post without many stories, but a little wandering. Stories just happened. In the midst. 

James Joyce met Nora Barnacle on June 10. Their first walk and date however was towards Ringsend by River Liffe on June 16, 1904. Leopold Bloom's ordinary day is chosen to be June 16. Celine and Jesse meet in Vienna on June 16.

The very erotic letter exchanges (which were auctioned, even) between Nora and Joyce have led to split opinions on whether this date was "chaste". Like the "potential" implications in Celine's Vienna.

Leopold proposed to Molly in Howth.

Howth

"...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then 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. "

Nora started learning French in the anticipation of his move to Paris, and ran away with Joyce. They set up house in mainland Europe in 1905 and got married in 1931. As predicted by his father (based on her surname) she never left him.

Every year Dubliners celebrate the first date as Bloomsday, becoming one with the characters (playing a part or two) and walking the "Ulysses path". At times, a Bloomsday isn't required even.

Stories: Here, here, here, here and here

TheFirstSixMonths: Post travel pictures

Every time I'm in a conference, I see more people carrying their iPads lifting them up for photos. While it might look strange when people do it to beautiful landscapes, it somehow fits the conference room slides. These then are tweeted immediately, and analysed in quick succession. In fact Instagram apart, the biggest reason people use mobile devices to click photos is the inherent shareability. I wonder why camera makers can't really create a good sharing/ software ecosystem on the camera itself. The Wi-Fi camera, the touch screen, the download software on the computer and edit, somehow just don't match up to the instant pleasure of Instagram (or others). Now, whether our lives become fuller because we're on these networks sharing incessantly is a divergent point.

And divergent-ly, I feel, constant sharing has brought out the voyeuristic urges in us. It doesn't necessarily mean something is missing from before. But we are able to check someone else's life out without having to call or meet which perhaps we're not even interested in. Makes it sound shallow, except that observing online images can also be inspiring. I know a thousand (and growing!) photography start-ups that came out of Facebook sharing to begin with. Over exposure can also be cured by mobile/ Internet free vacations. So well, all's not lost, yet.

Going back with or without sharing, I've always held a soft nook for the original Kodak paper-ed pictures. And at the back of my mind, the fact that one day I may print them- once I get to that project, makes me still take the Canon everywhere, and not rely singularly on the phone (I did that excessively with my Nokia N series I owned once for the mere convenience).

Convenience is still important, though I'm also increasingly finding favour with curating and savouring. Pictures that I choose to keep printed in hard-bound old fashioned books- for which by the way there are these fabulous online applications. These take pictures from anywhere- Dropbox, Facebook, Picassa, Your Computer, and put them the way you choose to in delicately designed books for keeps. Of course one does wish to get rid of preset templates and further design flexibility, but it's a start ! The best I still imagine is a black scrap book and typewriter fonts making it an art project. That life is.