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Friday, September 24th, 2010
Strange though it may seem to anyone unaware of the importance of the marital bed in the efficient workings of public administration, regardless of whether that bed has been blessed by the church or state or no one at all, the first step of an elephant's extraordinary journey to austria, which we propose to describe hereafter, took place in the royal apartments of the portuguese court, more or less at bedtime.
And so The Elephant's Journey opens in the marital chambers of John III of Portugal and his queen Catherine of Hapsburg -- John III is (IIUC) great-great-grandfather to John V, in whose marital chambers Baltasar and Blimunda will open two centuries later. And The Elephant's Journey is seeming in its first few chapters like it is very much going to be a masterpiece on the order of Baltasar and Blimunda and The History of the Siege of Lisbon. I could hardly imagine anything better...
posted evening of September 24th, 2010: Respond
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Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
(Well not until next summer, but still...) I got word today from Words Without Borders that they love my translation of Réquiem and are going to publish it in their "Homages" issue next July. I'm tremendously excited about this! I remember a line of Edith Grossman's to the effect that the way to be a translator is to assert that you are a translator, to just go ahead and do it; and now I feel like I am a translator, like I am going ahead and doing it. I also heard from John Carvill of the brand-new site oomska that he wants to publish my translation of Pablo Antonio Cuadra's "Black Boat". This is great... I think I will look around for a new story to start working on, maybe something by Soledad Puértolas.
posted evening of September 23rd, 2010: 8 responses
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Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010
Speaking of Altazor, I found on YouTube a reading of the Prologue that I've been translating over the last few weeks. Clémence Loonis is reading:
My translation of this section below the fold.
"And I created the mouth and the lips of the mouth, to imprison ambiguous smiles; and the teeth of the mouth to keep watch on the absurdities that enter our mouths. "I created the tongue of the mouth, the tongue which man tore from her proper role, making her learn to speak... She, she, the gorgeous bather, torn forever from her proper role, aquatic, purely sensual."
My parachute began to fall vertiginously. Such is the force of the attraction from death, from the open sepulchre. You must believe it, the tomb holds more power than the eyes of my beloved -- the open tomb and all its charms. And I'm saying this to you, to you who when you are smiling, you make me think about the beginning of the world.
My parachute became entangled with an extinguished star, one which went conscientiously about its orbit as if it were not aware of the futility of its efforts. And making good use of this well-earned respite, I proceeded to fill in, with my profound thoughts, the blank squares of my gameboard: "Authentic song is arson. Poetry weaves herself through every thing, she lights the way for her consumations with her shivers of ecstasy, of agony. "One must write in a tongue which is not one's mother tongue. "The four cardinal points are three: the South and the North. "A poem is a thing which is coming into being. "A poem is a thing which never exists, which must exist. "A poem is a thing which never has existed, which could never exist. "Flee from the sublime external, unless you want to die brought low by the wind. "If I did not commit some madness at least once every year, I would surely go mad."
↻...done
posted evening of September 22nd, 2010: Respond
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In Canto V of Altazor it seems like Weinberger is really coming in to his own -- this is the first Canto where I can really read the translation without constantly looking back to the original to see what rhythm and meaning Huidobro was getting at, the point at which Weinberger's poem becomes a poem of its own.
Here begins the unexplored land
Round on account of the eyes that behold it
Profound on account of my heart
Filled with likely sapphires
Sleepwalking hands
And aerial burials
Eerie as the dreams of dwarfs
As the branch snapped off in infinity
The seagull carries to its young
There is one point though, where I think his translation could really be improved upon. The long repetitive, chanting section that begins
Jugamos fuera del tiempo
Y juega con nosotros el molino de viento
Molino de viento
Molino de aliento
Molino de cuento
Molino de intento...
Weinberger renders as,
We play outside of time
And the windmill plays along
The wind mill
The mill of inspiration
The mill of narration
The mill of determination
The mill of proliferation...
(and keep in mind that this goes on for another 200 or so lines) -- I love his word choice but think it would flow much better together if every line is turned end-to-end, thus:
We play outside of time
And the windmill plays along
Ventilationmill
Inspirationmill
Narrationmill
Determinationmill
Proliferationmill...
