London Salons coming in March, April, May…

27.02.12
*DATE UPDATES*
Ulysses pushes forward, opening our minds along the way– but there are other salons coming up…. please confirm your attendance by registering on the Salon website. Also if you are interested in what the Paris Salon group is studying, check out Lizzie Harwood’s blog on our recent work.

· The Sound and the Fury Salon Intensive SUNDAY MARCH 18TH 5-10:00 PM

· The Passion of New Eve Salon study co-facilitated by Dr. E. Welby FEB 29, March 7 & 14:
(two schedule choices: Wednesday evenings 8-10 PM, Thursday afternoons 1-3 PM) See notes below…

· The Iliad with reflections from ChristopherLogue’s War Music Thursday the 19th of April for five consecutive Thursday meetings ( afternoons, 1-3 PM)
I have just facilitated this study in Paris in a five hour intensive discussion; having more time to consider this awesome work will be wonderful! Liane Aukin and I are interested in exploring the world of the Homeric hero and the paradoxes of immortal glory as illuminated in the gorgeous words of both Homer and Logue. If you are interested, use the link to the website to register for this study to start in March.

Upcoming Salons for your calendars’ (email me if interested in these)
· Bleak House by Charles Dickens Salon will commence the week of the 23rd of April—please email me with schedule preferences ( I am currently reserving Wednesday evenings 8-10 PM but would also consider Wednesday or Friday afternoons 1-3 PM).
In the 200th birth year celebration of one of the original writers of social commentary, why not immerse yourself in the work that gave us Esther, Jarndyce, Skimpole, Lady Dedlock, miss Flite, Mr. Guppy and one of the few instances in literature of spontaneous human combustion. This will be a Salon intensive spread over three Sundays at the end of March and 15th of April…contact me if you are interested.

· Richard III
Using the successful formula for the recent Measure for Measure study, we will meet for two consecutive weeks on Sundays, April 22nd & 29th, 7-10 PM to study the play and plan a trip to see the RSC performance in Stratford: immersion in the world of the Bard for the weekend!

On Sunday I had the wonderful opportunity (thanks to a dear friend who is much more on the ball about getting tickets than I am) to hear Henry Goodman and Howard Jacobson speak about and read from Ulysses as part of Jewish Book Week. Many rich thoughts and questions were spurred- and I heard one of my favorite readings of Molly Bloom’s monologue ever—but one that I thought would be applicable to many great reads (as I do realize not everyone in the world is swimming in Ulysses world right now) had to do with Joyce’s celebration of the private self.

We might call this the soul or the interior voice but it is that deeply buried self that may escape censorship and conformity; the social forces that shape the parts of the self that are closer to the surface. To find that self and give it permission to want what it wants, to be what it may be, to explore all possibilities, desires and dark corners is a rare and private thing. Jacobson’s passionate proposal was that Joyce celebrates and advocates for this voice in the person and narration of Leopold Bloom…and that this may allow the reader to find and attend to that voice in themselves. This is an act of courage sometimes as that self may be what speaks against prevailing attitudes of discrimination or small-mindedness or all the forms of narrowness we inhabit as the quotidian wears us into thoughtlessness; Jacobson’s example was Bloom’s confrontation with the Citizen in what are some of my favorite lines of the book.

–But its no use, says he, Force hatred, history, all that. That’s not a life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everyone knows that it’s the very opposite of that that is really life.
–What? Says Alf.
–Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred.

What is astonishing to me about this passage is this is not a quiet conversation between friends; Bloom says this in the face of the Citizen who is vilifying Bloom in front of a group of drunken men who are bearing down on Bloom, accusing him of being an outsider, one who does not belong…and yet he can say something so lucid and authentic. I hope you are reading something that opens up your quiet self.

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