Anhelo de la claridad en prosa...

La talentosa poeta argentina Alejandra Pizarnik, a pesar de escribir poesía maravillosamente, anhelaba la prosa. Escribió diarios en que expresaba este anhelo. CRG la cita en su última novela multiples veces, pero la cita que más se me destaca es ésta.

" 'Esta prosa de mi diario,' anota, 'se parece a lo que llaman una prosa normal. ¿Por qué, cuando escribo, no trato de apelar a ella? Pienso que mi correspondencia con CC me hacía bien pues me obligaba a escribirle con claridad. ¿Es una virtud la claridad? Ignoro cuáles son las virtudes. Sólo conozco los deseos' " (193).

Just barking

Stella howls. Not at all types of sirens, though, she's very discriminating. She responds to a certain siren (I think it's the one from the fire truck) whether she's inside or out and it doesn't matter what she's doing, she stops to howl. We don't try to stop it because it's something primal that she really can't control. It's sometimes very low and mournful. Other times it's sort of perfunctory. Often it seems to bring her some joy or perhaps a catharsis. So we don't stop her because while the siren is sounding, her howling seems to serve a purpose, she's working something out, going through a process, maybe analyzing something or getting something off her chest. Whatever she's feeling or thinking, the siren brings it out vocally. It's natural so we let it run its course without being annoyed. However...when the siren stops, the soulful howl deteriorates into a repetitive series of unimportant woofs and sharp yips that have no function or purpose. It's as if she's just doing it because she's usually so quiet and this is her time to hear herself bark. When it gets to the point where it's unbearable, someone will say sternly and with a slightly raised voice, "OK, Stella. Now you're just barking." At that she snaps out of it, shakes off, wags her tail appreciatively and reverts to the silent, yet expressive dog she really is.

I guess we all want to emit sounds of substance when we vocalize and sometimes it is hard to know when we're "just barking"... a stern yet loving voice telling us so might sometimes be in order.

P.S. Yes, I am aware that this blog is just barking. Hopefully, I howl in other writing.

Otro estreno/Another premiere

I'm pleased to announce today's premiere of the blog Sproulitos! Sproulitos is a collaborative project comprised of grad students in my department and whose idea was conceived by Moni, author of the blog String of Lights wants to be when it grows up.

Con mucho gusto anuncio el ¡gran estreno hoy del blog Sproulitos Es un proyecto en que coloboramos varios de los estudiantes en mi programa. Concibió la idea Moni, autora del blog que aspira ser String of Lights cuando sea grande.

I can't say that Sproulitos will ever be en inglés, but I can guarantee that it will be excellent, as I am privileged to work and study with a group of the most widely-read, well-informed and even more well-spoken, versatile, creative and intelligent people on the planet.

Muy pronto...mi post estrena en.../My post...coming soon to...

Documentales, un excelente blog de equipo internacional, unidos por su interes en los documentales. Los encontré durante una búsqueda del documental Café arábigo, que fue mencionado en uno de los artículos de mi clase de literatura cubana. Dejé un comentario y ya sabemos que éso exige que el autor te investigue un poco y...Pues es un honor y un gusto participar en Documentales. Para estrenar escogí, en tributo a uno de mis seminarios más influyentes...



Documentales, an excellent blog run by an international team whose interest in the documentary genre unites them. I became involved by leaving a comment on one of their posts in which I found a google video of a documentary mentioned in one of the articles we read in my Cuban Lit. class. As we know, leaving a comment leads to an investigation of the commenter's blog and the rest, as they say...Bueno, it's an honor and a joy to participate in Documentales. For my debut, I chose the above in tribute to one of my most influential seminars. It's a narrative performance by the widow and sons of Franco's favorite poet, Leopoldo Panero and reflects the complete decadence of that family and the title reflects the disenchantment of artists who no longer had to rebel against the regime...

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.

Literatura salvífica

"...obligan a uno...me obligaron a mí..."

Al contar sus experiencias como preso político en el Uruguay durante ocho años, habló mayormente en términos generales, neutros, tercera persona, voz pasiva, y tiempo presente. Solamente de vez en cuando, sin sentimiento, sin entrar en detalles gráficos pero con mucho esfuerzo dio testimonio, cambiando el relato seco e impersonal por la inmediatez, la veracidad y la agencia de la primera persona y el tono declarativo, definitivo del pretérito.

Hablando de la literatura en espacios "límites", dijo el autor que la literatura testimonial se permite la metáfora, la poesía...



