writing « justinlife

27 June 2010

more translation

Posted by admin @ 10:06 am categories: Spanish • language • writing

A translation of the poem I wrote a few days ago. Discussion after.

A veces, él recibe notas del pasado,
bruscas en la redacción pero directas en su importancia;
salen del mar como burbujas
y le siguien a algún muro olvidado.
Cuándo vienen a él,
están como luciérnagas abajo de una luna menguante
y él cierra sus ojos ante de ellas
en un movimiento de vergüenza.
Las palabras siempre están escrito en una letra dura,
la escritura más hendidura que perfil,
la tinta negra a veces disipada.
Siempre están inevitable.
Cuándo cena con su novia,
o cambia líneas en las profundidades del metro,
de vez en cuando ve reflexiones,
o palabras en relieve
en las arrugas de la cara de ella,
o en las cajas plásticas que alojan los anuncios.
Un día, en frustración, ella le llamó a las altas horas de la noche
y le preguntó a explicar sus distracciones.
“No puedo,” él dijo a traves del transmisor,
“y no sé si es algo que quiero.”
La presente no es ineludible
no más que el pasado es incapaz de olvidar;
sus sueños no le dejarán en paz,
porque él todavía no los ha dejado.

Translating a poem is more difficult than translating much anything else, in part because one tends to use words very specifically. I’ve never taken a translation class, which I’m sad about, because I think translation is fascinating; here are some general observations:

translating to Spanish is interesting because pronouns become debated — where are they necessary? I could write this entire poem without making the sex of its characters clear, something that’s quite difficult to do in English. I decided to use pronouns quite a bit, because otherwise a lot would be unclear. For example, in the line “en las arrugas de la cara de ella” (“in the wrinkles on her face”), I could translate this as “en las arrugas de su cara” — but then it becomes unclear whose face I’m speaking of. To me, at least.
This translation made two oddities in the English apparent: (1) “script more indentation than outline” — this doesn’t quite make sense. I’m trying to imply that the ink is less important than the impression on the paper, but really both words describe the same thing. I didn’t change this. (2) “‘I can’t, he said into the receiver” — it seems okay to me to use the word “receiver” to mean “mouthpiece.” But really the receiver of a telephone is the earpiece, no? I’m not sure if I should change it. The word “receiver” really could mean either part. But in Spanish, I decided to go with “transmitter,” “transmisor.” I’m pretty sure this makes the most sense.
As with any translation when you’re not fully bilingual, and even sometimes then (I’d imagine), I used a dictionary a fair bit. Sometimes just to check where an accent goes (I’m sure I forgot a few), and sometimes for words — ineludible (inescapable) is a new favorite. I’m still unsure as to exactly what I mean by “short” (“short in their wording and direct in their import”), so my translation (brusco, brusque) might not be quite right.
I’m not sure how I feel about the last lines. In English: “his dreams will not leave him alone, / because he has not yet given them up.” In Spanish, I translated them using the same verb, as though it were “his dreams will not leave him alone, / because he will not leave them alone.” In Spanish, to me, it sounds less awkward. But I’m shaky about it. Equally shaky: “and hold him to a forgotten wall” doesn’t translate well as “y le siguien a algún muro olvidado.” But I don’t think “and they follow him to some forgotten wall” is exactly wrong, either. I’m not quite sure that I mean “hold” as a synonym to “press.”

In any case, this was a surprisingly fun exercise. I should do it again.

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16 June 2010

tips to a poet

Posted by admin @ 8:52 am categories: teaching • writing

First, an explanation: A few months ago, a friend of mine told me that he was beginning to write poetry, and asked me for any tips I might give him. I flubbed the response — essentially contradicting myself and being unhelpful. That’s okay; I’m sure he didn’t really need my advice. That said, I thought some on the subject, and figured I would try and do a better job. Am I qualified to give advice on writing poetry? I think so. Depends on what qualifications are necessary.

When I was in Bilbao, then, I spent some time sitting down and trying to think of some tips I should’ve given him. They are still contradictory; that’s part of the fun. I think, with this kind of thing, you need to pick and choose. Every so often, I come across an article — in a magazine or newspaper, usually — with tips for writers, from well-known authors. Half of them are always complete shit. Some of them are actually pretty good. Sometimes they’re ridiculous; sometimes they’re way too detailed. And sometimes one of them will ring true. So maybe I’ll put down something along those lines, here. None of these are new; they’re just the pieces of advice that have stuck to me. They’re not particularly in order. Some of them are more exercises than advice; some are more encouragement than anything else.

