Just Finished Ulysses!

Posted on July 24, 2025 by admin

Cover of the first edition of UlyssesThis was my third attempt to get through this book. In the past, I liked what I had read, I appreciated the language, the philosophical, literary, mythological, and religious allusions, but I seemed to get lost – a lot. I think it was the multiple voices all going in the same paragraphs and chapters. I know that it is like the Everest of fiction and very important, but after a first couple of early attempts, I decided I am not a mountain climber either.

One of my motivations for getting through it was that I visited Dublin a couple times over the last year – once on business, the other for vacation. I met the docent, PJ Murphy, in Sweny’s – the pharmacy in the book that is an actual place. He is said to have read it 70 times and holds readings there of Ulysses and other Joyce works there weekly. I had a great time there and meeting PJ was amazing: he is a great story teller, sings songs in English and Irish, plays the guitar, and genuinely loves this work. I had given up on the book years ago and now I had new motivation. If you are ever in Dublin, you have to go to Sweny’s for a bar of lemon soap!

There was some ironically different things that I did this time around. Ironic because I work in a teaching and learning center and we have been passing around an article that says that there is no cognitive difference between reading a book and hearing it on tape. I have a physical, annotated edition of this book, but I didn’t use it. I used a version on my Kindle. I would open that up and set it on the coffee table and read it while playing the RTE Ulysses: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list… Listening to that play list while reading along helped me focus (I am getting older) and to sort out the voices and people in the narrative. It was a huge help. I really enjoyed it and got so much more out of it. Also, it really helped me think about how Joyce was editing the work (and how others edited it) because of the differences between the different editions. Eventually I am going to go back with the annotated edition and learn more about it, but there is a lot to be said to just letting the text and the language work its magic on its own. It was like a sprint through a beautiful country side and now I want to go back and meander.

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Review: The Boy and the Heater!!!!

Posted on March 27, 2025 by admin

Cover of the zine The Boy and the HeaterI just read the zine called “The Boy and the Heater!!!!” It is by up-and-coming zinester “hanbuckogo!!” I got this for my birthday from the author, my co-worker’s son. It is the best zine I have read all year and I highly recommend it. I was on the edge of my seat: I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me – it will be the feel good zine of the Spring. It is a story as old as time: boy finds dog, boy loses dog, boy finds dog again: except this time, the dog is actually a heater. This brings up the question – who is the hero of this journey? Is it the boy? Is it the heater? Why is the boy nameless? Maybe because we are all the boy.  I will leave these mysteries for other readers or literary critics to solve later. The boy loves the heater, but the father does not. The extensive use of exclamation points throughout the work only increases the drama. The father throws the heater out! Does the boy find the heater again? Are the problems between the boy and the father resolved? No spoiler alerts here. I will let, you, the reader, discover this journey for yourself.

Note: This zine came with a FREE button. I was impressed but I promise it did not sway this review.

This is an entry for the The 10th Annual Washington State Zine Contest.

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Turquoise Laughter and Poems for Judy

Posted on September 2, 2024 by admin

I just finiThe cover of Jim Cain's book, Turquoise Laughter. shed editing a book of my father’s poetry – it is an expanded version of his chapbook “Turquoise Laughter” – it is available at Lulu.com. I love the poems in this book, but it is hard to be objective about your father’s poetry! I was so fortunate to grow up in a house where language, story-telling, song and poetry was so valued.

“This collection of poetry, by artist and educator James D. Cain, is a heartfelt celebration of life, relationships, and the natural world, particularly the enchanting landscape of California’s Central Coast. Rooted in a deep spiritual connection to nature, these poems explore the sacredness of the earth, the divine in everyday moments, and the profound beauty found in both human connections and the environment. The poems also pay tribute to an extraordinary relationship and marriage, reflecting the intertwining of love, spirituality, and a reverence for the natural world.”

It was also difficult to edit this book because as his son, I was actually there on the beach back in the 60s and 70s when he wrote some of these poems. I remember playing in the sand at Pismo Beach when he read me a poem he had written about seagulls – I was 6 of 7 I think. I told him it was nice but I prefered his pelican poem better (What a lovely bird is the pelican/ His beak can hold more than his belly can/ He can hold in his beak/ More than he can eat in a week / and I don’t know how the helican!) He may not have written that one. He told me to go play in the water. But this is a very special collection. I am hoping to be down on the Central Coast of California for some poetry readings with him soon. Watch this space.

CC-by Monica Murren, 2019

 

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Ella Young Remembered: Interviews by James D. Cain

Posted on April 13, 2024 by admin

Cover of the boo "Ella Young Remembered" interviews by James D. Cain.Exciting news! My dad’s book is finally out:
Ella Young Remembered: Interviews by James D. Cain in paperback. The book is from interviews my dad recorded in the 60s and transcribed by the indefatigable Linda Rosewood. This book is being sold to support the work of the Tulsk Productions which has created radio plays for RTE on Ella Young and is currently working on and raising money for a film.

