Today we went on romping and rhombing with Burrus and Caseous, with lady Margareen melting into chat. If you start with discussing cheese flavours and margarine colours, you are bound to end up talking about the strange and downright cheesy flavours of quarks. Well, well, tops down and bottoms up!

When Burrus and Caseous entered the chat, we started sharing our own butter and cheese stories. They were full of adventure, love and chthonic horror. The drinks to wash down these tales happened to be tea, pet-nat, barolo and gazpacho. Oh, fermentation with a thousand faces! Art by Linda Lotiel

Still doing the Quiz, we've reached the land of Butter and Cheese, doubles doubling all the time. Somehow Joyce knew that Hormuz and Hungary would be in the news at the time of our reading. The current matrix is infinitely entertaining in its puzzling doubles. Not only Joyce can plays these games!

Would you rather turn to stone and stop caring or become a tree and keep growing, feeling the pain of the world? Will Nuvoletta's tears wash away the pain? Will the dusk descend upon you bringing a sense of peace? To sleep, perchance to dream, in the irony of the stars. Art by Linda Lotiel

As the tale of the Mookse and the Gripes was coming to an end, the ebb and flow of watery associations brought Virginia Woolf. Sadly, she ended her life in a river, with stones in her pockets. Now, thanks to our Matrix Builder @augustinealoysius.bsky.social, we hear her voice in the waves of words.

Arguments, disputes, quarrels never end. Dogmas clash, theories slash, ideas fight to cancel one another. Schisms ripen, chasms deepen. Meanwhile, up there, Nuvoletta is trying to breathe some sense into the world. But of course, the Mookse and the Gripes don't look up. Art by Linda Lotiel

Today the enemy launched a thousand missiles upon Ukraine. Think about it. In the world, where beauty is fragile and life struggles to survive, there are those who sow destruction. Well, they'll reap the harvest they deserve, wouldn't you say, Dr Faustus? Observe the matrix of our last meeting.

Habemus papas - so many popes - more popes than we know what to do with. Good thing they come with their own wine press. Let's get spiritual! More Mookse-and-Gripes fermentation to come. Art by Linda Lotiel

The Mookse and the Gripes enter the chat. And about a dozen Popes with them. Or through them. And then straight into the wine-press where time is fermenting space. In other words, we've had a great meeting today. The matrix is as always by @augustinealoysius.bsky.social

The eagles are coming, he cried. No, wait. Wrong book, these are hegels. Their season is upon us. My sincere Mitleid. Art by Linda Lotiel

Question 11 is poetic, but the answer is transmitted on the academic wavelength - until other stations interrupt it. Every Talis seeks its Qualis, while Joyce meets Proust, and Time drinks Space, wiping its whistle afterwards. Our guest was once again @kenjihayakawa.com, bringing Hegelian gifts.

It's February 24: we have lived through 4 years of the full-scale invasion of Russian orcs into Ukraine. 4 years of the nightmare of history. And it is not over. Our FW group can only exist due to the heroism of the Ukrainian army. We thank those who fight. We thank those who stand with Ukraine.

How many times in Question&Answer 10 of the Quiz does Joyce use the word "love" and its equivalents, derivatives and other loveribboned coinages? What is all this sudden textual love-making about? Is there a method in his love madness? Answer: In th' amourlight, O my darling. Art by Linda Lotiel

The language of flowers, do you speak it? And the langue of fairy-tales? How about a female lingua? Or the lingo of soulful chocolates and Turkish delights? We've had an amazing session on Quiz Question 10, with a new member, Leonie, and a very special guest, Peter Quadrino. Observe the matrices!

Frosts and snows in Ukraine may feel like Biblical climate, not in terms of temperature but in terms of divine wrath. And yet narratives will be overridden and the snow will melt. With a little lore of love to live. Art by Linda Lotiel

On Joyce's birthday, one can ponder improbable things, like ineluctable modalities or sighs in shockings. Or one might grab a Guinness and watch an interview that Igor, our very own Master Matrix Builder, gave to @laughtears.bsky.social, talking Joyce and beyond: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJul...

