Break out Mr. Tunney the grocer’s Christmas almanac, clear your schedule for Edwin Hamilton's Christmas pantaloonade and the Christmas pantomime Sinbad the Sailor, it’s time for a twelfth night feast dance with the Morkan Sisters, with the chrism for the christmass: in other words, it’s the WAKE Christmas episode! As we take a break on the reading for the holiday period, Toby spends a little bit of time considering how James Joyce approached Christmas in all four of his major works, through the eyes of wistful schoolboys, red-faced drunken uncles, dreamers and roamers, with quaintly underwhelming gifts, half-hearted sobriety pledges, and epiphanies on mortality. Happy holidays from everyone at WAKE: we hope you get your holly and ivy for him and for Christmas!

This week's chatters: Toby Malone

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

It’s always a treat when your smartest friend can join you for a chat: especially when it's the kind of smartest friend who makes you feel smarter yourself. Yes, award-winning visionary Neil Wechsler is back with us again to read a part of 3.3, roll past the 500 page mark, and to get deep into the weeds on meaning, immersion, expectation, and whether or not it’s actually a bad thing to be pretentious. It’s likely a good thing that we gave ourselves a pass on pretentiousness, because then we immediately get right into name-checking Socrates, Freud, Borges, Albee, Camus, and Lorde as we consider what it looks like as denizens at ‘the middle’ of the Wake. Come listen to our exagmination of the facts “thus being reduced to nothing,” and then, when all is said and done, stop to consider what it all would sound like... underwater.

This week's readers: Neil Wechsler, Toby Malone, TJ Young

Progress: 516 pages complete, 112 pages to go; 82.17% read.

Contextual Notes:

Neil on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wechslerprojects/

Zinzin, the business: https://www.zinzin.com/our-story/our-name/

Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress (1929):

• Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Exagmination_Round_His_Factification_for_Incamination_of_Work_in_Progress
• Open Access full text! https://zehfilardo.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/our-exagmination-round-his-factification-for-incamination-of-work-in-progress-searcheable.pdf
• Add to your library: https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/our-exagmination-round-his-factification-incamination-work-progress/
• Pretend you’ve read it: https://goodreads.com/book/show/59699.James_Joyce_Finnegans_Wake_Our_Exagmination_Round_His_Factification_for_Incamination_of_Work_in_Progress

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

Under a full moon and with a pint of Guinness in hand, WAKE welcomes our very first Dublin-based reader, as correctly-accented Sarah Kane joins Toby and TJ to kick off Chapter 3.3. Sarah tells us all about participating in Bloomsday as a neophyte Joycean (“a lifeguard that can’t swim”), slips into a Joyce fugue state regardless of best laid plans, and reminds us that a cold read is really just what the kids nowadays call Rawdogging. With the glorious Irishness of it all to bring us through, we discuss Joyce reading groups, Sweny’s Pharmacy, Anthony Burgess, and, in a bombshell twist none of you saw coming, TJ's authentic Irish heritage.

This week's readers: Sarah Kane, Toby Malone, TJ Young

Progress: 496 pages complete, 132 pages to go; 78.98% read.

Contextual Notes

Sarah Kane on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloodonyourshoe/

Bloomsday in Dublin: https://www.bloomsdayfestival.ie/

Sweny’s Pharmacy: https://www.sweny.ie/

Sweny’s on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swenyspharmacydublin/

Anthony Burgess’s A Shorter Finnegans Wake: https://www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/a-shorter-finnegans-wake-editing-an-epic/

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!