Read books of poetry by a single author, and then try to emulate the style — or try to write nothing like it at all.
Play with structure. Write something following a strict form, and then write something formless. See what fits. There are many good forms to play with.
Don’t ask anyone to read your poetry until you feel like it. When you do, take it to someone who’s actually going to critique it, and then take their criticism with a thick skin. Sycophants might make you feel good, but they’re not actually going to help all too much.
You don’t need to finish every poem you begin. It’s okay to throw something away.
Be daring.
Re-use something that didn’t work.
Don’t write poetry when you’re drunk.
Don’t force a rhyme. Don’t use feminine rhyme (rhyme using more than one syllable) unless you’re a rapper.
It is, however, okay to rhyme. But realize that it doesn’t always sound good — so be aware of when your poetry is being shaped by a need to rhyme. If your couplet is being formed based more on the rhyme than on the thread of thought, scrap it. Rhymes should feel natural.
Rewrite. If you feel like it.
It is rarely enjoyable to read a poem written entirely in metaphorical language.
Describe in actions, not just in adjectives.
Avoid flowery language or language that feels like nothing new. Phrases like “silent scream,” “void,” and breathless descriptions of darkness are generally to be avoided. A poem about sadness or inner confusion needs to be really good for anyone other than you to want to read it.
Show action and emotion — not just description.
Pay close attention to line breaks.
Learn how to read poetry well. Hint: You shouldn’t pause at the end of a line if there’s no punctuation, unless there’s a rhyme or something necessary. Spoken poetry is not the same as read-on-the-page poetry, and you shouldn’t try to make it so.
Listen to (recordings of) poets reading their work. Read along.
Learn how to end a poem. It’s not always easy.

Perhaps these thoughts are more useful to me than to anyone else. But I am curious: what advice would you give to someone writing poetry? It would be fun to hear some thoughts other than mine.

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6 June 2010

House of Leaves

Posted by admin @ 15:11 pm categories: art • writing

Back in November, I wrote about a book I was reading, called House of Leaves.

I had started it back a year ago or so, and I finally finished it yesterday, on the train coming back from San Sebastian. (Which merits its own post. The train, as well, but I’ll post on San Sebastian.) I ended up reasonably well-pleased with the book. I don’t think it was ground-breaking, and I have a few places where I wrote something akin to “fuck you, Danielewski” in the margins, but all-in-all I’d say that I found this to be a fascinating book, and I am unlikely to forget it any time soon.

To re-cap: the book is ostensibly about a film called The Navidson Record, a quasi-horror film in which Will Navidson, his wife, and their two kids move into a house in Virginia that has a basement that is more than a basement — it is a creature, an almost-living malevolent being. The innermost heart of the novel is a book that is essentially a descriptive critique of the film, heavy on external sources except for where these sources are rebutted. This part of the novel is excellent — replete with sections where the design of the page reflects what’s going in the text. This text then, is being compiled by Johnny Truant, a bum/tattoo-parlor-worker/genuine-crazy who intersperses his eclectic experiences with comments on the text. I found myself interested less in him — his story, as Julien pointed out to me, is really fairly unoriginal — and more in how he interacts with the text. There’s a scene, for example, wherein his own dream replaces one Navidson should have; Truant intertwines his own story with Navidson’s.

In some way, the book is very traditional — certainly in the way it resolves it is pleasantly straightforward. Despite its play with traditional modes of criticism and its intended subversion, I think it’s still trying to be enjoyable. It’s work, but it wants to be fun work.

I’d like to re-read it some day. But at the same time, I’m not sure that I ever will.

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21 April 2010

on poetry

Posted by admin @ 12:35 pm categories: art • writing

I’ve posted a poem from Slate before. I’m doing so again — not because Slate publishes such consistently good poetry (although it’s yards above many publications), but rather because they’re the only publication that has a poetry feed to which I’m subscribed.

Nonetheless, I quite like this poem.

It’s called “Big Box Encounter,” and it’s by a woman named Erika Meitner. I’m assuming you’ll follow that link on your own, but let me sum up the poem by saying that it’s about confusing feelings of desire for a (past?) student of the speaker’s.

