|
|
Friday, August third, 2012
(This post is a continuation of the earlier Peter's Voice thread -- I am trying among other  things to make my reading of La universidad desconocida be Peter's reading, trying to get in his head and read through his eyes and hope to fully realize his character. Hope that anybody's going to be interested in reading about this guy and the books he is reading and translating; but of course this hope has always been intrinsic to the READIN project...)
 Walking down Partition Street in the light summer rain and watching the lightning across the river past Rhinebeck. A really impressive storm but it's far enough off, the air's not moving here. You have to strain to make out the thunder. Nice -- I'm glad to fantasize the soundtrack and just watch the show, glad to get a little wet, glad to get home and inside and dry off. Laura's a little spacey tonight. Dale and them had a gig down at Tierney's, we smoked some grass on the way over there and she really got into it --the intoxication goes very nicely with Megan's chops on the washboard, with Dale singing "Rag Mama Rag," it must be said... a lovely time but all too short as they only had a half-hour set. The other acts? Nothing really that interesting, so here we are back home and Laura's prowling catlike by the bookcase. I'm smiling and asking her what she's reading. -- Eh, nothing's really grabbed my attention much since Snow. I grin, and flash on the "Love and Happiness" scene and Al Green singing, and feel the little twinge of uncertainty that's always present around Pamuk, like I'm not really getting it or am getting the wrong thing. (And hm, I should really mention that song to Dale...) -- Want to check out some poetry I've been working on? I found these pretty intense old Chilean poems over at Calixto's blog... and don't mention, or perhaps it goes without saying in this context, these poems from Ãvala seem to me like good trip material -- but I've mentioned Chile, and Laura would rather listen to Bolaño. Nice --I open The Unknown University at random and hit on "El dinero"; and it seems to me like this is the perfect poem for today, being as I am in receipt of a check from the Reality Fusion job, feeling confident about our rent for the next few months, even about a shopping trip over to Amazon... Still not much headway on the literary translation thing. But I remain hopeful; how could I not be, with Laura snuggled against me here on the couch as I read to her.
posted evening of August third, 2012: 7 responses
➳ More posts about This Silent House
|  |
Saturday, July 28th, 2012
So let's say you're standing now standing stock still on the front stoop
in Saugerties digging the ambient sounds of nighttime
quiet rainstorm whirring thousandfold cicada and
let's say your skin looks yellow in the mottled light
and sight and sight is in itself
diffuse too diffuse
and your line of visionary darkness
and difficult
You're staring at the house across the street the stream of lovely golden monsters
 passing
and the yellow light and patchy shadow mute them
mute them dancing
and dancing
and suddenly, you're dancing
 let's say you're standing like that stock still outside now
your eyes are closed now feel the length
the indentations and extension of your spine expanding
stretching backwards
filling what was void above you
and your hands,
and from your hands expanding
canvas dream hands hanging nervous
limp down by your side you feel
the energy that's pouring out
that's pouring groundward
grounded
posted evening of July 28th, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about Poetry
| |
Sunday, July 22nd, 2012
(written to a prompt from La universidad desconocida)
Entre estos árboles que he inventado
y que no son árboles
estoy yo.
If all the ink were wine and all the paper host
communion of the literate commences
when the printing presses close.
Beneath the trees that are not trees you sleep
and dream of average Joes and trains that are not trains
inhuman people, playing god, write out their epitaphs and fortunes:
your pen like silly putty printing mirrored verses
mocking poets' codes of conduct, bylaws
written waist-high on the wall.
The transubstantiation catches you off-guard,
you dip your pen once more to find
Our Savior's life-blood dripping from the
letters of your scrawl;
and senselessness transmutes your text
to whitespace, letters crawl away
like ants, it's time, don't miss your chance --
the Walrus beckons you behind his hanky.
Come and take a walk, we'll have a pleasant chat,
we'll have some oysters.
