A performance of Wandering Rocks on Twitter, and a commentary on both. Created with Ian McCarthy.
I do not like Twitter, the micro-blogging service that allows users to send short (SMS-sized) text-based updates that are displayed publicly and shared with friends social-network style.
How a broken Twitter adaption of James Joyce’s novel reveals the secret of Bloomsday
Today is Bloomsday, a folk holiday adopted to celebrate the life and work of the Irish writer James Joyce, in particular his 1922 novel Ulysses. The name derives from the book’s protagonist, Leopold Bloom, one of the Dubliners the book follows through the day of June 16, 1904. First celebrated mere years after the novel’s publication, Bloomsday festivities have been… read more
Reflections on Twittering Rocks
In 2007, Ian McCarthy and I launched Twittering Rocks, a live performance of the central “Wandering Rocks” chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses, which we executed every Bloomsday (that’s today, June 16) from 2007 through 2011. Last year, due to a change in the Twitter API (the move to OAuth, which requires that all users authorize applications rather than applications passing… read more
Prepare now for Bloomsday tomorrow
It’s hard to believe, but tomorrow will mark the fifth time Ian McCarthy and I will execute our Bloomsday on Twitter performance “Twittering Rocks.” (For more information, read here and here.) New this year: thanks to @francophony, you can follow all 50+ Ulysses characters via this convenient list. When we first started doing this in 2007, Twitter was still a… read more
Another reading of Ulysses on Twitter
Since 2007, Ian McCarthy and I have performed an act we call Twittering Rocks on June 16. It’s a day otherwise known as Bloomsday, the day on which the events of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses take place. Our rendition focuses on the central chapter of the book, Wandering Rocks, in which many of the novel’s characters encounter each other as… read more
Twitter and Subtlety
In June 2007, Ian McCarthy and I started performing Wandering Rocks on Twitter each Bloomsday. My original explanation of our project began with the phrase “I do not like Twitter.” I hadn’t realized it until today, but back in June (almost exactly two years after our first effort), my name appeared on a list of 100 Educators to Follow on… read more
The Unseen Power of Google's Malware Detection
I often worry about the consequences of what Siva Vaidhyanathan calls Googlization, the way Google is changing and disrupting the creation and dissemination of ideas. I’ve resisted using Google services like Gmail and Google Docs, despite their popularity and, in some cases, their convenience. I’ve mostly been disinterested in allowing Google to mine and profit from my information, but this… read more
Jane Austen on Facebook
In the vein of Hamlet in Facebook, here is Austenbook, a version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in Facebook News Feed format. Like Hamlet in Facebook, Austenbook is a hypothetical adaptation of literature for social media; it adds the look and feel of a newsfeed, but the latter’s writing isn’t as snappy as the former. Worse, the addition of… read more
Hamlet on Facebook
Ian McCarthy just showed me I was happy to learn of Sarah Schmelling’s version of Hamlet in Facebook newsfeed form. You can read it over at McSweeney’s. Given my interest in Facebook and in adapting literature for the computer, I found it particularly nice to see how Schmelling’s Hamlet made deft use of the conventions of Facebook news feeds in… read more
A reprise of the central chapter of Ulysses, performed on Twitter
Last year, Ian McCarthy and I puppeted over 50 characters from the Wandering Rocks chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses on the microblogging platform Twitter. We’re planning a reprise for this year, including much more notice than we gave in 2007 (Bloomsday is June 16). You might want to consult the original announcement and abstract of the project. It includes links… read more