En la novela Oscura memoria del sur figura la poesía que concibió en la prisión, inspirado por Homero y el endecasílabo castellano... Concentrándose en la rima no sentía las palizas que recibía dos veces al día. "Fue la poesía," dijo, (o tal vez dijo "literatura" en vez de "poesía") que "... me salvó de perder la razón."






Clumsy, inarticulate (and most likely slightly emotional) English translation of above clumsy inarticulate Spanish available upon request.

Blog re-frito #3

I had a blog before this one. Almost two years ago. It only had a few entries and I didn't like writing it. Every day I used the template that I only use now when I'm sad, in entries titled "Default setting"... I deleted it quite shortly after beginning it. No sabía poner imágenes ni crear links a sitios interesantes. No había empezado el programa de estudios. No sabía qué hacer con el tiempo libre. Tampoco sabía qué escribir, pero...that's not much different than now.
Today's re-print:
SUNDAY, JULY 02, 2006
Really, what's so hard about this??? How do some bloggers manage to write every day? (Italics added today, 24/4/08)

I don't have a job anymore either. Since the end of school, I've focused my energies on organizing and cleaning and worrying about the upcoming trip. I'm scared and sad to leave the house and the dogs. The next trip is going to be somewhere we can drive and can take the dogs. And it's going to have to be cheap. It will have to be, as I'll be earning somewhere between 1/3 -1/4 of my salary...
Escribo desde: La casa
Excusas: Desde el 19 - 25 junio en NJ con mi tía sin aceso a una computadora
El tiempo: Maravilloso
Estoy luciendo: Overoles, camisa blanca...todo demasiado grande
Conmigo: todos
Estado de ánimo: Triste, nerviosa, cansada, como diría la Tere en Loving Pedro Infante, "muy desde" (las negritas son mías)
Libros: El dicho Loving Pedro Infante, de Denise Chávez, (mental note: buy a copy) Beatriz y los cuerpos celestiales de la Extebarría, la segunda de la serie de Sheryl Anderson Killer Cocktail, JPod de Douglas Coupland (parte del esfuerzo que intento hacer de NO leer a puras latinas), Mujeres maravillosas de la Loaeza (también estoy intentando leer los libros comprados durante los últimos 2 veranos y que se quedan en el estante). También leí uno o dos más, pero no me acuerdo cúales eran)
Música: No tengo muchas ganas de escuchar nada
Vi a: todos de la misa de gallo
Hablé con: the usual suspects, Dad
Antojo: ninguno
¿Qué pasó hoy (y qué pasó varios días antes si no he escrito
en mucho tiempo): Limpiar, pasear con Stella y Paloma, reservar habitaciones en España e Irlanda, estar preocupada, Museo Crocker en Sacramento hoy para ver la exhibición de Escher.
Imágenes:"Table of Contents" - M.C. Escher

posted by vhecht @ 6:24 PM
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El mundo es más sabroso con una combinación de imágenes y palabras.

Ran...40...olives

Each time I ran this week I wanted earth, not asphalt (and definitely not cement) under my feet. I didn't know that until today when I turned left into the olive tree-lined lane off Russell. Instead of staying on the smooth, flat, safe pavement, I slowed my pace and ran directly under the trees, paying close attention to my feet as they hit the softer, bumpy dirt trail, covered with old seeds, new olives and branches with leaves. I think I wanted to absorb through the ground the light, the oil, the food, the shelter, the peace and the poetry of olive trees.

Oases y serendipity

Although I printed out all 32 pages of Fidel Castro's "Palabras a los intelectuales"*, I went to see the original in the Shields library Special Collections room. The booklet itself wasn't impressive - printed in 1961, its pages are no longer white, but a tea-stain color, the text equal to the printout, down to the parenthetical appearances of the applause given when Castro said something that seemed to demand it. (APLAUSOS)

*The title of the discourse given after the suppression/censura of Sabá Cabrera Infante and Orlando Jiménez Leal's documentary P.M.