Those Shandon bells were fun to put on the mindmap. The echoes of their chimes are all over the place, and the place is all over the map, and the map is all about the bells. Art by Linda Lotiel

We've covered 5 questions of the Quiz today - and what intriguing questions they were, not to mention the answers. And our matrix this time is a... Calendar! A real Wakean calendar - feel free to put it on your own wall, dear fellow-wake-reader. All thanks to @augustinealoysius.bsky.social

After 4 sessions spent on Question 1 of the Quiz, it feels weird to cover three questions in one go. But we did so today! Among other things, we debated beer possibilities for the 4 Irish capitol cities. So here is a matrix by Igor and an alternative beer vision by Yana.

Here comes the mindmap of our last meeting in 2025. It took us 4 sessions to get through Question 1 of the Quiz. Now we have a new question to ponder: is there a 4 on every page of FW? There are quizzes within, there are quizzes without, try to catch the deluge in a paper cup... Art by Linda Lotiel

It's been quite a year for the Ukrainian FW group! This year we held 22 sessions and read 73 pages. We've become international and gave interviews. Many Russian generals shot, rivers of whiskey set on intellectual fire. The rest is poetry. Text by @augustinealoysius.bsky.social, art by Linda Lotiel

Last meeting this year - the Question 1 of the Quiz is done! Perhaps no new heads have grown on old shoulders, but definitely new light bulbs have lit up in old heads. Thanks @kenjihayakawa.com for joining us again and kudos to our Matrix Builder @augustinealoysius.bsky.social for the crossword.

One more mindmap. Does it have a Christmas vibe? It must, since it contains a bubbling place of alcohol. And a bit of fairy-tale logic. Once upon a time... there was a Viconian cycle. Once, twice, thrice upon a time, and counting. Happy Christmas, everyone! (HCE, you again?) Art by Linda Lotiel

HAPPY MAYBE NIGHT! Our Winter Solstice celebration of Finnegans Wake has begun :))) www.maybeday.net/night/

During this session, we discovered that once you mention about The Magic Mountain, you keep seeing it everywhere, like a pertinacious mirage. It seems to feel rather cosy in the Wakean landscape, that mountain. Art by Linda Lotiel

Opposites, binaries, dichotomies, syntagms, lists within lists, fractals within fractals, rhythms upon rhythms and occasional demons in tartans - we are still reading the first question of the Quiz. The matrices of our recent meetings by our own Matrix Builder, @augustinealoysius.bsky.social

And now the mindmap of our Sisyphean meeting with Bobby Campbell that kicked off Chapter 6. The salmon that keeps swimming upstream has been very keen lately. We wonder when we are to expect baby salmons in the streams of time. Art by Linda Lotiel

Mindmaps have been slow in coming, but now the process is accelerating. This one is from our October meeting with brilliant Sam Slote - you should have heard him reading the perforated part of the letter! Yes, lots of pecked punctuation in this one: it was one busy hen. Art by Linda Lotiel

In November, we started I.6, aka The Quiz. We'll spend the rest of the year going through its first question. It might feel a bit quizzical or even Sisyphean, but we expect nothing less of the Hero's journey. We were joined in our labors by @bobbycampbell.net and here is the matrix of the fragment.

After two intoxicating years of reading Finnegans Wake, we are still quite agrog. This diary belongs to Linda Lotiel, at least its material manifestation. Otherwise, it's all in Akasic records or possibly L-Space.

Those monks that illuminated the Book of Kells knew where magic Celtic mushrooms grew, didn't they? So did Joyce (didn't he just!). In the darkness and the cold of wartime Kyiv and other places, near and far, we, quasi-ideal-readers, are still looking for these secret groves. Art by Linda Lotiel

We finished I.5: the letter is now examined from all possible angles. Well, we haven't tasted it, but it might have a porter flavour. So we discussed the TV series House of Guinness: it's quite a show, when viewed through the lens of FW. We had a very special guest: Sam Slote. What a delight it was!

