Bloomsday

As you're planning your upcoming weekend, don't forget to include one of Kansas City's greatest Irish traditions, back for the 12th straight year. It's Bloomsday Books Bloomsday Celebration, and it's back home in Crestwood.

On June 16 and 17 you can celebrate the day Irish literary giant James Joyce sent his protagonist, Leopold Bloom, on a 24 hour odyssey through Dublin's pubs, libraries, museums, newspaper, hospitals and bawdy houses. The party will include the annual marathon reading of Joyce's Ulysses, beginning at noon on Friday and continuing through 9:00 PM, when the infamous Brookside Players will perform Ulysses in Nighttown until 11:00 PM or so. Believe it or not, I've had teeny tiny parts in this epic in the past, and it's a lot of fun. If you'd like to try your hand at a little thespianism, or take a half hour shift in the reading, call Tom at the bookstore and see if there's a spot open.

Though the reading no longer goes all night (ah sure, none of us are as young as we used to be), the Ulysses marathon resumes at 10:00 AM Saturday, June 17, and continues until 1:00 PM. Eddie Delahunt, who himself has spent a fair amount of time wandering Dublin's pubs, libraries, museums, newspaper, hospitals and bawdy houses, will then entertain for a couple hours.

Boulevard Stout will be served while it lasts, and of course you'll be able to shop the city's best book store during the festivities.

Join two of my favorite people in the world, Bloomsday owners Tom and Nancy Shawver and all your friends for this really wonderful tradition. Bloomsday Books, back in the Crestwood Shops at 313 East 55th.