DeMan vs. the Happy Hour

"It seemed to me that this text by Benjamin on 'The Task of the Translator' is a text that is very well known, both in the sense that it is very widely circulated and in the sense that in the profession you are nobody unless you have said something about this text." Paul DeMan's March 4, 1983 lecture at Cornell University.

I'd just finished and put back into the special blue folder the "something" that Derrida had to say about the text and was about to start reading the above-mentioned lecture when the phone rang. I almost didn't answer, still thinking of afterlives of texts and words and the importance of not overlooking metaphorical significance when translating... After 3 rings I picked it up.

"Hi Val! This is N. We're having impromptu Happy Hour!" I looked outside. It did seem a bit wrong to be inside reading structuralists (especially one who was anti-semitic) when it was so balmy outside and there were drinks waiting in a lovely backyard one town over. I asked, "When?" "Now!"

We were there within the half hour.