I’m partially fascinated by this poem because I feel like there’s this continual move toward poetry that embraces a very specific space between the taboo and the mundane. Poetry that is exciting to read often plays with this, and I think Meitner’s poem does so quite well. For example: “I tried not to look at his beautiful terrible chest, / the V-shaped wings of his chiseled hip-bones.” I like her detail, I like her drawing our focus to where her attention is. And I like the way she reads it, as well. (Slate always posts the author reading his or her poem; I like this.)

The line I quote, and the poem itself, is just the sort of thing that James Wood critiques in last month’s New Yorker, in his sort-of-review “Keeping It Real: Conflict, convention, and Chang-Rae Lee’s ‘The Surrendered.’” I don’t really think Wood’s article reaches any conclusions, and I’m frustrated by his simplification of the Barthes piece (although I acknowledge that I’ve never fully understood Barthes myself). Still, it’s certainly the case that many writers fall for “the cinematic sweep, followed by the selection of small, telling details.” And perhaps Meitner is doing this. And so what?

I have written down, somewhere, a note to myself: “write more poetry that is daring.” I think I mean by this: poems that hint at something, that are exciting and make us think. There’s a good comparison, at least according to google (by which I mean — I’m reporting what other websites say, and not something I feel is decidedly true; all I’m sure of is that he wrote these poems). Allen Ginsberg has two poems, both written about Neal Cassidy. One is called “On Neal’s Ashes,” and is moving but slightly vulgar. The other is called “Please Master” and is primarily just vulgar and explicit. (It’s also probably NSFW.) I imagine you’ll see what I mean? I think the first one has got something there. I think the second is interesting, but not particularly so. And I love Ginsberg — “Footnote to Howl” is one of my favourite poems. That fits this bill, as well.

I’m curious to hear what anyone bothering to read this thinks. Does something vaguely taboo engage your interest in poetry? Where can it go wrong? What do you think of the poems I link to, here?

Meitner’s poem accesses the daring on two levels — it addresses female sexuality, which we so rarely do in normal publications; and it considers the question of a teacher’s (professor’s) lust for her student, which is one of the ultimate taboos of academics. In the poem, at least, her narrator does nothing wrong — she simply agonizes over her desire for this much-younger man. (She does imply something more, since she’s corresponding with this student.) But why does it feel transgressive to me? It’s not the line-breaks, although I like some of them quite a lot (“He is both more / and less striking without a shirt on”). I’m always fascinated by the use of curse-words in poetry or literature, when it’s not wholly warranted. (Here: “I was fucking a guy who…”) Sometimes, as here I think, the words jar the reader to attention. They remind us that the speaker is lusting, not falling for, her student. We never get a description of him except this detailed continuing articulation of how he looks shirtless.

There’s definitely still power in curse words, and power in the unexpected. I don’t think this poem would be as good were it called “A Desire Uncalled For,” or something implying its contents. The subtlety. the side-stepping while being up-front, these are important. (This is also why I have trouble with “Please Master.”) Obviously, this power in the unexpected is the case in all manner of ways — don’t think that I mean to suggest that the only way to write an interesting poem is to be lewd or lean towards the taboo.

I think I’ll be more conscious of this current in poetry in the future. As always, I’m not really reaching a conclusion. But this is a blog, and I’m not a good essayist.

I do think we can draw a parallel between this play in poetry, and its play in visual arts. In both mediums, we have to pick somewhere to draw our lines — but you can show non-sexualized nudity in art more easily than you can in writing. (See, for example, this (NSFW?) art collective. Hat tip to Ben for linking me.) But really there’s lots of not particularly sexualized nudity in art. Maybe we’ve become accustomed to it, but for whatever reason nudity isn’t as titillating as it once was. You have to play with something else.

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16 April 2010

on the subjunctive

Posted by admin @ 7:53 am categories: Spanish • language • writing

We don’t really have much of a subjunctive mood in English — it’s an entirely new set of conjugations in Spanish, but in English you essentially just phrase things differently. Indicative: “Although he’s attractive, I won’t sleep with him.” Subjunctive: “If he were attractive, I wouldn’t sleep with him.” In Spanish, you can say the same thing with only the tense changing. Indicative: “Aunque es atractivo, no dormiré con él.” Subjunctive: “Aunque sea atractivo, no dormiría con él.” Or something like that.