I can't wait to go back to the reading room. It was as I'd imagined, well-lit, but hushed. The back room housing all sorts of precious manuscripts, images, sounds... I shattered the tranquility of that hermetic atmosphere by letting the door, literally, hit me in the ass as I entered. In order to maintain the proper ambiance of the reading room, someone really needs to take a look at those hinges - we can't continue to have that door slamming and interrupting scholarship. After I'd requested my reading material, the librarian solicitously mentioned that there exists an extensive Radical Pamphlets Collection and then sent another staff member to retrieve the document. While she searched, I went to wash the chalk dust off my hands and when I got back, the folder was ready for me. I took it to a back table (all the seats face the reception desk) and before sitting I glanced at the display case -

Western art. Bronzes done in the style of Charlie Russell (as well as some recasts of CMR's work) or Frederick Remington. The first sculpture my eyes fell on was of a group of three - Sacagawea, Pomp and the dog, Seaman. Off and on this weekend, I'd been thinking that perhaps this summer's trip to Bismarck might include research on the project that sprung to mind almost 4 years ago - indigenous woman as interpreter, focusing on two almost mythic and contrasting figures. La Malinche maligned and Sacagawea respected...displaced tribes willing to battle a hegemony and scattered nomadic tribes not really answering to anyone... Both women bought/sold/traded, one mixing discourse and intercourse, the other a chaste expecting mother...translation theory... one embodying the traductora/traidora and becoming la madre de la raza cósmica, one fostering cooperation aided by the deus ex machina, telenovelesca appearance of the long-lost brother...sly seductress in Rivera murals and noble heroine on dollar coin.

I didn't expect this

In his lecture before an audience comprised of members of a French translation organization Jacques Derrida proclaims paradoxically, “I don’t believe that anything can ever be untranslatable — or, moreover, translatable.”

Lawrence Venuti, in his The Translation Studies Reader (Routledge, 2005) translates the title of the discourse as “What is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?” and it is my first reading of (rather than about) Derrida. In the morning I mentioned this to my officemate, who has taken Critical Theory and made it his own. Tomes from that canon pile on his desk, a new one almost every day and I marvel at this living, breathing example of hermeneutics. He truly enters into dialog with those texts, expressing respect for some of the theorists and critical disdain for others , accepting some theories, but often battling against them in reaction papers, which he writes with relish, the volume of the keystrokes reflecting his enthusiasm and/or vehemence. He asked to see my Routledge reader and after scanning “What is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?”, knowing that my affective filter was up, he recommended another article "..that might be a gentler introduction to Derrida."

Two sentences of this one, however, surprised me enough to lower the filter. He's still difficult and sometimes very annoying, but I can't deride everything Derridian after reading this.

"As for the word (for the word will be my theme) - neither grammar nor lexicon hold an interest for me - I believe I can say that if I love the word, it is only in the body of its idiomatic singularity, that is, where a passion for translation comes to lick it as a flame or amorous tongue might: approaching as closely as possible while refusing at the last moment to threaten or reduce, to consume or consummate, leaving the other body intact but not without causing the other to appear - on the very brink of this refusal or withdrawal - and after having aroused or excited a desire for the idiom, for the unique body of the other, in the flame's flicker or through a tongue's caress. I don't know how, or in how many languages, you can translate the word lécher when you wish to say that one language licks another, like a flame or a caress" (424).

Expanding lexicon

Words I had to look up today while reading Walter Benjamin's "The Task of the Translator" (which I loved, I think...).

apodictic - demonstrably or necessarily true; expressing absolute certainty

banausic - serving utilitarian purposes only; mechanical; practical

On the other hand, this morning I wondered aloud if maybe the New York Times isn't slipping just a little in some areas and was told that, "You're not the only one who's said that lately."

No need to speak French, Brazilian Portuguese or Khmer to groove to these groups

From Dengue Fever's MySpace page

Local band French Disco, which are neither (though they do create lyrics in French) opened for Dengue Fever at the San Francisco Independent last night. More accurately, since they were the first of three groups, they opened for punk/jazz/funk/forró brasileiro band Bat Makumba, also from San Francisco.

The ticket price averaged to about $6.00 per group. Add a bit more for gas (OK, a lot more, it's up to $4-ish around here), bridge toll, dinner and the parking we finally found (after one of us had an extended conversation with one of SF's finest about parking in a yuppie supermarket parking lot and another banged on the door of what turned out to be a medical marijuana clinic with a heartbreakingly empty parking lot right across the street from the venue) and it was a wonderful, sort of inexpensive evening in the city.

The SF Independent is a great place to see a band, though if you need a seat, you'd have to get there really early. It's very hollow, lots of standing room on the black concrete floors and when it gets too crowded to see the musicians on stage, there are mirrors on the walls and you can see their reflections.

French Disco was very calming...sort of smooth and soothing. Bat Makumba, uber energetic. The tall drink of water lead singer rapid-fires Portuguese and English into the mike while in constant motion. The rest of the band plays a myriad of instruments, including all kinds of tropical Brazilian shaky gourd instruments and a flute and they draw on sources running the gamut of o tropicalismo (Brazilian arts movement of the 1960s whose best-known musical pioneers were probably Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso) to the David Bryne project to Frank Zappa to rap.

