Ulysses page-by-page: June 2015

Updated thoughts on an emoji translation of Ulysses, after roughing out the first few pages:

There's still less than 1000 emoji 'words', but creative workarounds can fill the gaps, and searching for these is a good (and usually fun) literary exercise. Don't expect the translations to be readable without paraphrases.

For example:

Milky Way

bento box

tear-off calendar

is a pretty eloquent summary of Joyce's intent-- neatly packing the whole universe into 18 compartments like a bento lunchbox, one for each hour of a single day.

performing arts

turns out to be useful as a verb meaning 'acts like'.

The closest thing to 'Ireland' is another island nation:

Japan

There's no symbol for 'mirror' yet, but we can recycle

optical disc

(For Caliban not seeing his reflection my best-so-far is losing his cellphone reception)

The Japanese roots of

folded hands

make it an ambiguous mix of prayer and thanks and respect, the latter intensified as

person bowing deeply

The only 'body' of water is

water wave

For buying and selling, is it cheating to use this:

currency exchange

Or for "beastly dead", the chilling:

meat on bone

We need to disambiguate mothers, aunts, etc beyond

older woman

I'm looking forward to using

roasted sweet potato

as Bloom's potato, and

Father Christmas

as Father Conmee, and maybe

as "parallax", and

moyai

for statues.

I haven't spotted anything naughtier than

women with bunny ears

so all kinds of sexual euphemisms need to be assigned (the Japanese must have suggestions).

For convenience, major characters probably need dedicated emoji.

imp [Buck Mulligan]
or

horse face [Mulligan 'equine']

person frowning [Stephen???]

people
communications
food-plants-animals
other stuff (clothes, buildings, vehicles, sports, etc)
misc

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[i'm stumped for now how to embed emoji in blogger posts. i tried two custom fonts, but may have missed a step. what's especially frustrating is they display fine in blogger's editor...
ps: hacked workaround using open images]

The practical vocabulary of emoji, formalised as unicode, seems to be growing more expressive by daily leaps and bounds.

It's not just coincidental that more and more joycean motifs are getting their own icons-- we all share the same motivations, as Finnegans Wake tries to prove.

online resources tend to be sorted by nerdy categories, not literary ones. so i've started these category pages, struggling not to overlook anything:

people,
food-plants-animals,
stuff,
misc

old notes:

special/farfetched: potato"🍠" , macintosh, Boylan "👲" , tower"🗼" , sing "🎤" , masturbate "😉" , curses/profanity,

¨ roasted sweet potato

missing: tobacco "🚬" , ad, coffin "💀", grave, library, bookstore "📚" , soap, story, wordplay

random possibilities:

Mulligan's fry "🍳"
hovering man: macintosh?
school: Deasy's, Belvedere, etc
santa: "🎅" Conmee
bowing: asking favor?
satchel: "🎒" schoolchildren, Nestor
ear: eavesdropping, attention, audience
2 men: Mulligan linking SD
man:"👨"
boy: "👦" Patsy
haircut: self-grooming?
ring:
bride:
circus tent: Mirus bazaar
happy raised hand: greets?
restroom: jakes, greenhouse "🚽"
womans clothes, handbag, dress: "👜" "👗"
OK face: "🙆" Lenehan?
no-good face: "🙅" Tisdall Farrell? blind stripling? sailor?
princess: "👸" cavalcade?
person frowning: Simon?? Menton, Cyclops, Corny?
old man: "👴" AE? sailor?
girl: "👧" Gerty, Dilly
dancer: "💃" maybe storytellers?
two women: Katey&Boody, midwives, Sirens?
woman's boots: "👢" Bella,
high heels: "👠" highclass ladies
bunny girl: "👯" prostitutes
man&woman: "👫" (whole range of mostly imaginary relationships?)
kiss: "💏" ditto physical
woman: "👩" Molly, Miss Dunne, Martha Clifford, Mina, Lydia
older woman: "👵" milkwoman, May, Josie?
ebook "📖"
audio clip
video clip
encounter?
pedestrian "🚶"
praying "🙏"
bath "🛀"
children
tram "🚃"

hearts

is there any way to use these as variations on the theme?

(Hades' organ is the heart)

open book

performing arts [fiction]

milky way [macrocosm]

tear-off calendar [microcosm]

man

splashing sweat [trials]
(Greek flag)

sun with face [sunny day]

clock face eight-thirty

European castle [tower]

imp [Buck Mulligan]

kimono [yellow silk dressinggown]

jeans [pants]

haircut [shave]

speech balloon [monolog patter]

smirking face [mocker]

dancer [performing/miming]

performing arts [pretending to be characters]

folded hands (prayer) [priest]

man [Stephen]

person frowning

unamused face