Stephen Colbert Reads From Ulysses in Vancouver

During the Olympics, Stephen Colbert and I switched places (he came to Vancouver to tape during the Olympics, while I was in New York finding Finnegans Wake mosaics) but that he brought Ulysses to my city!

At the Irish House downtown, he asked the crowd "Who wants to celebrate Irish culture?" After cheers from the audience, he pulled out a copy of Ulysses and began reading. My favourite part is when he tells them to "get comfortable, this is going to take a little while" and, after he's skipped to the end and read the "yes I said yes I will Yes." he asks the crowd to "break off into discussion groups". Skip to 1.39 in the video below - the sound quality is pretty poor, but Colbert is hilarious!

Finnegans Wake in the New York Subway

In February, my roommate Angie and I went to New York to escape the Vancouver Olympics and also my Joyce thesis. Coming out of the subway station at Bryant Park near Times Square, we saw this quote from Finnegans Wake tiled into the wall.

The text, from Chapter I section 8, reads "Tellmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!"
- Finnegans Wake p. 216