I conserve my previous assessment of Dengue Fever. They're reallyreally LaLaLa. So much talent and energy. If they're coming to your town, go see them.

Otra vez en su lugar

In an effort to increase efficiency, I contemplated using NyQuil to wash down the anti-biotic...

SMART GOAL: try not to take this tonight because the stupor it induces lasts well into the next morning. And not in a good way.

8:48 A.M. I call the wonderful pharmacy (see post of 14 April) and press "4" to speak with a pharmacist.

Safeway Pharmacy: Hello, Safeway Pharmacy. How may I help you?
Me: I just took 2 amoxicillin within the space of 20 minutes. Should I be concerned?
Safeway Pharmacy: Why did you do that?
Me: Um...I've had a lot on my mind lately and...it was an accident...I know it was only 20 minutes, but I forgot I'd taken one already...Is it dangerous?
Safeway Pharmacy: Uh...hold on, I'll get the pharmacist.
Me: ¡!
Pharmacist: This is ______, how may I help you?
Me: I just took 2 amoxicillin within the space of 20 minutes. Will that do anything drastic to me?
Pharmacist: Well, you're not going to die...
Me: That's good, but what will it do?
Pharmacist: The level of anti-biotics in your bloodstream is really gonna spike.
Me, silently: No shit.
Me: Yeah, I figured. So, what might that feel like? I mean...should I be on the lookout for symptoms?

Thank God it wasn't a full-frontal teaching day.

...two birds

The best bird-watching in Vallejo - Thift Center parking lot, Redwood Dr.

How to do taxes

1. Call accountant.
2. Ask how many years in a row of extensions are too many.
3. Let the man work his magic.



Each year for about 12 years now, someone optimistically declares, "Next year, we might actually be able to do our own taxes!" The other agrees and adds an excuse as to why that didn't happen this year. "Yeah, this year was only complicated because: I/you/we had a whole bunch of jobs/still don't really understand deductions/moved to another state/ bought a house/sold the Missoula house/refinanced/still don't understand deductions/sold stock options/went back to school..." Then someone realistically concludes, "But Rock's so good. And he doesn't charge that much."

Lunes de revolución 2

Es lunes de a de veras y es el cuerpo mío lo que está revolucionando.

It is Monday for real and today it's my body that's revolting - in both senses of the word. I stayed home from work with the worst cold/flu/sinus infection I've ever had. Work found me this afternoon in the form of an e-mail, a summons really...topic to be continued, if I can get past my chagrin, that is.

And, just when I thought I couldn't feel too much worse about myself...

This afternoon I dragged out of the house for a second time in a display of willful disobedience of Dr. Shelly's request that I not fill the prescription for anti-biotics until I'd tried snorting saline solution up my sinus passages for a couple of days. It sounded great at the time. I imagined an irrigation that would bring instant relief instead of the hissy fit that actually ensued. So, I went to get my meds. at the excellent pharmacy at the Glen Cove Safeway (insert an glowing review of the pharmacists here). While those stellar chemists got my pills ready I shopped, picking up regular-sized bars of soap, strawberry jam and throat numbing spray. I had time to kill, so I did what I usually do. Hang out in the magazine aisle. Today I grabbed Cosmopolitan off the rack and opened to an article that blared a title like, "How to make those skanky bedroom moves he secretly craves!" A few seconds later, I heard "Finding everything you're looking for, ma'am?" I turned my head and found the leering smirk of a bag boy who looked like an only slightly older Stevie from Malcolm in the Middle.

Lunes de...

Del artículo de William Luis sobre la primera revista literaria de la Revolución cubana, Lunes de revolución en la edición mayo 2007 de su incarnación actual (¿?) Otro lunes:

From William Luis' article about Cuba's first literary magazine of the Revolution, Lunes de revolución in the May, 2007 edition of its current incarnation (?) Otro lunes:

Si los acontecimientos que se relacionan con la Revolución Cubana fueron necesarios para el desarrollo de la novela del Boom, Lunes de Revolución [bajo la dirección de Guillermo Cabrera Infante] inicia dicho proceso y sus páginas se convierten en el vehículo que mejor expresa la literatura y la cultura cubanas en los inicios de los sesentas, reuniendo muchas de las características que se asociarían, más tarde, con el fenómeno literario del Boom... Lunes se publicó durante dos años y medio, desde el 23 de marzo de 1959 hasta el 6 de noviembre de 1961, y en ese corto período de tiempo ganó gran reconocimiento y se convirtió en unos de los suplementos literarios más meritorios del siglo veinte...Durante su existencia, Lunes fue un suplemento nuevo, innovador y democrático. La literatura no fue representada como una categoría estrecha y para una élite sino que tenía implicaciones amplias para que estuviera al alcance del lector. La revista publicó obras de escritores cubanos de todas tendencias, géneros y generaciones. Pero no se limitó a ello; también incluía obras producidas en Norteamérica, la Europa comunista, Asia, África y Latinoamérica. Entre las obras de autores de habla hispana se encuentran las colaboraciones de intelectuales como Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, Federico García Lorca y Picasso; también se publicaron obras de otras figuras luminarias de la literatura europea, como Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust y T. S. Elliot. Asimismo, Lunes concedió espacio a escritores poco conocidos como es el caso del polaco Bruno Shultz, y no sólo dio a conocer artículos literarios, sino también ensayos políticos escritos por Fidel Castro, el Che Guevara, Mao, Lenin y Trotsky. El suplemento abarcó, sin diferenciación, todo tipo de meta-narrativa y su contenido heterogéneo, puede decirse, fue netamente postmoderno.

In noticing some collaborations very much like this in the blogs of Latin American authors, I can't help but wonder how (or if) major writers from my own country foster a similar spirit of cooperation and mutual support. I really need to "get out" more in my reading...

In the gripe of a sinus infection, this is all I can manage.

Cuando por fin me acordé de escribir algo sobre el autor, se me había olvidado casi todo lo que él había dicho.

Pero toda la semana iba y venía en mi mente la palabra "micraster"./By the time I remembered to write about the author, I'd forgotten almost everything that he'd said. But all week the word "micraster" kept going through my mind.

Casi hipnotizada por las voces más por lo que decían, no apunté nada de la charla que dieron el lunes los invitados, la profesora María José O. (UNR) y el autor B. Atxaga. Me acuerdo de algo de lo dijeron sobre la literatura vasca. Pero sobre todo recuerdo los ojos de los dos y los comentarios que hicieron con respecto a la naturaleza. Para ella se destacó la gran cantidad de árboles que hay aquí y comentó que se había acostumbrado a la desiértica de Nevada. Me perdí por unos momentos acordándome de cómo cada vez que estoy en un hotel en Nevada abro la guía telefónica al azar y cuento los apellidos vascos que allí encuentro...Cuando volví al presente, el autor relataba una visita a un lugar rico en fósiles y describió la reacción de los turistas ante uno en particular, el de un erizo. Al hacer, por fin, la búsqueda Google, me enteré exactamente porque ellos miraron detenidamente el micraster.

Almost hypnotized by their voices more than what they were saying, I wrote down nothing of the talk given Monday by our guests María José O. (UNR) and the author B. Atxaga. I actually do remember something of what they said about Basque literature. But above all, I remember their eyes and the comments they made regarding nature. She immediately noticed the abundant presence of the trees here and commented that she'd become so accustomed to the desert-like geography of Nevada. I lost myself for a few moments, remembering how, every time I'm in a hotel in Nevada, I open the phone book at random and count all the Basque last names I find there...When I snapped out of it, the author was relating a visit to an area rich in fossils and described the reaction of the the visitors to one in particular, that of a sea-urchin. When I finally performed the Google search, it was clear why they stopped to look so closely on the micraster.


¿Quién hubiera pensado que esto
Who'd think that this


algun día podría ser esto?
someday could be this?

Smell of exhaustion

When worn out from a week that feels like a 600 mile drive, I'm not the only one who craves the scent of overbleached sheets and a particular soap that bring about deep sleep in a sterile hotel room.

Though I have to forgo the overbleached sheets in my own bed, that particular soap is in my own shower today. I found a hotel size bar under the sink this morning, on my hands and knees and without the aid of any corrective lenses. On my way back into the shower I unwrapped it. The crisp sound of the paper peeling away and the release of the sharp scent should have perked me up. Instead it evoked that feeling of finally getting to the room, opening the door with its wonky lock, dropping the suitcase, taking a hot shower, collapsing on the bed and closing my eyes but still seeing the road illuminated by the headlights.

What will you still see tonight when you close your eyes to sleep?

iTunes Confession #3

I should probably stop listening to 99.7 on my commute home. If the angle of the sun is just right and I'm in a susceptible mood (like anyone else), I'll fall under a song's spell and end up buying it against my better judgement. The lyrics alone don't do it. Sometimes it's just the melody or the voice or both; or one or both of those combined with meaningful or evocative lyrics.