Carpenter, who's running late, will meet us at the dance.
posted evening of July 22nd, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Writing Projects
|
Saturday, July 21st, 2012
por J Osner
(las que lea con disculpas a Roberto Bolaño: directed freewrite based on some references to rain in La universidad desconocida)
Mientras llueve sobre la extraña carretera
En donde te encuentras
Estoy
Créeme que estoy
En el centro de mi habitación esperando
Que llueva. Está lloviendo:
Corriendo las aguas sobre
Los huecos vitreos, ventanas
Deslizandose
Mis mejillas abajo
Y otras partes
Menos delicadas.
Creo
Creo
Tengo miedo
Créeme que tus huellas tan mojadas
Salpicando
Pulsan inquietante
(And fade.)
posted evening of July 21st, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about The Unknown University
|  |
es mi favorito, el túnel el túnel del PATH a la calle 9 acon los tubos desciendo homeward bound
posted morning of July 21st, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Pretty Pictures
|  |
|
Why no flowers:
Señor Josner your sexless poems your notes cry out
They plead for love
For love
Be loved
Then love
que yo escribo
que yo intento
que yo intento escribir
que yo intento escuchar
escuchar
escucharé
escribiré, iré, irÃa
posted morning of July 21st, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Identification
| |
Tuesday, July 17th, 2012
As I was writing the other day in the voice of Maximiliano Josner Ãvala -- one who has been working on his project a good deal longer than I on mine -- and I felt again, strongly, how strange it seemed that he did not have a title for it, a proper name, or indeed a clear sense of what it was. My sense of what my project is is becoming a little clearer each day -- clear first of all that I should just describe this activity as "writing a book" and leave it at that, with the blog archives open to the curious; and herewith, a working title for the book I'm writing about Ãvala and his grandfather, and the grandson's translator: It will be called "This Silent House" for the time being, after a line from the son's journals.
posted evening of July 17th, 2012: Respond
|  |
Monday, July 16th, 2012
(from the journals of Maximiliano Josner Ãvala: Jan. 14, 1903)
This silent house is filled with voices. I fear I've made little progress this year, indeed I am beginning to worry that the project as a whole is misconceived. An encouraging letter from Arroncoyo, his enthusiasm for the project buoys my spirit. Concerned that I am not the philosopher he has built me up to be. I'll have to go into town tomorrow and buy some paper from Calixto López. ... It is clear to me that the divinity in man is his perception of the passage of time: perceiving and feeling this elapsation around him is the closest he can approach to the Godhead. I am having trouble framing this in an analytical fashion though, as anything more than just an impression... I cannot escape the din of my grandfather's and my father's family's voices in the walls of this house. I shall take some flowers to Carolina's grave tomorrow.
posted evening of July 16th, 2012: 1 response
|  |
Sunday, July 15th, 2012
Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada más;
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en la mar.
Wanderer, these your steps
Make up the path, and nothing more;
Wanderer, there is no path:
You make the path by walking.
By walking you make the path,
And turning back your gaze you see
The wilderness you'll never cross again.
Wanderer, there is no path:
Just wake upon the sea.
Antonio Machado:
"Proverbios y cantares" #29 A-and omg, be sure to cf. the 8th Lesson of the maestro de Tarca. Thanks Leilani for the lovely restatement of Machado's classic line. Se hace el lenguaje al hablar.
posted afternoon of July 15th, 2012: 4 responses
➳ More posts about Readings
|  |
Saturday, July 14th, 2012
Strange -- the first impression I am getting from Aaron Bady's essay on GarcÃa Márquez
(well besides noting his really extraordinary observation about Von Humboldt’s Personal Narrative) (and well, besides the insistent impulse that it be linked to in the same breath as to Juan Gabriel Vásquez' essay on literary influence and misunderstandings) is that it ought to be rendered in Spanish, that it could make really pleasant reading in Spanish. Some initial fumblings below the fold.
