adventures in nerd-dom (part 2)
hello and welcome to the part 2 of the adventures in the nerd-dom. this is the James Joyce section of our tour, so if you aren't a fan, you might as well stop reading now.
still here? good. the other day we took the DART (train) down to sandycove to see the James Joyce tower and museum. it was COOL! admittedly, i'm a nerd, but it was still cool! but first, a little history on the tower:
after the british no longer needed the tower for military ventures, they decided to lease it out to starving irish writers. enter Oliver St John Gogarty. he started staying there, and he invited his friend James Joyce to come stay as well. MEANWHILE, Joyce was putting the finishing touches on his poem, "The Holy Office", which basically attacked the Dublin literary scene, and accused Gogarty himself of snobbery. Gogarty read this after he invited Joyce, but before he got there. fun times indeed. a few days later, Samuel Trench joined them in staying in the tower. Trench was anglo-irish, and therefore not subject to Joyce's attacks, but had an annoying habit of only speaking in Irish, which irritated Joyce more. one night, Trench had a nightmare about a black panther in the tower, and fired his gun into the fireplace. Gogarty then leapt up, yelled "leave him to me!" and proceeded to shoot all the pots and pans on the shelf above Joyce's bed. more fun. needless to say, Joyce left the tower, and soon left Ireland all together with Nora. the tower was later immortalized in Ulysses, along with Gogarty, who became Buck Mulligan, and Trench, who became Haines. Dedalus of course represents Joyce. SO, if you are still here after that, here are some pictures...
this is the tower. neat huh? as you can see, it definitely looks like a military tower. wouldn't it be cool to live in? i asked about over night stays, but the guy at the desk said that security wouldn't allow it. damn. anyway, moving on...
this is the stairway leading up to the tower. also very cool and narrow and twisty, and i really want to stay here. damn again. also, it's a lot longer than it looks. the tower doesn't look that tall, but you wouldn't know it climbing those stairs. anyway, since this stupid blog thingy can't have more than 5 pictures on one post, i had to pick and choose carefully, so if you want to see more, email me, and i'll send you as many as you want on an individual basis. most of them are really nerdy though. so, that being said, this is probably the most important thing i saw there...
...a book. that's right, a book. but not just any book. no sir. are you sitting down? are you ready? this right here is a first edition of Ulysses. that's right. i know, you're all stunned. number 893 of 1000. crazy. cool. i can't truly believe i saw it myself. rockin'.
anyway, we saw loads of other stuff in the museum, all too cool to describe. then i bought a poster of Joyce from 1904 (the picture, not the poster itself. i wish). so, we were walking back into town, which is quite a nice lovely little seaside town, and it was a nice day, the sun was shining, it was a little windy, but not too bad, and we were passing these kids jumping into the Irish Sea off of rocks, and we thought: "that looks like fun. too bad we don't have our swim trunks" then we realized "hey! we're in europe! we dont need swim trunks! we're guys! we have boxers!" so, we stripped down to our boxers, and jumped in the water. literally. it was really cool. we swam around, it was freezing, and we had fun and talked with some really dirty-mouthed little kids. man, they were dirty-mouthed. so, i didn't get any pictures of us jumping in or anything, because, hey, i was swimming. but, i did take pictures after we were out, and sitting around in our boxers all wet. tim's boxers were white, and so...i won't show ALL the pictures...i'm not running that kind of site. but here are some nice, clean, wholesome after-swim pictures.
ok, i lied, the damn blogger site can only do 4 pictures at a time, not 5. so, this is me and my roommate Adam. i'm the one with the glasses. i know it's hard to tell sometimes. anyway, so as an addendum, i will put up a picture of Adam and Tim after they got out on a new post. but that's it. that will be the whole post. so, you'll have to read this first. ok. that's it. that was the cool trip. we walked back, hem with wet boxers and me commando, and ate at a pub. good food. chicken with cream cheese and potatoes. and guiness. then we took the train back and took showers. it was a good day.
until next time, cheers!