Yesterday's song purchase is hard to explain. No, it wasn't Mariah Carey's awful (and disturbing) "Touch My Body" song with its creepy line "I will hunt you down..." if she sees herself on YouTube after the hookup. I'm not that naca. Close, though.

I almost didn't buy One Republic's "Apologize" because I'm a snob and it's syrupy pop and it's overly dramatic (and I usually only tolerate that in Spanish). Its lyrics also gave me pause. The oft-repeated message in this boy-band sounding tune is that "It's too late to apologize." I'm more the judeo-christian "forgive 7 times 70" type (yes I am aware that I've revealed exactly how sentimental a fool am I). However, the melody won me over. It is quite compelling, but even more than that, it is, to my ear, diametrically opposed to the lyrics. The music feels and tastes like the most sensuous possible atonement, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Guest Blogger #3*

*Be warned, you could be #4. And soon!

So, yeah, I basically stalked this week's Guest Blogger...

OK not exactly. On blogger.com (where my orange version of this blog lives) there's this nifty button that reads "next blog". When you click it, sometimes you get an ad, sometimes you get porn, sometimes you get a whiny teenage diary with really cool graphics and emo music. Sometimes you get the blog of one of your my favorite Latin American authors! And sometimes you get one that invites you to read more than a just a few sentences, like this week's Guest Blogger's blog. When I find one I like, I try to leave a comment...



Val: So, first things first. Thanks again for being my guest blogger today! Would you like to tell our reader about yourself and how you’re associated with String of Lights and/or this topic you’re writing about or should I?

You: Sure, I write a blog on my divorce. One day, I received a post on my blog saying… “Found your blog yesterday…” The email was filled with kind words about my writing, so I decided to see what where the perceptive poster came from. That led me to Val, and her “String of Lights.” I read a post a about vacuums, and like the fickle fish of fate, I was lured in.

Val: Do you have a blog? Would you like to put a link to it here?

You: Yeah, I’ll take the free ad space. Is this thing on? Do you do blinking marquees too? I have 2 blogs: grphter.blogspot.com, and descarteslemming.blogspot.com. They’re both about my life and how the divorce saga intertwines. The lemming site has pictures, videos and unrelated stuff to confuse the reader. It’s for the person who likes to put on a blindfold when they drive.

Val: What takes up most of your day?

You: I blog, and I do radio research for Mediabase 24/7. They chart radio station airplay and report the data back to whoever will pay for it—primarily record labels and other radio stations. Think of my job as Name that Tune for a weekly paycheck.

Val: What kind of music don’t you listen to?

You: Country. It's funny. When I was a kid, my Mom listened to country (cuz it was going through it's popular early 70s phase). I thought I hated music, until a friend, who was a local "hit radio" DJ brought me some records. It was all radio rock stuff like Grand Funk Railroad and Dobie Gray and Thin Lizzy. Stuff like that. I fell in love! Suddenly music was cool, and I've been listening ever since.

Val: What question would you have liked me to ask you? And what would your answer be?

You: Question: Can I pay you for this?
Answer: Absolutely.

Perfecto. On to your post!

Well Val, we’ve talked about Pandora.com a little. You’ve even asked about one of my stations. Ok, I pointed it out, and you’d said “why are you waving this stinky thing under my nose.” Same thing.

The station is called “An experiment in mellow.” It started as a project for a friend a few years back. The friend has since moved on, but I still prune and water the station. I wanted to see if I could use the parameters of Pandora to create a mellow station that wasn’t whiny. With Pandora, if you add bouncing bands, you risk bumping the beat too fast. You allow too much sentimentality to seep in, and you risk sounding like a doctor’s office. I wanted life and mood. It was my little musical bio-dome.

Artists like Kate Bush, Sarah McLaughlin and the Smiths were among the original seeds. I nurtured branches of Jack Johnson, and Death Cab, while cutting out the Mariah Careys before they even sprouted.

It’s part of how I listen to music, I love how it’s the landscaping for our environment. It creates your setting, sets your mood and invites others who want to know more. In my divorce, I kind of let the music amble, but now I’m coming back. I’ve filled my rooms with extravagant bouquets and arrangements, and the music hasn’t sounded better.

On Translation 2

Yeah, I know it's still morning. And I'm studying, honest!