It is also available in a Kindle Edition (ebook).

From the back of the book:
“Ella Young immigrated to the United States in 1925 at the age of 58, disillusioned by Ireland’s civil war. In America she found a revitalizing natural beauty and a wide circle of friends among the artists and bohemians of the mid-century.
Through her stories, beliefs, and poetry, she restored people’s connection with the sacred in nature. She taught that the land holds spirits, that you can talk to a mountain, and that humans are part of the planet, not here to dominate it. This connection of ecological consciousness to daily life was Ella’s wisdom for her time and ours.
Despite her influence and timely message, very little documentary evidence of Young’s life exists. Ten years after her death in 1956, historian James Cain interviewed six of Young’s friends, recording first-hand memories. Ella Young Remembered makes the transcripts of these interviews available for the first time.”

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Ella Young: Halcyon Days

Posted on October 22, 2022 by admin
Image of Ella Young

Ella Young by Ansel Adams

I got this email from Dorothea McDowell: if you are interested in Ella Young, Irish American history, GLBT history in America, or from the California Central Coast, you have to at least take a look at this project. Dorothea’s previous work captures the history and the poetic dimension of the life of Ella Young. And of course, I want to encourage you to donate something because every donation no matter how small will help move this project forward. Thanks!

Hello friends,

You are receiving this email because you and I have a connection to poet, storyteller, and mystic Ella Young. You have most likely helped me in my research into Ella Young for my book, Ella Young and Her World, or for a radio play produced for RTE in 2020 The Morrigan, or perhaps you have assisted as part of our current project, Halcyon Days, which will tell the story of Ella’s life and influence in America.

You can listen to The Morrigan for free. If you haven’t heard it in a while, give it a listen. It’s really quite good.

Under the name Tulsk Productions, the same team are working with me on Halcyon Days, about Ella’s life in America and her enduring cultural influence. This time, we will produce a limited-series podcast, available online, and hopefully broadcast in Ireland and the States. Eventually, we hope to raise enough money to make a film.

For now, we are raising money for the audio program. Have you seen our website at EllaYoung.org? We also have a short video on YouTube about the project.

In November, I’m traveling to California with our producer Linda Rosewood. (We’re funding the trip ourselves.)

Linda may have been in touch with you already. She lives in Ireland, but is a native Californian. Linda is our liaison to all things related to Ella Young in America. She has been finding new friends and grant writing opportunities.

Through her contacts, she has arranged for me to visit the redwood grove where Ella’s ashes were scattered. You can imagine what this pilgrimage will mean to me. We will also be visiting Ella’s home in Oceano and the settlement of Halcyon.

My dates in California are November 13 to 20. If you would like to meet up, please let me know.

I have one request. Will you visit our website, share it with your friends, and consider making a small donation to support Halcyon Days?

This time of year many charities need your support. But right now, even $1 or $5 donated before my California trip will have a big impact. Because I will be meeting with funding organizations, if we can show many individual supporters, they know that their contribution will have a bigger impact.

Your donation is tax-deductible in the US because we have fiscal sponsorship by the GLBT Historical Society of San Francisco. Clicking the “donate” button on EllaYoung.org will take you to their site.

Donate to Ella Young / Halcyon Days.

Even if you can’t make a donation now, I hope that you don’t mind if you receive an email from me now and then updating you on our progress. If you’d rather not hear from me, just let me know with an email reply.

Is mise le meas / Sincerely yours,

Dorothea McDowell

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The Morrigan – A Radio Play about Ella Young

Posted on October 13, 2021 by admin
A photo of Ella Young by Ansel Adams

Ella Young, Oceano, CA

The Irish branch of the organization, Women in Film and Television International, had one of their board members, Marissa Aroy, direct a play based on a biography of Ella Young, Irish poet, revolutionary, and mythologist, written by Dorothea McDowell (the script was written by Daniel Brennan). The play explored her life in Ireland up to the time of the Easter Uprising. They will be working on another play about her later life in California where she taught at UC Berkeley for a while, lived on the Central Coast and knew people like Gavin Arthur, Ansel Adams, Robinson Jeffers and many other artists and writers. Dorothea contacted me about my father’s research into Ella Young’s life. I have posted links to that research here before but I will post them again and a link to a recording of the last play in the comments below. Here is the announcement of the play from Dec. 2020: https://wft.ie/radio-play-directed-by-wft-ireland-board-member-marissa-aroy/.

The recording of the radio play is here on Archive.Org.

This is a link to some of my dad’s research here on this blog.

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A Very Short Trip in a Driverless Car

Posted on September 20, 2021 by admin

I am pretty excited about this. The Amsterdam Quarterly just published my short story “A Very Short Trip in a Driverless Car” in their issue on “The Future” – it is a satire on our over-reliance on technology and AI. This is also a rare dovetailing of my literary and my work in education technology. 