With that singsong rhythm set up I can plow full steam ahead through the pages filled with just Exaltationmill/ Inhumationmill/ Maturationmill/ etcetera etcetera...
A couple of lovely lines from earlier in the canto, in my own translation:
So let us light a pyre beneath the oracle
To placate destiny
Let us feed solitude's
miracles
With our own flesh
So in the cemetery, sealed off
And beautiful, like an eclipse
The rose
breaks its bonds and blossoms beyond the grave
...
Laugh, laugh, before fatigue arrives.
 (Speaking of translation, I had some potentially very good news from an editor at Words Without Borders, about my submission of Zupcic's Réquiem. Should know more next week.)
posted evening of September 22nd, 2010: Respond
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Dark Roasted Blend has a collection of photos of gargoyles from all over the world -- this is billed as part I, so hopefully we will get more soon. (via cleek)
posted evening of September 22nd, 2010: Respond
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Sunday, September 19th, 2010
 Sylvia's birthday party at the Raptor Trust was great fun and for me, a chance to see something new; I had never been there before. Sylvia got this great shot of a turkey vulture peering out at us.
Mountain Station played the Lenox Pl. block party and we had a ball with it. Several mix-ups on both our parts in terms of what lyrics were coming next... But from where I was standing it came out sounding very good. In the next few days I should get a chance to listen to what the recording sounds like.
posted evening of September 19th, 2010: 1 response
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posted evening of September 19th, 2010: 6 responses
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Saturday, September 18th, 2010
A great lesson with Barbara -- primary areas we covered:
- Bowing -- begin bow strokes with more force, get a percussive effect at the beginning of the stroke. If I am more conscious of keeping a healthy dollop of rosin on my bow, this will be easier.
- Vibrado -- Barbara gave me a woodshed exercise for learning how to do vibrado and told me that if I practice it diligently for a week, I will get it. Probably not going to do this very immediately, but I will keep it on hand... Part of the trick is not to touch the neck with the base of your index finger when you are doing vibrado; the other part is to work on having a very even rhythm to the motion.
- Positions -- Barbara gave me a nice straightforward woodshed exercise for moving between first and third position..
- "Moose on the Roof" -- we worked on this song for about half the time of the lesson; I'm convinced I could play it pretty well with some practice. It is in cross-tuning (EADA) -- I have never played violin in non-standard tuning, it is a lot of fun.
posted morning of September 18th, 2010: Respond
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Lots of stuff going on this weekend! Sylvia (a child of the millenium, a dragon baby) is as of today, no longer able to write her age with a single digit (assuming of course that she is writing in decimal notation). We are having a birthday dinner with some friends this evening, and tomorrow afternoon her party will be at the Raptor Trust in the Great Swamp. The other big activity for me, outside of celebrating Sylvia's birthday, is fiddling. Barbara Lamb is in town this weekend, she's giving a concert at Menzel Violins tomorrow afternoon -- I can't make it because of the party, alas, but I've arranged for a fiddle lesson this morning. Really looking forward to it! I've learned her jig "Twisty Girl", I'm hoping she'll teach me "Älgen på taket". And the fiddling continues this afternoon, when Mountain Station (i.e. me and John) will have its first gig, at John's neighborhood block party. I'm pretty shocked at the amount of music we are comfortable playing -- we didn't work out a set list exactly, but we have enough songs to play for an hour set easily, and the order of the songs will determine itself...
posted morning of September 18th, 2010: 4 responses
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Friday, September 17th, 2010
Each Canto of Altazor gets a little faster, a little more frantic. In Canto III (which Weinberger says in his preface, is where the fireworks really start), the rhythm is getting insistent, begging you to follow along:
Break all one's ligaments and veins
The loops of breathing and the chains
Of our eyes, our paths to the horizon
Flower projected on uniform skies
The soul paved with memories
Like stars, emblazoned by the wind
The sea, a rooftop shingled with bottles
Dreams in the sailor's memory
Sebastian Ramirez and Tomislav Definis of V Producciones have filmed a spell-binding reading of this Canto, paired with Bach's piano concerto #9. (Be sure to keep watching til the end!)
posted evening of September 17th, 2010: Respond
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