I just read, in Scandals of Translation.* Venuti, Lawrence. London: Routledge, 1998, that Ezra Pound had an interesting application for translation which in 1918 he passed along to other modernist writers, "Translation...is good training, if you find that your original matter 'wobbles' when you try to re-write it. The meaning of the poem to be translated cannot 'wobble'"...So then, Venuti suggests, "...translation can be instrumental in the construction of an authorial identity, but also that this construction is at once discursive and psychological, worked out in writing practices open to psychoanalytic interpretation" (76).

I think he's right. My original matter 'wobbles' quite a bit, and not only or not so much when I try to re-write, but when I try to describe, orally, what I'm working on. In fact, I've been told that I'm sometimes incomprehensible. It's because I'm trying to translate ideas that I don't have in English and it doesn't quite work. That's partially due to the idea of Schleiermacher's that I cited in a previous post, but also due to the fact that I'm simply kind of bad at translation. Profe A1. says that it's something that takes a lot of practice.

* Despite the dramatic sounding title, the book is quite informative. Quite CultStuds/Anthropology/Linguistics tinged. Along with "scandal", however, Venuti also likes to employ the word "violence" among other instances, to translations that "domesticate" the texts to such an extent that they conform to styles, themes, even ideals of the target - in this case, English-speaking and hence dominant culture.

Finally - something I know a lot about!

A public service announcement in dialog brought to you by Stray Dog Central (Val's house)

9:33 PM

and I receive the following IM from a friend I'd started a chat with.

him:Hey, I've got a doggie dilemma. Can you give me some puppy parent advice?

me: I'll be happy to try.

him: thats all I can ask... Well here's the set up. I took Cosmo for a walk this evening. Somewhere along the way, we picked up a hitchhiker. A small black dog. He followed us home.



me: Oh no! Is he still there?

him: Barking on my front porch as we speak. He's got an owner, there's a collar and everything. Somebody sharpied his name "Blackie" and their name "Gabby" and there's a super smudged phone number. I can't make it out. I tried.



me: You've come to the right place. This has happened to me several times. And always on a weekend or at night when Animal Control won't answer the phone. Here's my strategy:

him: I'm all ears



me: 1. Ask a few neighbors if they know Blackie and/or his people. This works most of the time, but since it's kind of late already you and Cosmo might be stuck with him tonight...

2. If no luck, call and leave a message with Animal Control AND the Humane Society (if there is one by you), describing the dog, saying that if you don't find his people tonight, you'll bring him to the Humane Society (or ask someone to come get him) tomorrow. Yeah, that means keeping him overnight. How does Cosmo feel about him?

3. Keep him overnight. Deciding whether to keep him out or bring him in depends on your situation. I bring my own in first, then enter with the stray, making sure that mine sees he's not a threat. If mine freaks out, then the stray goes outside or in a room by itself.

4. Put an ad on Craig's List. Take a picture of the dog and mention his name.

5. Tomorrow, call Animal Control and Humane Society again until you get a live person. Then make sure someone comes to get him or take him yourself if you've got time. (I didn't add this part: Say that if no one claims him in 2 weeks you'll take him! Or I will!)

Later:

9:54 PM him: Ok...here's the latest...
9:55 PM I got up, took my water glass in to fill it, and the barking stopped.
I filled the glass, went and got Cosmo from the back porch...
Cosmo is in here now, sniffing around.9:56 PM but since it's quiet, I'm thinking I'll wait, and see on the other dog. Maybe he went off...

me: maybe he remembered where he lives and went home...

Dog owners: Please make sure your dog's name and your phone number are clearly marked on the collar. (The dog's collar, not yours, you freak!) That will save any good hearted rescuers from frustration and you'll get your dog back a lot quicker, preventing heartache all around.

"On the different methods of Translating"

"And who would deny that [when Romance languages were just barely beginning to emerge] for those with scholarly aspirations Latin was more a native tongue than the vernacular? This goes much deeper for specific intellectual activities and needs. As long as the mother tongue has not yet grown to fit these needs, the language in which endeavors of the spirit first announced themselves to people still undergoing development remains their partial mother tongue" (57).

The above cite from Friedrich Schleiermacher's article (translated from German by Susan Bernofsky) in The Translation Studies Reader (Ed. Lawrence Venuti) provides me with the following points to ponder further in the next few days:

Can we now consider English to be that "partial mother tongue" to many of the world's citizens - those with intellectual as well as other needs?

Could this somewhat quaint and perhaps ignorant or at least unevolved or old-fashioned view of Schleiermacher explain some things about my written works? Is this part of my personal and academic expression problematic?