Anyway, I think the wiki article on the subject is super-fascinating. We don’t usually even have any idea what subjunctive is. This is the coolest part: “The verb ‘be’ is so distinguishable because its forms in Modern English derive from three different [emphasis mine] Old English verbs: beon (be, being, been), wesan (was, is), and waeron (am, art, are, were).” WHAT?

I started thinking about it when I was explaining how you had to say “If I were smarter” rather than (the seemingly correct, and oft-misused) “If I was smarter”. Of course, both sound okay — but the former is subjunctive (to be is only conjugated as “were” in subjunctive) while the latter, while carrying the same meaning, doesn’t really fit. (Both express an unreal situation, so both fall into subjunctive.) In Spanish, it should be “Si fuera más inteligente…” Unsure Spanish-speakers like me might say something else (“If I am smarter”?)… For example, even here I’m unsure: it could also be “Si sea más inteligente…”, although I think conditional statements don’t use present subjunctive. The real problem is that the use is a lot more complex in Spanish, so you can’t really understand it by translation.

(Edited a day later to be more understandable and correct a mistake.)

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18 March 2010

yeasayer, en directo

Posted by admin @ 9:56 am categories: Spanish • writing

¿Quieres leer este post en español?

I went and saw the band Yeasayer on Wednesday night. They were originally playing in a small bar-or-so venue, but ended up in something slightly bigger — a place called Sala Caracol (The Snail Room), which was actually pretty great. It’s just a no-frills concert venue, like maybe the Troc in Philly, but a bit smaller?

When I got there, Hush Hush was playing. Hush Hush is this ridiculous singer guy and his recorded music and backup vocals, or such was as it was when I saw him. He danced (quite well) and sang, and honestly while I’m not a huge fan of his myspace selections (they’re not bad, either), I enjoyed him live quite a bit. (His myspace was a bitch to find. Try googling “Hush Hush”.) His songs are sexy and silly, and he danced wearing a black suit jacket, a tie, etc. — the full get up. As he went on, he removed his coat, his tie, his shirt, ending bearded and shirtless. I’m not sure why musicians like to take off their shirts — besides it just being hot as hell up on a stage — but he managed to do it rather endearingly.

During his set, I finagled my way towards the front of the crowd, getting within the first six rows or so; a space I like. After he finished singing, I started talking with three American girls standing near me. They were nice; two of them were studying abroad and the other was visiting. We didn’t really talk about anything meaningful, but it was still nice to chat. (I also saw Mateo and Ashley’s French roommate and her boyfriend, which was funny.) We worked our way forward slightly, talked a bit more, and then Yeasayer came out, around 22:00.

They played a set which was between an hour and an hour and a half long; it was plenty long enough, all in all. It was amazing. This is the second concert I’ve ever gone to alone (the first being Xiu Xiu, a few years ago), and I guess since I’m going alone because I like the band enough that I don’t care, both have been wonderful experiences. Yeasayer’s live set was at least as good as I’d been led to expect. The lead singer was wearing this amazing one-piece suit (they exist?!), and the guitarist/back-up vocalist was in a one-piece camo outfit, but honestly they could’ve been wearing whatever so long as they brought the same energy to their performance.

I was worried at first, since they looked sort of tired, but they definitely found the energy to put on an amazing show; they played most (all, actually, I think?) of the songs from their recently released album, Odd Blood. It’s a dancier and more accessible set of recordings than their previous release, 2007′s All Hour Cymbals. Both albums are pretty eclectic in terms of their offerings; Yeasayer is regularly compared to a number of artists (I’ll leave you to find other reviews); I’d add in some odd names probably. I definitely recommend listening to some of their music; the selections on MySpace are all great, and I really like their two live songs from Les Concerts a Emporter, although to be fair in general La Blogotheque has great taste and does really good videos. This was their first show in Madrid, and they seemed genuinely excited about it; they’ll be playing at Primavera Sound in May, too, so I’ll get to see them again.

In any case, I found myself dancing in the venue, my coat over my arm, laughing with people I didn’t know, singing along when I knew the words, wishing I knew the words, drinking a beer, squeezing out of the crowd to run to the bathroom and following some random girl back through the crowd to my place, dancing some more. They ended the set with “Ambling Alp,” which is their single of the moment, I guess, and was a lot of fun to get to dance with in a group of people all smiling. And then they came back for an encore, and ended their show with the absolutely gorgeous song “Red Cave,” or at least I think so. I know they played it. Then again, who’s reading this and’s gonna contradict me?

