The alternatives are not placid servitude on the one hand and revolt against servitude on the other. There is a third way, chosen by thousands and millions of people every day. It is the way of quietism, of willed obscurity, of inner emigration.
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READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
My reaction to J. Sáez de Ibarra's "Las Meninas" on the first few readings was one of excitement and confusion. The first section -- "Bocetos/Sketches", which makes up the body of the story -- is gripping and interesting, but has no resolution; the second section, "Las Meninas" is just a page. It appears to be the character Juan Felipe describing the positions of all the members of the household in the photo which was soon to be taken at the end of the first section, and which is reproduced very unclearly on the facing page; under which appears a subtitle listing the figures represented, but by different names. Confusing. The key, as it took me a long time to figure out, is the "photo" -- it is a print of Diego Velázquez' painting "Las Meninas" (1656), a portrait of king Juan Felipe IV's household. The painting is the centerpiece of the story -- "Bocetos" is serving to set up the characters who appear in the painting -- which is for the purposes of the story not a 1656 painting but a photograph of a contemporary celebrity's household. Accepting all this requires some pretty twisted suspension of disbelief -- eg it is kind of difficult to accept the dwarfs Nicolás Pertusso and hydrocephalic Maria Bárbola as Juan Felipe's adolescent son and the prostitute with whom he spent the night -- and adds a new dimension to the story, completes it.
I cranked out a couple tunes at the NJ Fiddle Contest at Howel Farm. (to wit, Halting March and The Rd to Lisdoonvarna) -- My strategy of practicing everything a shade slower than it should be performed has really paid off.
(On the other hand, of course, I realize now that I've been recording these songs at practice speed rather than performance -- I should record a new version of the Halting tape.)
posted evening of August 24th, 2013: 1 response ➳ More posts about Fiddling
Occasionally in the past I've blogged about books that I come to with no idea at all in advance, what to expect. Sáez de Ibarra's Mirar al agua is one such. I first came upon the author's name and the title a few weeks ago when Marta Aponte recommended it. This is always a fun way to read, completely free of expectations.
The first couple of stories I've so far just skimmed the first lines of, not found much of anything to draw me in. "Las Meninas" (left) I find fascinating, a story told entirely in dialog, extremely fast-pased. I find it renders very nicely in English. "Una ventana en Via Spermazella" and the next few stories seem very interesting but have not been quite able to crack the code that will get me into the stories. Especially intriguing among these is "La PoesÃa del Objeto."
"La superstición de Narciso" is just spellbinding. More experimental than anything else thus far. "Escribir Mientras Palestina" (which I'm midway into now) is a nicely engaging piece of first-person narrative about a visit to Palestine.
posted morning of August 18th, 2013: Respond ➳ More posts about Translation
"The Halting March"
"The Road to Lisdoonvarna" (with the "Swallowtail Jig") -- this and "Halting March" I plan to play at the fiddle contest next weekend.
"The Arkansas Traveler"
"The Devil's Dream" -intermission
"Humorèsque"
"Amazing Grace" -- the quality of performance falls off a bit after this -- none of the recordings after this are something I would play for a friend. The tunes themselves though, definite keepers. (And indeed, they are much improved by the third take!)
"The Sailor's Hornpipe"
"My Bonnie"
"Johnny Mceldoo" (which turns out to have exactly the same opening sequence of notes as "The Arkensas Traveler", making for some pleasant confusion)
"Taps"
Wow, there is some great poetry in this issue of Metamorphoses. Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Hilst, Orhan Veli, Benny Andersen (whose "Kierkegaard on a bicycle" is going to be my new favorite poem for at least a little while),...
Another Zupcic story, another Osner translation: "Tescuco, Italy" is printed in the Fall 2013 issue of Metamorphoses, the journal of the five colleges faculty seminar on literary translation.
The optimal discipline consists
in self-awareness, self-negation
in a parody of cleanliness.
The optimal discipline consists
in self indulgence, self-correction
in a parody of obediance
obeisance,
and the optimal level of discipline
the one we seek
but never quite attain
a balance
calm condolence
over situations we never asked for
were taxed for
avoided all semblance of discipline
in meditation
like a form of recreation
resurrection
and ultimate truth.
AND IT'S NOW! so
why not do it? With a
howl you pounce
into the fiction before you
teeming fiction where you're jostled
cheek by jowl they crowd you
louder now they're grumbling
and muffling you with their scowls
now you're struggling to escape
to leave this sea of narrative
to lift your glance
to glance away
and break your concentration
and not worry about the implicit snub
to your host the author.
posted evening of August 15th, 2013: Respond ➳ More posts about Projects
I cranked out a couple tunes at the NJ Fiddle Contest at Howel Farm. (to wit, Halting March and The Rd to Lisdoonvarna) -- My strategy of practicing everything a shade slower than it should be performed has really paid off.
author's name and the title a few weeks ago when Marta Aponte recommended it. This is always a fun way to read, completely free of expectations.
Especially intriguing among these is "La PoesÃa del Objeto."
