READIN

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013

🦋 October skies: wallpaper

Saw the sunset from the train on my way home, it was gorgeous -- half the sky was scarlet. By the time I got to Mountain Station is was almost gone, this is a shot of the very end of it that I think works nicely as a desktop wallpaper.

posted evening of October 8th, 2013: 1 response
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🦋 A brief clash of wills

posted evening of October 8th, 2013: Respond

🦋 Old friend

by Jeremy Osner (for Graham)

That's odd -- I can hardly remember the last time I knew where
you were
or had any contact
and yet
I feel your far-off presence by my side
a chuckle when I make a joke
that doesn't quite come off
and glad to
listen to the twisted theories
and share a pipe
and grin
and I remember
when we used to talk about
what would come
and little did we know of course
I hear your name sometimes
and wonder
what's become.

posted evening of October 8th, 2013: Respond
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Monday, October 7th, 2013

posted evening of October 7th, 2013: 1 response

Sunday, October 6th, 2013

🦋 Soñando caminos: We change the language by what we say.

(with thanks to Leilani for the lovely restatement of Machado's theme)

Wanderer, these your steps
make up the path, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no path:
you make the path by walking.
By walking you make the path,
and turning back your gaze you see
the trail you'll tread upon no more.
Wanderer, there is no path:
just wake upon the sea.

— Antonio Machado: Proverbs and poems â…©â…©â…¨

I've had this poem on my mind quite a bit recently. I thought I would spend a little time writing about it — I'd like to examine its face-value meaning, the metaphor of the poem, and the value of the metaphor, how it speaks to me; and incidentally I'd like to put a little effort into defending my translation, which is fairly different from the standard translation of Betty Jean Craige, in Selected Poems of Antonio Machado, 1979. I think (obviously I think) it is an improvement on Craige's translation; it seems worthwhile to elaborate on why I think that way — how my translation speaks more clearly than Craige's. But that should be a secondary point really; what I really want to talk about is how it is that I find this poem to speak to me so clearly. It is nice as well to get a chance to quote a couple of poems that I've translated and written over the past few years. I think it will make worthwhile reading, see what you think.

Let's reread Machado's first lines. Your steps make up the path, and nothing more. (The "path" dang it, not the road — roads are engineered and built by crews of men over the years, not "made by walking". And a wanderer is hardly confined to the roadways.) A path is a most personal thing. And what Machado's metaphor here is, is the path of one's life: it's not mapped out before one but made up of one's footsteps, the trail one leaves through life. Which one will tread upon no more. The obvious question here to ask is, "But isn't that pretty obviously true?" and yes, of course it is, and has been pointed out before; but an obvious truth that seems perennially to need restatement — one that comes to me at least as a revelation every time I hear it expressed, and doubly so when it is expressed so elegantly as Machado puts it here.

I came to this poem pretty early in life. I can't remember what group it was but I seem to recall its having had an anthemic quality in some vaguely lefty/artistic circles I had some contact with in my teen years — possibly I remember it from Peace Camp, though in what context is not quite clear.* It has an elemental feel to it, something so clearly correct and valuable that it is hard to know where to begin. (And this quality is, obviously, so strong that it shines through a slight roughness of rendering like Craige's, which is the poem I remember from my youth. It was not until I was talking about it with a friend last year and he brought up the objection vis-a-vis roads that I realized a better translation was needed.) I heard it again recently in Oaxaca, a man played guitar and sang it prior to a poetry reading.

Machado's clarity of voice as he addresses you, asks you to reexamine the ground you're walking on, gives you the reader a new point of perspective. Likewise another restatement of this metaphor, this obvious truth — poems of a slightly different form but closely related theme are a few of Pablo Antonio Cuadras's about el maestro de Tarca. The first and eighth poems in his series both feature el maestro sitting up on la Piedra del Águila, telling his disciples what is fitting and just. The maestro's seafarer plays much the same role here as the wanderer (in the desert?) of Machado.

One thing I love about Machado's treatment of this universal truth is how easily it can be parodied, and how the parodies can ring clear, can bring out new shades of meaning in the original. What at first seems paradoxical can with a slight twist of the lenses be made to appear blindingly, obviously the case. Take for instance Leilani Hagberg's line in the title of this piece, or my expansion on it:

For language (while it is of course a facility created over hundreds (or tens?) of thousands of years by all of humanity in concert) has as highly personal a quality to it when considered in the particular case as does one's path. A sillier (and a fun, and rewarding, to be sure) parody, and one that indeed suffers from the same symptom of misunderstanding as does Craige's version, is:

Let's look at another fragment of Machado's concerned with paths and wanderers; this one from "I keep dreaming of pathways":

Not quite sure how to bring out what it is that I find so compelling about the central metaphor these pieces all have in common, why it rings so clear to me and (I hope) to the reader. (—Not to take any unwanted liberties.)

* Also Ellen reminds me to mention Myles Horton and Paolo Freire's book We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change (1990).

posted morning of October 6th, 2013: 3 responses
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Saturday, October 5th, 2013

🦋 Another Saturday Night

Let's listen to Cat Stevens.



Let's listen to Sam Cooke.



No link or video (natch), but one of my favorite memories of hearing a busker playing in the subway is of a young Latino guy in the Times Square station playing this song with a sort of Reggae beat, musta been back in '96 or something.

posted morning of October 5th, 2013: Respond
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🦋 Jug Band Music

I saw the Carolina Jug Stompers at last weekend's Hoboken Music Festival, along with a huge crowd; then last night I caught up with them (well just with WB Reid and his wife Bonnie, and jug master Luke Faust) in a much more intimate setting at Maxwell's -- there were about as many people in the audience as there were on stage. Fantastic music both shows.

posted morning of October 5th, 2013: 1 response
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Thursday, October third, 2013

🦋 Kingdom of Love

The visuals in this cartoon are at moments strikingly reminiscent of the Codex Seraphinianus. Let's listen to the Soft Boys.



(I'm a bit blown away also by the quality of the mashup, which is Unavión Ounpájaro' s editing of "Fantastic Planet" by Deloux.)

posted evening of October third, 2013: Respond
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🦋 Meanwhile somewhere else

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🦋 Who can write a history of leaves?

Alice Oswald has won the 2013 Warwick Prize for Writing for her astonishing Memorial. Here is the final scene of her vision of the Trojan War, the death of Hector:

posted evening of October third, 2013: Respond
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