We had a very alphabetical session last Sunday, looking for secrets of Kells in a letter found by a hen in a dump. Can't say we found the truth, but we definitely spotted the otter. The matrix was all zed and done by @augustinealoysius.bsky.social

We're having a bad day over here, in Kyiv. Thousands of people have been left without electricity and water after the night attack. We've been having bad days like this for years now. Russian messages to us are literally missiles. But we're still here. Still reading. We won't forget these messages.

The matrix for our latest session was based on the art by the Dutch painter Gerard ter Borch. It inspired wild interpretations of its own: somehow even Freud got involved! He had to leave his cozy study and grab a time machine to travel to the 17 century Holland. Ah, the chaosmos of Finnegans Wake.

So much depends on a yellow tea stain spilled on a letter beside the original hen. (This is the mindmap of our previous meeting. In our meeting today, the stain has grown even larger) Art by Linda Lotiel

Yesterday we met our fifth Thunderword, the improbable met the inevitable, and Joyce met Proust. Many other meetings besides, as well as discoveries - treasures in the trash, an archeological quest conducted by the Biddy the hen. The matrix and the limerick are by @augustinealoysius.bsky.social

In this mindmap, drawn today, blue and yellow unite as Ukraine celebrates it Independence. Just as with Ireland, Ukraine's way to freedom was long and hard, and, unbelievably, we still have to fight for it. Stand with Ukraine... and find a secret message in this picture. Art by Linda Lotiel

Yesterday we had a very special guest: Raphael Slepon, the Man Behind Fweet! With the Man Behind Fweet in front of us, we examined the envelope, which was the star of the fragment, and ended up bewilderblissfully enveloping our examination in spectrality and fractality, adding some local colour!

Do you have a moment to talk about singularity, Oh Bringer of Plurabilities? That was our previous meeting, and now we are getting ready for more plurabilities to morra! Art by Linda Lotiel

We've embarked on chapter 5, greeting massive and festive mamafesta with palpable and drinkable excitement.

Look back in wonder at what we have read and turn the page to find… even more wonderworks. Ukrainian readers of Finnegans Wake are making their contribution to the destruction of russogenerals - with the help of their friends, co-readers and of course, James Buckley Joyce. Art by Linda Lotiel

Somewhere between the signal and the noise, the truth and the lie, the devil and the deep blue sea, there is the message you have been waiting waiting for. Or perhaps the massage. Art by Linda Lotiel

Ch. 4 of Finnegans Wake, done. Trees and keys, observed. The Basque cluster, admired. A Russian General, shot. (Thanks, Buckley!) ALP, worshipped. We have hanged our hearts on her trees and dropped our songs into her waters. More wonders to come. An ALP matrix by @augustinealoysius.bsky.social

The end of chapter 4 is nigh, ALP is coming and is it a limerick in your pocket or are you just happy to see her?

We feel for that fox. Here comes everybody to hunt you and then to drink about it. But at least, if Reynard is slow, Reynard is still alive, louping the loup and defying the hunt. Those magnificent words contradrinking themselves. Art by Linda Lotiel

An interview with our mind-mapper, Linda Lotiel, conducted by Gerry Fialka. Dark secrets about Ukrainian Finnegans Wake readers revealed, Joyce's ability to get Joyce ruthlessly assessed, the ultimate difference between men and women pinned down. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpIM...

Bloomsday in Kyiv is for the brave. This year, it was hosted by Peter, a fan of Ulysses, and Mikael, a Danish architect who designs unique urban spaces in Kyiv. In one of those, we read and drank and laughed and talked. During Molly’s yeses, an air raid siren started wailing. For the brave, yes.

We’ve had a great relaxing session today – yes, even Finnegans Wake can be relaxing with the right mindset. This mindset was achieved with the help of breathing and relying on the matrix (also limericked and rhymed with "dominatrix"). Go on, break the Morse code message, we know you want to.

We had a wonderful guest today @nadiadobrianska.bsky.social, a Ukrainian who has been learning Irish for years. And in our fragment, there were fourbottle men, the languish of flowers and a fox hunt. This matrix was ever so helpful to get us through the dense languish of Joyce, heyheyheyhey!