READIN: as of November 05, 2020

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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.

Thursday, November 5th, 2020

🦋 The insult: in English and in Spanish

Raya el mediodía en Bruneville. El cielo sin nubes, la luz vertical, el velo de polvo espejeante, el calor que fatiga la vista. En la Plaza del Mercado, frente al Café Ronsard, el sheriff Shears escupe a don Nepomuceno cuatro palabras:
--Ya cállate, grasiento pelado.
Las dice en inglés, menos la última, Shut up, greaser pelado.
--Texas, by Carmen Boullosa

It's high noon in Bruneville. Not a cloud in the sky. The sun beats down, piercing the veil of shimmering dust. Eyes droop from the heat.
In the Market Square, in front of Café Ronsard, Sheriff Shears spits five words at Don Nepomuceno:
“Shut up, you dirty greaser.”
He says the words in English.
--Texas: The Great Theft, by Carmen Boullosa tr. Samantha Schnee
The tension between Cortina and the Brownsville authorities broke into violence on 13 July 1859. Brownsville town marshal Robert Shears was brutalizing Cortina's 60-year-old former ranch hand. Cortina happened to pass by, and asked Shears to let him handle the situation; Shears is said to have yelled at him in reply, "What is it to you, you damned Mexican?"
--Wikpedia entry for Juan Nepomuceno Cortina

An interesting thing to keep in mind when reading Texas in either the original or the translation is, the characters (of whichever nationality) are switching code much more frequently than is shown in the book. In the original, Shears speaks in English with a word of Spanish; Frank/Pancho relays the insult to Sharp in English (presumably verbatim, though Boullosa only paraphrases him as saying "tal y tal") and Sharp tells it to Alitas in (unquoted) Spanish, and when Alitas repeats it he is using Boullosa's original phrasing, "¡Cállate grasiento pelado!" (p.18)

The chisme spreads from mouth to mouth, in the book the dialogue is rendered in Spanish but the attentive reader will be able to guess what language is being spoken at each juncture. By the time it gets down to the Matasánchez ferry, William Boyle repeats it in a phrasing close to the historical record preserved at Wikipedia: "None of your business, you damned Mexican!"

Also finding Schnee's translation choice interesting. When Boullosa quotes Shears as speaking in English with a word of Spanish, it seems like it ought to be preserved in translation. I think the code-switching the characters do is a key part of the story -- Boullosa preserves enough of it in dialogue to give a sense that the characters are living in both languages. Will keep track of how Schnee is rendering this.

posted afternoon of November 5th, 2020: 1 response
➳ More posts about Texas

Saturday, October 10th, 2020

“Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time.”
-- Jean Michel Basquiat

---> POETRY IS HOW WE DECORATE CONSCIOUSNESS

posted afternoon of October 10th, 2020: Respond

Sunday, September 13th, 2020

🦋 Future of the site

The READIN blog may have come to an end. The host will be upgrading PHP from 5.6 to 7.3 (or rather, has done so at some point in the past and will soon be disabling 5.6.) I'm pretty sure the current script will not run in 7.3; I could probably figure out how to upgrade the script but not sure I will take the initiative any time soon.

Ok, it is working now (by and large) as of October 1 -- will seek out and fix broken features in the coming days and weeks.

posted morning of September 13th, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about The site

Thursday, August 6th, 2020

🦋 Jamming with myself

For a long time I've been wanting to get a jam going with the tin-can cello and my Stroh fiddle. The problem is, I can't play them both at the same time.... Multiple tracks to the rescue!

Here is the method I've hit on: I compose a rhythm section in Noteflight, then jam against that with fiddle and cello, recording the instrument I'm playing while the rhythm section is playing in headphones. I use Audacity to mix the instruments and vocals with the rhythm section, so I can hear the cello while playing fiddle or vice versa.

Below the fold, a take on "Jagged Sixpence": pretty good although it falls apart a bit near the end. Needs another take of the cello part for the instrumental break at the end. Should see if some better singer than I would be interested in singing this one (and playing guitar). Maybe Malcolm.

↷read the rest...

posted afternoon of August 6th, 2020: 2 responses
➳ More posts about Songwriting

Tuesday, June 16th, 2020

🦋 Relativity

posted afternoon of June 16th, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about M.C. Escher

Friday, May 22nd, 2020

🦋 viola d'ottone: neck geometry

Here is how the two-piece neck is shaped --

Next step is cutting the mortise in the upper neck and finalizing the length!

posted afternoon of May 22nd, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about viola d'ottone

Thursday, May 21st, 2020

🦋 viola d'ottone: alignment

Today I did a first rough fit of the tailpiece and neck into the viola d'ottone. I'm overjoyed to see everything lining up straight, I was quite convinced there would be a misalignment that I'd have to correct for.

posted evening of May 21st, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about Luthery

Wednesday, May 20th, 2020

busy being born, and busy
dying. Busy
with decisions and revisions
which a minute will reverse. Busy
busy busy
believing foma
and doubting

the strength to force the moment
to its crisis.

posted morning of May 20th, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about Poetry

Monday, May 11th, 2020

🦋 Ten books

So the ten books that first occur to me as "books that have profoundly influenced my worldview" (whatever those words mean) are, and I posted them in the order that they occurred to me yesterday and today:

Snow (Orhan Pamuk, Turkey 2002)
Bicameral Mind (Jaynes, US 1976)
INFINITE JEST (dfw, US 1996)
El arte de la resurrección (Hernán Rivera Letelier, Chile 2010)
Bleak House (Dickens, UK 1853)
The Autograph Man (Smith, UK 2002)
Manituana (Wu Ming, Italy 2007)
Debt (Graeber, US 2011)
Regeneration Through Violence (Slotkin, US 1973)
The Unknown University (Bolaño, Chile 2011)

(9 should probably have an asterisk by it, I don't think I ever actually read the whole book.)

I'm happy with this list. I would recommend any of these books highly, were a friend to come to me looking for reading material. Maybe 9. should trade places with #11, "Blindness" by Saramago. I have blogged many of these reads, not all.

posted afternoon of May 11th, 2020: Respond
➳ More posts about Readings

Sunday, May 10th, 2020

🦋 Nametag Rag

From The Modesto Kid and his Imaginary Ragtime Ensemble,

Score beneath the fold