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Me and Sylvia at the Memorial (April 2009)

READIN

Jeremy's journal

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

— Sir Francis Bacon


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Saturday, August 17th, 2013

🦋 Third time's the charm

Taped some tunes tonight...





Set list

"The Halting March"
"The Road to Lisdoonvarna" (with the "Swallowtail Jig") -- this and "Halting March" I plan to play at the fiddle contest next weekend.
"The Arkansas Traveler"
"The Devil's Dream"
-intermission
"Humorèsque"
"Amazing Grace" -- the quality of performance falls off a bit after this -- none of the recordings after this are something I would play for a friend. The tunes themselves though, definite keepers. (And indeed, they are much improved by the third take!)
"The Sailor's Hornpipe"
"My Bonnie"
"Johnny Mceldoo" (which turns out to have exactly the same opening sequence of notes as "The Arkensas Traveler", making for some pleasant confusion)
"Taps"

posted evening of August 17th, 2013: 2 responses
➳ More posts about Fiddling

🦋 Metamorphoses



Wow, there is some great poetry in this issue of Metamorphoses. Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Hilst, Orhan Veli, Benny Andersen (whose "Kierkegaard on a bicycle" is going to be my new favorite poem for at least a little while),...

posted afternoon of August 17th, 2013: Respond
➳ More posts about Translation

🦋 Lingua

My father's language
is my mother tongue
and the tongues of those around me
are not my own
nor their teeth

my mouth it moves
and forms the words
the moving pen has left behind
nor all your Piety and Wit
too late to say

posted morning of August 17th, 2013: 3 responses
➳ More posts about Poetry

🦋 Metamorphoses

Another Zupcic story, another Osner translation: "Tescuco, Italy" is printed in the Fall 2013 issue of Metamorphoses, the journal of the five colleges faculty seminar on literary translation.

posted morning of August 17th, 2013: Respond
➳ More posts about Slavko Zupcic

Thursday, August 15th, 2013

🦋 Discipline

by Jeremy Osner

The optimal discipline consists
in self-awareness, self-negation
in a parody of cleanliness.
The optimal discipline consists
in self indulgence, self-correction
in a parody of obediance
obeisance,
and the optimal level of discipline
the one we seek
but never quite attain
a balance
calm condolence
over situations we never asked for
were taxed for
avoided all semblance of discipline
in meditation
like a form of recreation
resurrection
and ultimate truth.

AND IT'S NOW! so
why not do it? With a
howl you pounce
into the fiction before you
teeming fiction where you're jostled
cheek by jowl they crowd you
louder now they're grumbling
and muffling you with their scowls
now you're struggling to escape
to leave this sea of narrative
to lift your glance
to glance away
and break your concentration
and not worry about the implicit snub
to your host the author.

posted evening of August 15th, 2013: Respond
➳ More posts about Writing Projects

Tuesday, August 13th, 2013

🦋 A house at Mount Irazú

A house at Mount Irazú

by Eduardo Valverde
tr. Jeremy Osner

These little stars, stars setting in the rivers and the streams,
working their way loose from our fingers and our wallets, stars flowing out like water;
and there will be no one to pay the check
nor to tally the coins.

His ashtray has a leak in it,
it's a little cardboard cup with water in it from a bottle.
You can picture the scorching agony of the fire -a little scream-
that split its fibers.

Green is the green, and leaden all the gray.
The girls are playing, they're laughing, out on the deck;
the women are waiting - just a few more minutes-
for them to come back in without a scratch, as big as life.

We were not sleeping.
I know it because I could hear them out the window
fumbling, impatient
those shapes in the dark. Maybe that's how cows dream,
but us, no.
Us, we weren't sleeping.

So many times, I could swear
he just snubbed us;
indifferent to the whisky
and to the electric skillet,
to the mint tea and the conversation.
Cold reigned
like the silence that volcanoes impose.

And the stairs,
stairs shy and ominous in the night,
downstairs to the morning -- sleeping still,
she's ready to arise.

Don't freak,
in this house
no-one yet has died.

posted evening of August 13th, 2013: 1 response
➳ More posts about Projects

Saturday, August 10th, 2013

🦋 dialog

Looking through Mirar al agua to see what will catch my interest... I'm startled and intrigued by this story, which starts out fast-paced dialog and keeps being that with no narration for 12 pages!

posted morning of August 10th, 2013: Respond
➳ More posts about Mirar al agua

Friday, August 9th, 2013

🦋 un día al Met

posted evening of August 9th, 2013: 1 response
➳ More posts about Pretty Pictures

Wednesday, August 7th, 2013

🦋 un día al Musee d'Orsay

por Félix Fojas
tr. Jeremy Osner

Sintiéndome una mezcla entre curiosidad
y aburrimiento entro en el paisaje
encantante de ese maestro francés
del siglo diez y nueve que muestra
un parque en alguna parte
en el campo con los hombres
que lucen bigotes dalinianos
y chisteros mientras las damas
de pecho abultado que llevan
corsés debajo de sus vestidos

elegantes, que agarran paragüas
y cestas de picnic mientras
se pasean deliberadamente
esta mañana de domingo, linda
mañana. Son de ojos grandes
estupefactos
por la intrusión súbita
y sorprendente de un tipo siglo viente
como yo, fuera de lugar,
voy pésimo vestido,
sudadera azul y vaquero

a juego. Indignados
se unen en una multitud
y me desalojan
groseramente
del encuadre ancho
me empujan al presente
donde me encuentro
transportado al Museo
del Prado en Madrid en que figura
entre otras una obra
por Hieronymus Bosch
que poblan caracteres grotescos

del renacimiento que me hacen seña
a entrar en una orgía salvaje. Estoy
abrumado! Sostengo mi aliento
precioso, como protesto sacudo la cabeza
y me nego a participar en esa pesadilla
surrealista, en esa choque cultural
peor por lejos que lo que soporte
mi condición postmoderna
de desvelo y sensibilidad.

posted evening of August 7th, 2013: Respond

Tuesday, August 6th, 2013

🦋 Escuchamos

not an Airplane.

posted evening of August 6th, 2013: Respond
➳ More posts about Music

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