So he reads to usfrom something called Ulysses

Many's the moment I spent pondering this mysterious phrase, sitting cross-legged with my back up against the stretched-out gold and brown fabric covering the speakers on my parents' curvy maple stereo cabinet. The record I was listening to is familiar to countless folks around my age and featured on the cover a photograph of a laughing, fat-faced fellow in horn-rimmed spectacles, up to his chin in walnuts. If you're on a PC, you can listen to the actual song here; it's number seven*. (I also recommend "Rat Fink" – not the hit single, but still my personal favorite on the whole album. See how precocious I was in my taste for the esoteric?)

Aaaaanyway. This song has been rolling around in my head again ever since I laid out an announcement for our local Irish Pub's upcoming celebration of Bloomsday, which is happening this year on June 19. Every year I seem to hear about this event only after it's already happened, and then I make a note to myself that by next year's Bloomsday, I will have read Ulysses – for sure this time! And then I promptly forget all about my vow until the next day-after-Bloomsday.

But not this year! This year I finally remembered in time to do it, though I will admit I haven't given myself much time. My copy of the infamous tome is over 1000 pages long, which means I'll have to read 76 pages a day to finish it before the Bloomsday-a-thon. Normally that would be no sweat for me, because I'm a very fast and motivated reader. This is not fast reading, though.

Still, after six weeks of fretting and fussing over my health, I'm looking forward to a new challenge. I invite anyone who's interested to join me – 76 pages a day or bust! Let the reading begin!

* The full quote goes like this (it's a humorous song on the theme of "a letter from camp"): "And the head coach [pause] wants no sissies [pause] so he reads to us from something called Ulysses." As a kid, I thought he was saying, "So he reads to us from (something) All You Lissies." I had no idea what a "lissy" was ... and I still don't know how reading Ulysses would prevent a kid from turning into a sissy. Though based on what little of it I have read, I think I get the general idea.