So one thing led to another, and I found myself sitting in the alcove of a Somerville pub, squished around a table of James Joyce-enthusiasts trying to figure out the etymology of the word "cock." But of course. The group has met every Tuesday since 1997 to deconstruct the incomprehensible, byzantine poetry of Joyce's Finnegans Wake and keeps a blistering pace of 1.5 pages per meeting. After 10 years, they are half-way through the 628-page book. I kid you not. (A few years ago, newcomers to the club insisted the group start from page one again. Then two years later, after those newbies had all dropped out, the veterans skipped back up to where they'd left off originally.)


We drank, we bantered, and we attempted to elucidate Mr. Dubliner's insane prose ("His thunderwords are harbingers of change!") Later, I even regaled the Finnegans' with stories of an evening not too long ago where I'd witnessed prodigious performance-art readings of Joyce's love letters to his wife Nora Barnacle, at another local bar, which involved a dildo being sucked off and ripped out of one (female) reader's unzipped fly. And in conclusion, Boston ain't so bad after all.

P.S. Old English cocc, from medieval Latin coccus; reinforced in Middle English by Old French coq