Bloomsday Is Back in Santa Barbara

Bloomsday is back! On Sunday, June 16, at the James Joyce Pub, the award-winning annual salute to famed Irish writer James Joyce returns with spoken-word performances from a host of local actors and writers. New at this year’s event (the third) is a free Irish music concert from The Waymarkers following the readings, mostly drawn from Ulysses, that seemingly forbidding 1922 novel that revolutionized Western literature. The event begins about 5 p.m. and no tickets or reservations are needed.

Returning performers include Santa Barbara Film Festival Executive Director (and Independent writer)  Roger Durling, award-winning local performers Matt Tavainini and Lark Batteau, storyteller Michael Katz, and the (entwined by marriage) poet/writers Chryss Yost and George Yatchisin (another Independent writer). Bloomsday also welcomes new talent to the pub stage, including  actor/producer Bill Egan, TV film and theater veteran Henry Brown, and Santa Barbara actors Rachel Brown and James McCarthy. Local teacher and actual Irish person James Claffey will lend some authenticity as well.

“We’re thrilled to be able to continue what has become a great early-summer tradition,” said co-producer Jim Buckley, himself the author of numerous best-selling nonfiction children’s books. “The response from the literary and performance community continues to be strong, and we hope we get some new fans this year.”

Readers of all sorts are encouraged to attend despite the so-called difficulties of the beautiful text. “Folks who have felt like they should read the book but feared its reputation should come out and hear it spoken in a bar to savor some of its poetry and earthiness,” said co-producer DJ Palladino.

And why June 16? As loyal Joyceans know, the whole novel takes place on June 16, 1904, with chapters reflecting a host of literary styles, as Joyce follows heroes Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, along with Molly Bloom and a cast of hundreds, through a typical day in Dublin. However, Joyce was really trying to encompass all human life into this single day in this single city. Did he succeed? Millions of readers have enjoyed finding out, working and playing their way through the challenging text.

Now a worldwide event in hundreds of cities, Bloomsday began in Joyce’s lifetime as a way to help readers, by humanizing the characters of the book and using Joyce’s expressive, imaginative language to entertain … and to reveal. Santa Barbara’s version of Bloomsday is also a call to action against the horrible trend of book banning occurring nationwide in the United States.

“Incredibly, Ulysses, considered now one of, if not the, most important novel in English, was banned in the United States for almost a decade,” said Buckley. “The battle to free books from such treatment by close-minded, ignorant people continues and we hope Bloomsday is our small contribution to that battle.”

Donations at Bloomsday will support the Santa Barbara Public Library Foundation’s efforts to keep books available for all. Light refreshments will be served, and the James Joyce Pub will offer Happy Hour prices for drinks, including the Irish sacrament of stout, namely the best-pulled pint of Guinness in literary surroundings.

Bloomsday is Sunday, June 16, beginning at 5 p.m. at The James Joyce (513 State St.).