Geoffrey B. Cain – A Very Short Trip in a Driverless Car

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Aviya Kushner’s Wolf Lamb Bomb

Posted on June 29, 2021 by admin

The cover of Aviya Kushner's book Wolf Lamb BombI just finished Aviya Kushner’s new book of poetry Wolf Lamb Bomb (Orison Books, 2021). I was so taken with her book The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible (Spiegel & Grau / Penguin Random House, 2015) that I pre-ordered her book back in January. The Grammar of God is a book about her relationship to Hebrew and the scriptures while living in a country with a long history of translations of the scriptures read by non-Hebrew reading people. As convoluted as I made that sentence, The Grammar of God demonstrates Kushner’s love of language at every turn, so I was very excited by this book of poetry. I have written previously on The Grammar of God on my education blog Brainstorm in Progress.

I read Wolf Lamb Bomb as a poetic response to 9/11, the rise of anti-Semitism, and the current violence in Israel. It is a very contemporary book, but unfortunately, this book could be situated in nearly any generation. It faces big issues through an intimate conversation between the poet and the prophet.  The whole book is a gem, I read it in one sitting, which is not how I do things: I am more of a ruminator. It is 68 pages with notes linking poems and lines back to Isaiah at the end.

For myself, there is so much packed into this little book – which is one of the purposes of poetry. It gives you everything that the headlines have to leave out. I particularly liked the poem “Shard” because throughout reading the book, I felt like this poem really brought the poet and the prophet together. The poem “Ancient Hebrew” is a funny look at language and how changing one letter affords multiple meanings, and it is a look back at her book The Grammar of God.

All while I was reading her book, I kept going back in my mind to the book of Isaiah and how much influence the book has had on poetry: in my own reading in English Lit, I have Milton, Matthew Arnold (esp. his criticism), Whitman, Yeats, T.S. Eliot and on up through Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. I am sure there are many more connections.

And here’s how I judge art: art is good art if it leads you back to great art or inspires its creation. So yes, I have to go back and read the Book of Isaiah again. But it is not that simple! What translation? At 60, do I finally break down and learn to read Hebrew? I am still working on English, and I was born speaking English! If you want to know what non-Hebrew readers are up against, just read the “Lilith” article in Wikipedia: the variations in translation and mistranslation are staggering. Fortunately, Kushner’s Grammar of God has some recommendations!

 

 

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Conversations about Ella Young: My Father’s Research

Posted on January 31, 2019 by admin
Photo of Ella Young by Edward Weston

Ella Young (Wikipedia)

My father, Jim Cain, did some research for a possible book on the Irish poet and story-teller, Ella Young back in 1966. Ella Young was from Ireland but made her home on the Central Coast of California where my family also grew up. In the course of my dad’s research, he was able to interview some very remarkable people including the son of a U.S. President, Gavin Arthur, who decided to live in the Nipomo dunes with other artists as a “Dunite.” He also had a chance to meet with the photographer Ansel Adams. These recordings are out there in the literature (distributed by others) with no attribution. They are cited correctly at the Dunes Center website but that page link is broken on the main site (it can still be found through a Google search). These recordings should be out there at historical sites and in academia, freely available for those who want to know or research the people and that time – they just need to be properly cited.

NOTE: I will be adding to this post after I interview my father on Feb. 16, 2018

Conversations about Ella Young

Update: The recordings are now uploaded to Archive.Org – they include interviews with Ansel Adams, Gavin Arthur and locals who knew Ella Young.

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Song of Granite

Posted on September 30, 2018 by admin

Back in January, I went to go see “Song of Granite” which was directed by Pat Collins and starred Michael O’Chonfhlaola, Macdara Ó Fátharta, and Colm Seoighe among others. A great cast! It is a wonderful film – it is about the Irish singer, Joe Heaney, who sang in the a capella sean nos tradition of Western Ireland. It is a really good movie. It has a beautifully paced, fragmented story that is necessary to describe this enigmatic person. My young cousin, Colm Seoighe, plays Heaney as a boy and sings and dances beautifully – we are all looking forward to great things from this one – his singing and dancing is obviously from the heart. Gorgeous!

You have to see this film. It is in black and white, and my sister, Shannon O’Donnell, said that this was good because it rescues it from being a postcard from the West of Ireland. The film connects us with nature: the cold, the wild life, the peat and the granite. Poetry and music become forces of nature just barely contained by Heaney. The music becomes as real and tactile as the granite fences he mends.

The movie speaks to our capacity for poetry and art. Some of my favorite moments are when Heaney tries to describe what it is like to “get” a song – we have to grow to contain it, much like we have to grow for this movie. 

Song of Granite is now available on DVD or free on Amazon Prime. 

 

 

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