I still remember having tea with Anthony Burgess, overlooking the Boston Gardens -- with its famous swan boats, and Weeping European Beeches, and positioned almost perfectly kitty-corner to the telefamous Cheers -- talking about Joyce's quirks and the superiority of Literature over Music. (He felt, as a composer, that good Literature should incorporate Music, and thus supercede it by virtue of its overlay and inclusion. Like Joyce, Burgess was a very musical writer.)

Were Joyce to have outlived his Wake, how might his work have changed? Would it become the epitome of simplicity, like many of his poems?

And what did Joyce know of Wake County, the county seat of which is Raleigh, and whose sons include my own dear father -- who only today told me he knew Armistead Maupin, another son?