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Saturday, January 17th, 2009
Coincident with my interest in learning to read and understand Spanish, I find that I'm reading a little differently these past few weeks, more sensually and in a less plot-directed way. (This may also have a lot to do with What Can I Do When Everything's on Fire?, which in its strangeness has sort of knocked me for a loop...) This is nice because it makes me able to listen to recordings of spoken and sung Spanish which I understand only in a very limited sense, and get the cadences and flow without knocking myself out about the meaning. And I'm finding that I can get a similar thing going with English, of course I understand the meaning of it much better, but I can focus on the sound of the text and the visual/sensual qualities of the scene, rather than on characters and plot, which have been my main focus over the last few years. Today I started rereading Garcia Marquez' Of Love and Other Demons (tr. Edith Grossman), and this is a fantastic book for sensual reading. I'm taking it slow, reading it like poetry -- glad I picked it up. Take a look at the first paragraph for a sense of the story's lushness:
An ash-gray dog with a white blaze on its forehead burst onto the rough terrain of the market on the first Sunday in December, knocked down tables of fried food, overturned Indians' stalls and lottery kiosks, and bit four people who happened to cross its path. Three of them were black slaves. The fourth, Sierva María de Todos los Ángeles, the only child of the Marquis de Casalduero, had come there with a mulatta servant to buy a string of bells for the celebration of her twelfth birthday.
A few notes about it: The epigraph is from the supplement to Part III of Aquinas' Summa Theologica, Question 80: Article 2, which addresses whether hair and fingernails will be resurrected along with the rest of the human body. Huh, I thought as I read this, that's a strange subject -- Garcia Marquez explains in a note at the front of the text, how this book got started. In 1949, as a reporter for El Universal in Cartagena, he covered the destruction of the historic Convent of Santa Clara and the disinterment of the bodies in its graveyard. One of the bodies was a young girl's, and yards of red hair were growing from its skull -- the grave marker said "Sierva María de Todos los Ángeles," and he associated this name with a folk tale he had heard from his grandmother about a girl who died of rabies and was credited with miracles. So 45 years later, in 1994, Garcia Marquez wrote a novel about a red-haired girl of that name dying of rabies. This is an interesting take on historical fiction -- mixing history and myth/folklore freely and without apology.
 (Note that the author's note is part of the fiction, like the dedication of The White Castle -- I wonder though what part of it is true. I'm assuming with no proof that it is true except for the detail about the red hair.)
posted afternoon of January 17th, 2009: 2 responses
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I've been listening a lot to Disc B of the Mountain Blues box set from JSP Records -- there is a ton of great music on this disc and in this set, including many fiddle tunes that I want to learn. Plus a song I'm finding particularly interesting, and different from most everything else on this set: Bread Line Blues (1931), by Slim Smith. There doesn't seem to be any biographical information on Smith that I can find, either in the notes to the box set or on the Internets. His singing style reminds me a lot of Woody Guthrie; I'm pretty poor at recognizing accents, so I won't venture to guess where he's from -- most of the other artist on the set are from Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, the Carolinas. The song is basically a plea to vote Democratic in 1932. I'm interested in finding out some of the subtext -- I don't know a whole lot about the history of the Great Depression beyond generalities. I understand that Hoover, a Republican, was blamed for the economic collapse, and clearly the song says "vote Democratic to get the economy back on course." But I'm very intrigued by the lines, "If we had states' rights,/ I'll leave it to you,/ We could all have fun/ And better home-brew." If I heard someone in say, 1960 or later, invoking "states' rights," I'd assume he was speaking in code about resentment over desegregation, and appealing to memories of Southern separatism -- this is a major part of the theme of Nixonland. But I don't believe desegregation was even on the radar in 1931. It sounds from the verse like the resentment is against prohibition, and maybe more generally against federal regulation of distillation. But presumably memories of Southern separatism would have been fresher in 1931 than they were in the '60s; so maybe that is coming through as well. I'm also pretty interested by this verse: "It's the rich man's job/ To make some rules,/ To rid me of/ These Bread Line Blues." What is the ideology here? The first time I heard the song I started out thinking I was listening to a Socialist after the manner of Woody Guthrie, advocating for FDR and the New Deal; but this verse makes no sense in that context -- it sounds more to me like what I think of as Republicanism, and it surprises me to hear a Democrat saying it. But obviously party boundaries and ideologies are fluid. Oh and another neat thing: the Donkey and Elephant party mascots make their appearances. How old are these symbols? Aha! finally a question I can answer with Google: the animals date to 1874, to a political cartoon by Thomas Nast.
posted afternoon of January 17th, 2009: 3 responses
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Sylvia gets her moment in the spotlight! The News-Record photographer came into her school last week and took a few shots of her lunchtime knitting club -- here she is working with a couple of friends.
posted morning of January 17th, 2009: Respond
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Friday, January 16th, 2009
 Yeah, that's about how I feel too... Sorry about the light posting this week, maybe when Bush is out of Washington my head will be a little more together...
posted morning of January 16th, 2009: Respond
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Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
Argentine author Sergio Chejfec, whose Mis dos Mundos was recommended by Enrique Vila-Matas as one of the best books he read in 2008, will be reading from the translation My Two Worlds in NYC Thursday the 29th, two weeks from tomorrow. His translator Liz Werner will also be there; this is Chejfec's first book to appear in English. The event is a party for the 10th anniversary of BOMB Magazine. If you're coming, drop me a line. (via 3%.)
 Update: A misreading -- Chejfec's translator is Margaret Carson.
posted morning of January 14th, 2009: Respond
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Monday, January 12th, 2009
Listening to the Colombian band Musicalizando sing Neruda's poem "Plenos Poderes" is, well, fun. I'm not quite connecting with the music -- it doesn't really move me -- but the poem is just lovely and I'm glad to be able to hear it recited rather than just reading it on the page and trying to figure out the cadences for myself. And also, it's just a nice feeling to see pop musicians rooted in the literary tradition like that. I wonder (with reference to El Laberinto de la Soledad) if this is more common in Latin America than it is here. The lines Y no me canso de ir y de volver;
no me para la muerte con su piedra,
no me canso de ser y de no ser.
seem like a disavowal of his earlier Sucede que me canso de ser hombre. (from "Walking Around"). I suppose without knowing, this might be connected to the political situations of the times when he wrote these two poems. The lines from "Plenos Poderes" work nicely as a response to Hamlet's question.More Neruda-based pop music below the fold.
posted evening of January 12th, 2009: 5 responses
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Promoted from comments: Jorge links to an amazing set of photos at his Picasa account: Isla Negra is the site of one of Neruda's residences. I'm just blown away by the shades of black in this picture.
posted evening of January 12th, 2009: 2 responses
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The bolano-l mailing list is hosting a group read of 2666, starting today. I'm sitting this one out, but if you're meaning to read the book I'm guessing this will be a very useful resource. (via The Howling Fantods.)
posted afternoon of January 12th, 2009: Respond
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Sunday, January 11th, 2009
Over at vox.com: A Thought for Today. Interesting epigraphs.
posted evening of January 11th, 2009: Respond
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There seems to be a lot written about translating Neruda's poetry. Here are a couple of things I've found this morning.
posted morning of January 11th, 2009: Respond
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At The Great Whatsit, Pandora Brewer 