Well, first things first: Have you heard of Bloomsday?

Here are some hints: it’s celebrated this Saturday (June 16^th) in countries around the world and this year heralds its 58^th anniversary. Guesses? (Okay, okay, we’re not that great at hints.)

Bloomsday is an annual celebration of the life of James Joyce with emphasis on his august novel Ulysses—the events of which occur on June 16^th, 1904—and the novel’s main character who is also the celebration’s namesake, Leopold Bloom. The original celebration is still reenacted in Dublin by droves of fans who traverse the path of Mr. Bloom across Dublin in horse-drawn carriages and period attire interspersed with live readings, reenactments, and perhaps a bit of drinking.

We here at the Big Bad Book Blog are also big bad book nerds so we’re anxious to do a little celebrating of our own. Luckily Ireland isn’t the only place that celebrates. Sadly, for us at least, most of the places with noteworthy celebrations are further north and east than Austin, like New York and Philadelphia. But perhaps some of you can benefit from such awesome events.

Even if you don’t live in one of the cities that does an all out Joyce-ian celebration, last year there was also a rather ingenious Internet celebration held in the mythical land of Twitter through which followers of @11ysses were encouraged to tweet parts of Ulysses rephrased and reimagined in 140 characters or less.

It’s happening again this year! Would you care to join us at an imaginary Internet Bloomsday gathering? #Ulysses