The READIN Family Album
Me and Sylvia (April 4, 2002)

READIN

Jeremy's journal

I have enough trouble as it is in trying to say what I think I know.

Samuel Beckett


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Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

🦋 Bicentennial

(A day late, but) Happy Birthday, Mr. Dickens!

posted morning of February 8th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Birthdays

Sunday, February 5th, 2012

🦋 Long shadows of winter

A walk to Meadow Park with one's dog serves as a nice reminder of what attracted one initially to South Orange...

posted afternoon of February 5th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about the Family Album

Friday, February third, 2012

🦋 Let's Listen to

The Trashmen!

You're welcome.

posted evening of February third, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Music

Thursday, February second, 2012

🦋 Epifarfulla

Parecido a las otras utilizaciones de los labios y las manos, como sonreír, acariciar, enfurruñarse y pegar puñetazos, el ruido vocal hace enlaces entre la gente que desean o necesitan ser conectado -- para el apoyo reciproco o para establecer la jerarquía o para declarar la hostilidad, por ejemplo. Así vemos que la canguro que hace monerías al niño realiza un acción lingüistica similar en general al escolar ambicioso que me saluda con un tono ascendente en la última sílaba del «Good morning, sir.» Y si esas acciónes sean comunicaciones, entonces necesitamos redefinir la comunicación: no como la transmisión entre A y B de estados mentales, menos aún como la transmisión de «informaciones», sino como la establecimiento, el refuerzo, la modificación de relaciones interpersonales del momento. Y sería mejor decir, no es comunicación, sino lenguaje. El lenguaje es una manera humana de relacionar a otros seres humanos.

...

El cuento de Babel se equivoca: el uso primordial del discurso humano fue más probable ser diferente, no el mismo.

-- D. Bellos
¿Es un pez en tu oreja?

posted evening of February second, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Is that a fish in your ear?

Wednesday, February first, 2012

🦋 Tentative setlist

Come and see Mountain Station at the Crossroads in Garwood next week! Next Thursday at 8 to be precise.

  1. This wheel's on fire
  2. The road to Lisdoonvarna
  3. The L&N don't stop here anymore
  4. Behind that locked door
  5. Red Overalls
  6. Country Honk
  7. Carrie Brown
  8. White Freightliner Blues
  9. Johnny 99
  10. To be young is to be sad is to be high
  11. Harvest Home
  12. 4&20 Blues
  13. Walk right in
  14. You ain't goin nowhere

(Update as of Saturday): We played the set through tonight and it took just about one hour. If we do everything the same speed on Thursday and without any screw-ups (there were a couple tonight which stretched the set out slightly), we will probably have space to play one more song, which will probably be NJ Transit.

posted evening of February first, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Mountain Station

🦋 más elegías

There aren't any words in the Bible anyways, let alone jokes,
I wouldn't worry so much about translating it,
about being swept into its blank void,
slipping frictionless and lucid across its empty page.
Those who have preceded you have left no spoor, no trace,
that you can make out anyways, and yet you know
full well their journey and retrace it.
Rilke asked who'd hear him,
among the choirs of heaven or
among the rankèd Angels or among their hierarchy, or something,
if he cried out -- and your throat is still,
your sigh is dead a-borning. Candle's flicker casts its shadows
among the ranked symbols and their blanknesses,
their blacknesses:
this yellowing forest of text.

posted evening of February first, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about Poetry

🦋 Elegías del principiante

Ninguna palabra contiene el Biblio en todo caso, ninguna broma,
no tenga tanto miedo de traducirlo,
de dejarte arrastrado por su blanco vacío
deslizarte sin fricción y lúcido a través de la página.
Ellos quienes te precedían ninguno rastro han dejado,
ninguno que se puede observar, pero conoces
íntimamente este huela que retrazas.

There aren't any words in the Bible anyways, let alone jokes,
I wouldn't worry so much about translating it,
about being swept into its blank void,
slipping frictionless and lucid across its empty page.
Those who have preceded you have left no spoor, no trace,
that you can make out anyways, and yet you know
full well their journey and retrace it.

posted evening of February first, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Writing Projects

🦋 Before Don Quixote

Some idle Googling the other day brought me to Mercedes García-Arenal and Fernandez Rodríguez-Mediano's essay on Miguel de Luna, Arabic Christian from Granada and thence to de Luna's True History of King Roderic... Lots to read... (And can it really be true that de Luna's True History has never been translated into English? It seems strange to think such a thing but I am not finding it anywhere. This looks like a pretty key bit of history of literature to me...)

posted evening of February first, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Don Quixote

Monday, January 30th, 2012

🦋 L2 translation and "speaking Spanish"

Los traductores traducen por traición (y por hoy casi como mandato) de un idioma extranjero a lo que se llama su lengua materna. En la jerga de los estudios de traducción, éso se llama traducción L1, a diferencia de la traducción L2, que se dice traducción hacia un idioma entendido, un otro idioma. Pero, ¿qué significa una lengua materna?

-- D. Bellos
¿Es un pez en tu oreja?

Me divertaba en los últimos días, traduciendo de lo que se llama mi lengua materna a un idioma extranjero. ¿Por qué? Es divertido, delantero, y me hice pensar en el sentido de las palabras. Aún no he logrado cuantificar qué es, que me tan atractivo parece en relación con el bilingüismo... Todo que ha podido pensar degrada últimamente a tautologia.

Examinando más tarde la declaración del San Jerónimo -- Ego enim non solum fateor, sed libera voce profiteor me in interpretatione Graecorum absque scripturis sanctis ubi et verborum ordo mysterium est non verbum e verbo sed sensum exprimere de sensu -- escribe Bellos que el San Jerónimo quizás trataba sobre un verdadero problema para los traductores: ¿cómo tratar los expresiones que no entiendes? En la lectura y la plática cotidiana nos acostumbramos a pasar por encima de tales expresiones, el sentido interpretando del contexto.

Donde el contexto no basta por interpretar, pasamos por encima. ¡Pasamos por alto todo el tiempo! Nadie entiende todas las palabras de Les Misérables, pero éso no mantiene nadie de disfrutar la novela de Hugo. Pero los traductores no se les permite pasar por alto.

posted evening of January 30th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Readings

Sunday, January 29th, 2012

🦋 Crazyism

Peter of Conscious Entities links to a talk on theories of consciousness by Eric Schwitzgebel, author of Perplexities of Consciousness. Check it out: a thoroughly interesting presentation. (Note that Schwitzgebel's claim that countries should be considered conscious entities is completely compatible with Jaynes' idea of consciousness as a metaphorical, language-based activity.)

posted evening of January 29th, 2012: Respond

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