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Ron Hale-Evans
rwhe@ludism.org
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All a long the riverrun, Howth Castle kept the view
Last night, around this time (dark and a half in the morning), I finished Finnegans Wake. Actually, you can't finish the book, so I lapped it. LAP = ALP = Anna Livia Plurabella = Great Mother Goddess = River Liffey (Livia), the riverrun in the famous circular sentence that begins on the last page of the Wake and ends on the first:
A way a lone a last a loved a long the
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
I've been reading Finnegans Wake on and off since about 1985, more on than off. I stopped years ago about 2/3 through, but this time dug up my old copy, and my trusty Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, and plowed to the end and back again. Bigod (Shem and Shaun), this is forking nectarnal stuff. Don't let anyone tell you it's nonsense; those are their own limitations speaking. There is more meaning packed into some sentences of the Wake than in whole pages of other books, and I intend to prove it. But more about that later.
So whence the impetus to lap the Wake, and whence the impetus to blog, since the last time I did so (it says here) was 25 April? Well, dear friends, I have been writing a book since then, and I'm just about done, so I have some spare time. The book is called Mind Performance Hacks: Tips and Tricks for Becoming a Better Thinker, and it's a more "practical" sequel to the popular Mind Hacks published by geek favourite O'Reilly. I got the gig when the Mentat Wiki suddenly started getting lots of hits due to a mention in 43 Folders. If you like the Mentat Wiki, you will heart Mind Performance Hacks.
One of the hacks in my books has to do with learning to communicate via portmanteaux and neologisms as Joyce did in Finnegans Wake, so that stimulated me to peruse it again, and then, as I said, this sudden free time sealed the meal.
I believe it was yesterday also that I accidentally learned my book already has an ISBN number and is listed in the catalogues of some online booksellers. The ISBN is 0596101538, and it's listed for publication in December 2005. (Unfortunately, it will really be published a little later than that.) Check out my placeholder pages below! If you're reading this after the book is published, you can go to Amazon and browse it online. O'Reilly will also have a page for the book containing PDFs of a few complete sample hacks, but it's not up yet.
Whoops, B&N has it as Mental Performance Hacks. That's the old title.
Anyway, hard to believe my book is coming together. At times it seemed incompletable, but now there are mutterings of a sequel if the book does well. Just gotta make a few last editorial changes, negotiate illustrations and layout with Production, and coax a few final efforts from the friends and strangers I shanghaied into contributing a non-Ron hack here and there. (You know who you are, and I have your phone numbers.)
And oh yeah, I'm starting a Finnegans Wake reading group in the Seattle area, tentatively called Allforabit Funferall, so if you're interested in that, or in getting your copy of Mind Performance Hacks signed or something, drop me a line at rwhe@ludism.org.
Golly, I'm almost a real writer now like my hero James Joyce, except he's... better. Two wriders were approaching, and thunder began to bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronn- tuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk...
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