“Red Cave” is actually an awesome song. The lyrics of it, or some of the most repeated lyrics, are these: “Mary’s house in the hollow of the white hazel rapid whirlpool and the church of the red cave.” Which is just an English translation of the name of a village in Wales. I like this a lot, for some reason. Nonetheless, I don’t know that they actually played it last.

I actually awoke this morning with “2080,” another song from their older album, stuck in my head, and at this point I’d actually say they played that one last, although like I said my memory’s blurred and I don’t know song names that well anyway. “2080″ is an awesome song, but the lyrics are ridiculous and pretty incomprehensible when you’re listening.

They also have a song called “Mondegreen“, which is kind of funny when you consider that their lyrics are all more or less incomprehensible. Anyway, awesome fun. Hurrah!

Ayer, veía el grupo Yeasayer. Originalmente, tocaran en un pub, pero al final tocaban en un lugar un poco más grande, la Sala Caracol, que me gustó un montón. Es un sitio para conciertos y nada más, un poco como el Trocadero en Filadlfía, pero un poco más pequeño.

Cuándo llegué, Hush Hush, el telonero, tocaba. Hush Hush (lo cuál significa silencio o super-secreto) es un cantante raro, con musica del fondo, o sea así cuándo yo le veía. Él bailaba (bien) y cantó, y de verdad aunque no soy un fan de las selecciones en myspace (no son malos tampoco), me gustaba verle en directo. (Su myspace era dificíl a encontrar. Busca “Hush Hush” en Google.) Sus canciones son eróticos y tontos, y él bailó llevando un traje negro, una corbata — todo formal. Siguiendo, quitó la chaqueta, la corbata, la camisa, acabando con barba y sin camisa. No sé porque los músicos siempre le gustan a quitar las camisas — probablemente porque hace mucho calor en el escenario — pero cumpló a hacerlo de manera encantadora.

Durante su interpretación, caminé sigilosamente al frente de la muchedumbre, llegando a las primeras filas. Después de que terminó Hush Hush, empecé a hablar con tres chicas americanas cerca de mí. Estaban amables; dos de ellas estudian aquí (Erasmus) y la otra esta visitandolas. No dijemos mucho de importa, sino estaba bien a chatear con alguién. (También, vi la compañera de piso de Mateo y Ashley, con su novio.) Con las chicas americanas, nos movemos un poco más adelante, hablamos un poco más, y entonces empezó Yeasayer, a cerca de las 22:00.

Tocaban para más o menos una hora y cuarta; estaba bastante larga para mí. Y estaba increíble. Esto es el segundo concierto a que he ido solo (el primero fue Xiu Xiu, hace unos años), y supongo que puedo irme solo porque me gusta tanto el grupo, y por eso los dos conciertos eran magnificos. La interpretación de Yeasayer era a lo menos tan bueno que esperaba. El cantante principal llevó un traje enterizo (¡existen!) y la guitarista lleva un traje de camo entero, pero de hecho que podían llevar cualquiera con la energía que llevaban también.

Estaba un poco ansioso, porque parcían cansados, pero en efecto econtraron la energía de hacer un espectáculo. Tocaban mucho (todo, creo) de las canciones del álbum más reciente, Odd Blood (Sangre Rara). Son unos grabaciones más accesible y más dado a bailar que los de la salida anterior, All Hour Cymbals (2007; Címbalos de todas las horas). Los dos álbumes están un poco ecléctico en sus canciones; Yeasayer es comparada a muchos artistas (puedes encontrar cuales en criticas). Seguro que recomiendo escuchar a su música; las canciones en MySpace son todas buenas, y me gusta mucho las canciones en directos de Les Concerts a Emporter, aunque sea verdad que en general La Blogotheque tiene buen gusto y hace videos super-buenos. Era su primera vez tocando en Madrid, y Yeasayer parecía muy entusiasmado con el concierto; tocarán también en Barcelona en Primavera Sound en mayo, así que podría verlos otra vez.