ReallyReally LaLaLa

Despite the thousands of pages I'll have to read between now and then, I'm seriously contemplating going to see this band April 18.



This is Dengue Fever and video is for their song "Seeing Hands", which I've been hearing on Pandora. I did about 2 minutes of Internet research and found that the band is from Los Angeles. They have an excellent mix of styles I could pick out some jazz, pop, lite punk, surf, psychadelic. The lead singer is Cambodian and sings in Khmer and English. Their works (2003-2008) are a mix of covers of old Cambodian pop songs and their own compositions. Dengue Fever is something completely different and not just because of the language of most of the song lyrics. Click on their name, above in yellow, to see their MySpace page - especially interesting is the documentary film Sleepwalking Through the Mekong. It chronicles the band's tour of Cambodia, focusing on the homecoming it represents for the lead singer.

"To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." Theodor Adorno

And to study poetry written after/about Auschwitz is...?

Avelar, Idelber. The Letter of Violence: Essays on Narrative, Ethics and Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
"Why study representations of torture if the reality of cruel punishment around the world leaves us with a sour taste of powerlessness? Is it legitimate to speak of torture from the point of view of philosophy, literature and film? Is it valid to speak of a language of torture?" (45)

And...

Lang, Berel. Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
"Why, it has been asked, in light of their claims of historical authenticity, have the writers of novels, dramas, or poetry about the Nazi genocide not more directly chosen to write history itself?" (126)

"Sentimentality or bathos, it has often been pointed out, are persistent failings in many of the novels and poems on the subject of the Nazi genocide. And understandable as the causes may be for the occurrence of such disproportions between feeling and fact where the subject is concerned, the failings are nonetheless accountable, both morally and literally" (145).

But aren't sentiment, feeling and fact all part of that history? And what more accessible place for that than novel, story, drama, poetry, diary, memoir, blog, painting, photograph or sculpture? Reading about torture/oppression/trauma in a narrative or viewing an image can sometimes push us through a mere remembrance into an understanding from which action can result. Colombian artist Fernando Botero's powerful depictions of the treatment of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison give pause (especially when viewed in contrast with his other works) to American viewers, first shocked by the photos themselves that were shown repeatedly on television. In Botero's work the impact is almost greater. We are forced, by someone who is not "from here", to come face to face with something that we did not think our country capable of. Our country is one of the models of fair treatment of prisoners...torture is something other countries do, not U.S.

Obras de Fernando Botero

Erica Jong reacts to the exhibit's showing in our nation's capital.

Can Literature Promote Justice? Trauma Narrative and Social Action in Latin American Testimonio. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006.

"Outside Latin America, testimonio finds close sibling genres in abolitionist testimony and in testimony from the Holocaust, among other literatures of trauma. These genres share with testimonio speakers who are presented as representative of a larger collective, narratives of personal experiences of injustice, and calls for action on the part of readers" (168).

And is the call to action even louder for scholars?

"You will obtain your goal if you maintain your course."

I found this fortune on the sidewalk today as I was walking back from the MU after lunch (tuna salad sandwich on sesame roll at 2:30 for those inquiring minds). Selfishly, I thought, "What course would that be? Indeed, what goal would that be?" Although...someone once called me goal-oriented. Believe me, it wasn't meant as a compliment. But it fell flat as the snarky comment it was supposed to be because it's so inaccurate.

It wasn't until class tonight (Spanish 285: Arte y política en Cuba) that I figured out who the fortune was referring to. On a good seminar day, my head is filled with the topic/author at hand. I had seen a PBS documentary about Fidel Castro before lunch. One of the interviewees quotes him as saying, "I want fame and glory." He stayed his course and probably did obtain his goal.

Almost 60 years before Castro another Cuban revolutionary leader, poet José Martí, always knew that he wanted his writing to reflect his life and his ideas for nation . "Tenía un plan universal," dijo el profesor. And some writers do seem to have some sort of vision that consistently shapes their writing (JLB probably had something like this, but I'm not sure what it would be...). At the end of the XIX, when Martí was writing, though, the writer was losing authority in the realm of the political in Latin America. Especially the poet and a dissident one writing mostly from exile at that. But for some reason, his writing inspired revolution. Where else but in América could revolutionary plans be formed from this sort of poetic?

Dilemmas...

One resolved.

Now I have one minor choice to make for my Thursday seminar. The well-constructed Reader almost moved me to tears./La compilación de lecturas que mandó hacer el profe es una cosa tan bella que casi lloré. Hasta tiene el sílabo./It even contains the syllabus.



Maybe I need to ask you to vote...