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Monday, October 22nd, 2007
I was thinking about Romanticism today and what it might mean in the context of Fritz's life, and in the context of Hymns to Night -- Jerry was telling me he thought the poem (of which I had read him about the first paragraph) sounded profoundly connected to being in the world, and I said well, there's a lot of alienation in the poem as well -- I was talking about the suggestions throughout the poem (as much of it as I have read), that the Night and unconsciousness are a higher, more true reality than day, because in sleep the poet can clearly see his beloved free of the trappings of the earthly. This seemed to me like a pretty clear-cut Idealist metaphysics, that the realm of thought is more real than the shadows of the outside world -- I had a go at explaining Plato's allegory of the cave to Jerry -- it's hard for me to see how such a metaphysics could be anything besides alienating of the thinker from the world, which seems like a bad thing to me. And, this ties in with the perception I have that Romantic thinking (on which I have only the vaguest of a grasp) and Idealism are somehow decadent -- which is just something I dimly remember hearing somewhere but has become sort of an article of faith.
(Dumb typo corrected, and it occurs to me that "Allegory of the Café" would be an awesome name for a restaurant.)
posted evening of October 22nd, 2007: Respond
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Sunday, October 21st, 2007
Debate on how to translate the opening line of Hymns to Night is making me wonder if a bit of English grammar was lost (in my idiolect I mean) before I learned the language -- is "wake"/"awake" intransitive and "waken"/"awaken" transitive? That would make sense; but the four verbs seem totally synonymous to my ear -- I can't distinguish between when to use one or another. (Except I guess I would hardly ever use "awake" as a verb -- sounds very archaic -- except in the past tense.)
posted evening of October 21st, 2007: Respond
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Saturday, October 20th, 2007
I'm watching All About my Mother again tonight, for what I think will be the last repetition (for the time being); I am really getting the movement of it, and understanding the scenes individually and in combination. Just pausing the film to note what seems to me like a really brilliant detail -- at the end of the scene showing Manuela acting in an organ donation seminar, the camera pans to her son jotting notes, then back to Manuela. Then the view switches to black and white and you see the movie rewinding -- the camera pulls back and you see the black and white is the videotape playing for a group of nurses who are reviewing the seminar. But in those couple of seconds before the camera pulls back, the impression (at least the impression I get) is that the black and white photography and the rewind are occuring in the mental image of Esteban the story teller, writing a story about his mother. This ambiguity seems really neat to me.
posted evening of October 20th, 2007: Respond
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I am a little surprised at the progress I am making with Hymns to the Night -- I was mentioning to a friend today that when I pick up projects like this, I usually map them out in detail, then translate a sentence or two and lose interest. Today I've got working translations of the first and second hymns, and I think they read reasonably well. I have borrowed heavily from MacDonald's translation but I think mine is more pleasant of a read -- you have to spend less time and effort on diagramming the sentences in your head to make them make sense.I think a combination of telling everybody I'm working on this and the effort I put into programming the translation page is making this feel like a higher priority to actually put in the time and do it. We'll see about the verse sections of hymns 4, 5, and 6 -- I think it is going to be really difficult to come up with anything. Update: I'm no longer a one-man band! The first outside contribution to the project comes from Greg Woodruff, and it's a good 'un. Update: Another translation, from Gary.
posted evening of October 20th, 2007: 6 responses
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I had been a little confused by the chronology of The Blue Flower, particularly as regards the first two chapters and the area right around chapter 11 or 12 -- a reference in chapter 33 to Dietmahler's visit cleared up the first thing, but I'm still a little confused by things like Fritz's time at his primary school -- letting it ride for now as the kind of thing I'll probably pick up on better if I reread the book. I love the book but I have to say, Fritz's involvement with Sophie does not strike me as the most interesting thing in the book.
posted evening of October 20th, 2007: Respond
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Friday, October 19th, 2007
Watching All About Eve tonight -- I am being blown away. I'm almost sure I've seen it before at some point, but have no memory of it at all. It is going to be really useful when I am rewatching All About my Mother -- I'm picking up a lot of the references that I totally missed before. Is it a commonplace observation that Susan Sarandon looks like and acts like Bette Davis? Because I am noticing that for the first time. (Ellen points out that Sarandon does not have the imperious persona, which I guess is true -- there were non-imperious moments when the likeness was jumping out at me.)
posted evening of October 19th, 2007: Respond
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Thursday, October 18th, 2007
Trying to translate a poem I don't really understand out of a language I don't really speak fluently might seem, well, a little Quixotic. But listen -- I think it is worthwhile. It is I guess at root a way of making myself spend some time trying to get the sounds and meanings of the poetry. I have traditionally had a hard time with poetry because I pass over it too quickly and miss nuances. An exercise like this, assuming I can stick with it, will work to correct that tendency.
posted evening of October 18th, 2007: Respond
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This evening I saw the most extraordinary thing: I was walking through the park after dark, next to the duck pond. There were street lamps lit near the pond but where I was, was in the shadow of a large tree, so the only light was patches reflected from the rippling surface of the pond. I noticed a slight movement a few feet ahead of me -- it was the egret that lives in the canal next to the park, crouching over the edge of the pond like a diver. (This bird I have never seen from closer than about 50 feet.) The egret's curved neck was a matte black "S" against the glossy black of the water, for a beautiful moment before it jumped in to the pond.
posted evening of October 18th, 2007: Respond
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Want to help me come up with a new translation of Hymns to the Night? I've set up a page for translating. Update (Friday evening): Hm, haven't seen anybody else over there yet. But I have a working copy of the first chapter, and I think it sounds pretty good. I have copied MacDonald's translation quite closely in places, and introduced changes in other places. See what you think.
posted afternoon of October 18th, 2007: Respond
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Wow, that was fast! Guess I will hafta come up with some kind of security thingy. Update: Well I wrote a script for quick deletion of spam. What should I do about blocking it? A captcha?
posted morning of October 18th, 2007: Respond
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