El otoño del patriarca: olvidar vivir por Aaron Bady
Cuando los crÃticos intentan explanar el génesis del Cien años de soledad (que es él mismo un tipo Génesis), encontramos en general dos modos fáciles de acceso: el joven Gabo transcribe los cuentos fabulosos de la abuela, asà concibe en los orÃgenes modestos de la cultura colombiana, un modernismo del Realismo Mágico. O también, hay la Revolución Faulkneriana y su relato, que Pascale Casanova y sus discÃpulos proponen: acá demuestra el William Faulkner un modo particular de ser escritor en lugar periférico; y asà ha el GarcÃa Márquez aprendido a ser colombiano por leer el Mississippi , se ha juntado al Modernismo a través de imitar los Modernistas quienes lo precedÃan. Y también podrÃamos adjuntar a esos el relato de GarcÃa Márquez el periodista , y muchos otros también.
ENTREVISTADOR: Ya que discutabamos el periodismo, ¿cómo se siente ser de nuevo periodista, después de tan largo tiempo como novelista? ¿Le hace usted con otra sensibilidad o con otra visión? GARCÃA MÃRQUEZ: Siempre he estado convencido de que mi profesión verdadera es periodista...
A mi me parece el segundo volumen de la Narración personal de viajes a los regiones equinocciales, durante los años 1799 a 1804 de Alexander Von Humbolt el punto perfecto de partida: el explorador y cientÃfico distinguido se sorprendió, mientras viajaba en la selva venezolana y eludÃa los tigres y anguilas eléctricas, en encontrar a un Ben Franklin selvático:
We found at Calabozo, in the midst of the Llanos, an electrical machine with large plates, electrophori, batteries, electrometers; an apparatus nearly as complete as our first scientific men in Europe possess. All these articles had not been purchased in the United States; they were the work of a man who had never seen any instrument,who had no person to consult, and who was acquainted with the phenomena of electricity only by reading the treatise of De Lafond,and Franklin’s Memoirs.
Senor Carlos del Pozo, the name of this enlightened and ingenious man, had begun to make cylindrical electrical machines, by employing large glass jars, after having cut off the necks. It was only within a few years he had been able to procure, by way of Philadelphia, two plates, to construct a plate machine, and to obtain more considerable effects. It is easy to judge what difficulties Senor Pozo had to encounter, since the first works upon electricity had fallen into his hands, and that he had the courage to resolve to procure himself, by his own industry, all that he had seen described in his books. Till now he had enjoyed only the astonishment and admiration produced by his experiments on persons destitute of all information, and who had never quitted the solitude of the Llanos; our abode at Calabozo gave him a satisfaction altogether new.
It may be supposed that he set some value on the opinions of two travelers who could compare his apparatus with those constructed in Europe. I had brought with me electrometers mounted with straw, pith-balls, and gold-leaf; also a small Leyden jar which could be charged by friction according to the method of Ingenhousz,and which served for my physiological experiments. Senor del Pozo could not contain his joy on seeing for the first time instruments which he had not made, yet which appeared to be copied from his own. We also showed him the effect of the contact of heterogeneous metals on the nerves of frogs. The name of Galvani and Volta had not previously been heard in those vast solitudes.
Tal vez conocen ya bueno éso los expositores GarcÃa Márquezianos en español (tal vez me parezco al señor Pozo cuando inventaba de nuevo la rueda desde la periferia): no encuentro en el crÃtico inglés a ninguna referencia en este pasaje. Los paralelismos entre José Arcadio BuendÃa y el señor Carlos del Pozo son impresionantes, y impresionante es que ambos escritores llamen a la aspiración frustrada para estar a la vanguardia del descubrimiento cientÃfico como «soledad». Cien años de soledad en un momento incluso se quita el sombrero a Von Humbolt, cuando el MelquÃades senil vuelve repetidas veces en sus monólogos confusos al nombre del explorador del siglo XIX y también a la palabra «equinoccio», que es tropo Humboltiano.
↻...done
posted evening of July 14th, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about Translation
| Previous posts about Projects
Archives  | | |
|
Drop me a line! or, sign my Guestbook.
•
Check out Ellen's writing at Patch.com.
| |
