Good Golly Miss

A multifaceted whirlwind tour of Ulysses starring his Infamous Molly  

Homer’s hero Ulysses embarks on a twenty-year journey home to his faithful Penelope. Joyce’s Ulysses, by contrast, takes place over the course of a single day, in Dublin in 1904. The story leads us through the inner world of Leopold Bloom, who eventually returns home to his notoriously unfaithful and sensual wife, Molly.

Like Ulysses, Bloom encounters Proteus in a moment of contemplation; Hades, with its dark cemetery humour; the temptation of the Sirens; the everyday events of the day under Aeolus; a violent scene in a bar with the Cyclops; and the feverish, almost hallucinatory journey home through Circe.

Eventually, he reaches Penelope — Joyce’s imagining of Molly — whose thoughts unfold through sensual memories of her lovers. And yet, in the end, she chooses her Ulysses and welcomes him home with an all-encompassing love: the most ordinary of men, Leopold Bloom.

Good Golly Miss is a collaborative composition by Rolf Wallin and Frances-Marie Uitti, written for aluminium cello, an electronic twelve-string cello without strings, and live electronics. The texts are by James Joyce and FM Uitti.

“Wallin’s music is put together with a jeweller’s precision…”
— Andrew Clements, The Guardian

Rolf Wallin - compositions and electronics
Frances-Marie Uitti - compositions, aluminium cello and her electronic cello, The Beast

The aluminium cello dates from 1910.
The electronic stringless cello was originally designed and built by FM Uitti during her time at the University of California, Berkeley, at CNMAT. She later redesigned and rebuilt the instrument at Fablab Amsterdam.

With thanks to Alex Schaub, Lex van den Broek, Johan van Kreij and Rolf Wallin for their technical support.