Today is Bloomsday: the date, in 1904, in which James Joyce's Ulysses is set. As it happens, that date, like today, is a Thursday.
Ambassador Emer O'Connell and Consul Dominic Berkeley launch the Embassy of Ireland's book giveaway to celebrate Bloomsday 2021. This doesn't relate to a bike ride per se, but I like the photo.
Numerous bike rides are holding Bloomsday-themed bike rides. Some seem to have little more connection to the novel than people cycling in costumes based on clothes of that era: or, at least people's ideas about it. I don't mind that: While I encourage helmet-wearing, I like seeing people crowned with ribboned straw hats astride bikes.
But by the time the novel was published, women's clothing was less voluminous than it was before the bike boom of the 1890s. Bicycling led to hoopskirts and whalebone corsets being replaced by shorter skirts and bloomers. (The latter would be particularly appropriate on "Bloomsday," wouldn't it?) Also, as the sartorial revolution in progress, cyclists were forsaking high-wheelers in favor of "safety" bicycles with two wheels of equal diameter.
So...while I am not against some "artistic license," if you will, I think riding a high-wheeler in a Bloomsbury ride is a bit like showing up for a Woodstock-themed celebration with a "punk" haircut and clothing. Or baking chocolate chips into bagels (hey, I'm a New Yorker) or topping pizzas with, well, almost anything.
OK, this one may have gone over my head. Wouldn't Joyce be streaming from a safety bicycle? Where as punk to me was later than Woodstock. Unless you think that the 50's youth were punk, which may have some logic.
ReplyDeleteRoger—You’re right on all counts. I thought I said as much. I guess I should have made it clearer.
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