scott
still here? good. the other day we took the DART (train) down to sandycove to see the James Joyce tower and museum. it was COOL! admittedly, i'm a nerd, but it was still cool! but first, a little history on the tower:
after the british no longer needed the tower for military ventures, they decided to lease it out to starving irish writers. enter Oliver St John Gogarty. he started staying there, and he invited his friend James Joyce to come stay as well. MEANWHILE, Joyce was putting the finishing touches on his poem, "The Holy Office", which basically attacked the Dublin literary scene, and accused Gogarty himself of snobbery. Gogarty read this after he invited Joyce, but before he got there. fun times indeed. a few days later, Samuel Trench joined them in staying in the tower. Trench was anglo-irish, and therefore not subject to Joyce's attacks, but had an annoying habit of only speaking in Irish, which irritated Joyce more. one night, Trench had a nightmare about a black panther in the tower, and fired his gun into the fireplace. Gogarty then leapt up, yelled "leave him to me!" and proceeded to shoot all the pots and pans on the shelf above Joyce's bed. more fun. needless to say, Joyce left the tower, and soon left Ireland all together with Nora. the tower was later immortalized in Ulysses, along with Gogarty, who became Buck Mulligan, and Trench, who became Haines. Dedalus of course represents Joyce. SO, if you are still here after that, here are some pictures...
this is the tower. neat huh? as you can see, it definitely looks like a military tower. wouldn't it be cool to live in? i asked about over night stays, but the guy at the desk said that security wouldn't allow it. damn. anyway, moving on...
this is the stairway leading up to the tower. also very cool and narrow and twisty, and i really want to stay here. damn again. also, it's a lot longer than it looks. the tower doesn't look that tall, but you wouldn't know it climbing those stairs. anyway, since this stupid blog thingy can't have more than 5 pictures on one post, i had to pick and choose carefully, so if you want to see more, email me, and i'll send you as many as you want on an individual basis. most of them are really nerdy though. so, that being said, this is probably the most important thing i saw there...
...a book. that's right, a book. but not just any book. no sir. are you sitting down? are you ready? this right here is a first edition of Ulysses. that's right. i know, you're all stunned. number 893 of 1000. crazy. cool. i can't truly believe i saw it myself. rockin'.
anyway, we saw loads of other stuff in the museum, all too cool to describe. then i bought a poster of Joyce from 1904 (the picture, not the poster itself. i wish). so, we were walking back into town, which is quite a nice lovely little seaside town, and it was a nice day, the sun was shining, it was a little windy, but not too bad, and we were passing these kids jumping into the Irish Sea off of rocks, and we thought: "that looks like fun. too bad we don't have our swim trunks" then we realized "hey! we're in europe! we dont need swim trunks! we're guys! we have boxers!" so, we stripped down to our boxers, and jumped in the water. literally. it was really cool. we swam around, it was freezing, and we had fun and talked with some really dirty-mouthed little kids. man, they were dirty-mouthed. so, i didn't get any pictures of us jumping in or anything, because, hey, i was swimming. but, i did take pictures after we were out, and sitting around in our boxers all wet. tim's boxers were white, and so...i won't show ALL the pictures...i'm not running that kind of site. but here are some nice, clean, wholesome after-swim pictures.
ok, i lied, the damn blogger site can only do 4 pictures at a time, not 5. so, this is me and my roommate Adam. i'm the one with the glasses. i know it's hard to tell sometimes. anyway, so as an addendum, i will put up a picture of Adam and Tim after they got out on a new post. but that's it. that will be the whole post. so, you'll have to read this first. ok. that's it. that was the cool trip. we walked back, hem with wet boxers and me commando, and ate at a pub. good food. chicken with cream cheese and potatoes. and guiness. then we took the train back and took showers. it was a good day.
until next time, cheers!
scott
posted by Scott | 12:49 PM
1 Comments:
Well, I thought I was going to have to wait until October to see that much of your skin, but what a pleasant surprise to see it by the Sea! :-)
We'll have to see if the guards can be more flexible about overnights at the tower on our trip down South. Maybe if you bat your eyelashes real nice and I slip them a few Euros.
Until then, love, keep up the good craic and living life at full speed! I love you!
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