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Saturday, January 30th, 2010
If nothing else, La sombra del viento is certainly broadening my understanding of Spanish tenses. For instance, I did not know there was a present continuous in Spanish -- and it does not seem to be very common, certainly not as ubiquitous as in English, but occasionally a character will say something like "¡Lo está inventando!" ("You're making that up!")* -- Daniel said this to FermÃn a few chapters ago, I've forgotten just what the context was. And today I see for the first time something that looks a lot like the English future progressive** ("going to ...") when FermÃn says "Me parece que va siendo hora de que nos dejemos de remilgos y de picar al portal como si pidiésemos limosna. En este asunto hay que entrar por la puerta de atrás." -- which I am reading as, "It seems to me that there's going to come a time when we will need to leave aside our squeamishness and stop knocking on the door as if we were begging for alms. In this matter it's necessary to enter through the back door." And a little later, he says "Pues vaya desempolvando el disfraz de monaguillo" -- something like "Then go dust off your altar-boy disguise" but expressed with that same combination of ir + -ndo, "You are going to dust off." In English you can say "You are going to" do something in an imperative voice, maybe that's what is going on here.
In general FermÃn's language is a lot more flowery than that of the other characters, and harder to read without a dictionary. I believe Daniel remarked on this at some point right around the time FermÃn was first introduced. I'm thinking FermÃn is Ruiz Zafón's nod to Picaresque literature, he is intended as an archaism.
 * More precisely, "¡Todo esto se lo está inventando usted!" -- the context is that FermÃn is telling him the indigent hospital's hearse wagon had been donated "by a company from Hospitalet de Llobregat specializing in butcher products, of dubious reputation, which years later was involved in a scandal." FermÃn replies in turn that his "gifts of imagination do not extend so far." ** Is this the correct name for what I'm talking about?
posted morning of January 30th, 2010: 2 responses
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Friday, January 29th, 2010
John and I had a good time practicing tonight -- we will be playing at the open mic at Menzel Violins on Thursday, the songs we play will most likely be "Man of Constant Sorrow", "Meet Me in the Morning", and "Walk Right In" -- here is a recording we cut of "Walk Right In". Sound quality is still pretty ragged but it is nonetheless, I think, a fun song to listen to. (And to play, of course.)
Another song we played that was a lot of fun, was "The Battleship of Maine," by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers. Same tune as "Up on Blueridge Mountain," this is an anti-war song from the '20's.
posted evening of January 29th, 2010: Respond
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At The Millions, Garth Hallberg discusses Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor -- the "Difficult Book par excellence"; in the course of this discussion he describes the experience of reading difficult books with marvelous concision: "A willingness to let things wash over you can be the difference between sublimity and seasickness." Yes! I love this; I am adding it to my list of epigraphs for the site. (via Conversational Reading.)
posted evening of January 29th, 2010: Respond
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Thursday, January 28th, 2010
 What do I have to say about Salinger? Not much really -- I loved reading his books as a young man, they have not stayed with me very much though, except for a couple of his short stories. A great writer certainly, but not someone I have spent very much time thinking about in my adult life. I don't want to let the occasion of his passing go unmentioned though -- the books felt extremely important at the time I was reading them, and they definitely played a role in my growing up as a reader. So I'll link to a couple of other bloggers who have more to say about him than I.
- Alvy Singer looks forward to "the upcoming war between New York publishers over thousands of unpublished items for the pleasure of completists (us)."
- Manosuelta recalls reading "The Laughing Man".
- SEK draws some parallels between reading Salinger and reading Zinn. (...And Hilobrow imagines the History of the United States told by Holden C.)
- Michael Sweeney reprints a piece he wrote last year, thanking J.D. for his books.
Also, the New Yorker's archivist John Michaud posts links to every story Salinger published in the magazine. (The stories themselves are, however, only available to subscribers.) And the best obituary comes (of course) from The Onion.
posted evening of January 28th, 2010: Respond
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| At The Great Whatsit today, I read S. Godfrey's photoessay about his friend Finley decorating garbage cans with wallpaper, with a link to an NY Times article about it. What a great idea! Finley has a gorgeous web site of her own, natch, where you can see some more of her junk-themed art. |  |
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posted evening of January 28th, 2010: Respond
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 The Saramago Foundation announces that a new edition of The Stone Raft will be published, with all profits given to the Red Cross's relief efforts in Haïti.
 Update: no, I misread that. The foundation is not donating all profits to the Red Cross, but rather "the entire 15€ purchase price of the book" -- rather more substantial a commitment.
posted morning of January 28th, 2010: Respond
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Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Today at Paul Habeeb's Latest Research, I find a link to the site of Jim Kazanjian -- whose otherworldly photography makes me think of nothing so much as of Escher, as if Escher had come back to life and gotten himself a digital camera and a graphics workstation...
So, wow; that is nice to know about. But on a whim I follow Mr. Habeeb's via link, to Christopher Higgs' journal bright stupid confetti -- and find myself overwhelmed by the insane quantity of beautiful, interesting pictures -- paintings, photography, posters... surrealistic videos... lectures on poetry (in English) by Borges... I'm pretty much blown away by this site.
 Update: More info about Jim Kazanjian at artistaday.com, where he was profiled last month.
posted evening of January 27th, 2010: 2 responses
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
From Sundance 2010: In this short doc, T.G. Herrington follows "Mr. Okra" around New Orleans selling vegetables from his truck. Ain't no use in cookin if yo ain't gonna cook wi' fresh food. (I'm never quite sure how I feel about subtitles for English dialect -- on the one hand they can be really useful, but they can also be distracting and seem patronizing.)
posted evening of January 26th, 2010: Respond
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Sunday, January 24th, 2010
In emails last week, John and I have been talking about how to approach our weekly rehearsals, with the thought in mind that we'd like to have a good enough sound to play some shows before too long, and make recordings. What we eventually came up with was a two-pronged approach: if we start with a small group of songs that we think of as our book, and spend some time on those songs every week trying to get them to sound really polished, then we can also spend some time each week playing new songs, songs we haven't tried and are thinking about, or songs we enjoy that occur to one of us on the spur of the moment... So that's how we did it on Saturday and it worked out pretty well. The songs we are beginning with as our book are:
- Jockey Full of Bourbon
- Bonaparte medley
- Louisville Burglar
- Man of Constant Sorrow
- California Stars
- Meet Me in the Morning
- Walk Right In
- St. James Infirmary
- Angel From Montgomery
This is a nice mix of musical styles and of songs he sings with songs I sing. We played every one of these (except St. James I think) on Saturday, and they are in general really starting to come together. And we had time left over to fool around -- we did a couple of Dylan songs, one by George Harrison, one or two by Neil Young; also "Praying Mantis" by Don Dixon, which we've done before and which might be a candidate for the "book" list...
posted evening of January 24th, 2010: Respond
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Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
So my sticking point on "Mack the Knife" is, I keep thinking it should be in D. But the recordings I'm listening to are mostly in C; and it turns out to actually be easier to finger in C than in D. But I need to avoid switching keys in the middle of the song... I added another video to last night's playlist, a Brazilian performance by Servio Tulio and Glauco Baptista -- a lovely performance and sort of a midpoint between Lenya and Sinatra, or another interpretation with shadings of both. This is the first I ever heard of Tulio and Baptista but there seems to be a lot of great music by them up on YouTube.
posted morning of January 23rd, 2010: Respond
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