En cualquiera caso, bailaba en la sala, mi abrigo sobre un brazo, riendome con gente que no conocí, cantando con la canción cuando sabía las palabras, esperando que conociera las palabras, tomando una cerveza, apretandome dentro de la muchedumbre para ir a los servicios y siguiendo una chica al azar para volver a mi sitio, bailando un poco más. Ellos terminan su interpretación con “Ambling Alp,” que es su canción de exito ahora, supongo, y era muy divertido a bailar en un grupo de personas todos sonrientes. Y entonces volvieron Yeasayer para un bis, y terminaron el concierto con la canción preciosa, “Red Cave” (Cueva Roja), o creo que sí. Seguro que la tocaron. Pero también, ¿quién está leyendo esto y va a corregirme?

“Red Cave” es de hecho una canción increíble. La letra, o alguna parte de la letra repetida, es: “Mary’s house in the hollow of the white hazel rapid whirlpool and the church of the red cave.” (La casa de Mary, en el hueco de la avellana blanca, remolino rapido y la iglesia de la cueva roja.) Lo cuál es una tradicción de galés a inglés del nombre de una villa en Gales. Me gusta este hecho, para ninguna razón. Sin embargo, no sé si en serio la tocaron al final.

En efecto, desperté esta mañana con “2080,” otra canción del álbum mas antiguo, en mi mente. En este momento, dirré que esta canción fue la ultima, aunque como dije mi memoria no es exacto, y no conozco los nombres de canciones muy bien en cualquier modo. “2080″ es brillante, aunque la letra es ridiculo y casi incomprensible cuándo escuches.

También, Yeasayer tienen una canción que se llama “Mondegreen“, una palabra inglesa que significa exactamente esto — las palabras que inventas cuándo no entiendes que dice un cantante. Es gracioso que tiene este grupo una canción así, según que su letra en general es incomprensible. De todos modos, muy divertido. Hurra!

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14 March 2010

quick language

Posted by admin @ 17:42 pm categories: language • writing

I found, a while back, Paul Brians’ Common Errors in English Usage, which is an awesome list of tons of common errors people make in usage. Every so often I want to look something up and I end up there; it’s listed high on google searches so some of you may have run across it before.

In any case, I was looking over his page on non-errors this evening, and I came across two things that I was interested to find. This particular page is filled with usages that others often cite as wrong, but which Brians says are pretty standard, at least in American English. For example: split infinitives, which aren’t wrong despite so many people disliking them; ending sentences with prepositions; the pronunciation of the word forte. There are two that interested me because they are about things that often bother me when people do them, but I’ve never had someone to point to in the past.

1. The phrase “feeling bad”. To quote this page: ‘”I feel bad” is standard English, as in “This t-shirt smells bad” (not [emphasis mine] “badly”). “I feel badly” is an incorrect hyper-correction by people who think they know better . . . People who are happy can correctly say they feel good, but if they say they feel well, we know they mean to say they’re healthy.’

My reasoning has always been two-fold on this: first off, it sounds weird to say “feel[s] badly.” More logically, however: An adverb (“badly”) modifies a verb; to say “I feel badly” would be to imply that the way you felt was not being done well. As in, “I feel badly” — “I’m not very good at feeling.” Similarly, a shirt can’t smell badly — it can’t smell at all. It might smell bad. It can’t smell grossly, either. Just gross. “Well” is a little more complicated — it can function as an adjective as well as an adverb. This blog post from a few years back highlights the questions — why do people do this? Is it hypercorrection? I think it is. So saying “I feel well” is fine (implying as it does that you’re healthy), but you probably don’t “feel badly.”

2. Healthy vs. healthful. Again, the quote: ‘Logic and tradition are on the side of those who make this distinction, but I’m afraid phrases like “part of a healthy breakfast” have become so widespread that they are rarely perceived as erroneous except by the hyper-correct. On a related though slightly different subject, it is interesting to note that in English adjectives connected to sensations in the perceiver of an object or event are often transferred to the object or event itself. In the 19th century it was not uncommon to refer, for instance, to a “grateful shower of rain,” and we still say “a gloomy landscape,” “a cheerful sight” and “a happy coincidence.”‘

Mostly I just like the examples of emotions being transfered to an event, but I’m also glad to see that he’s of the mind that while technically best to refer to food as healthful and people as healthy, it’s pretty much fine to refer to both as healthy.

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21 February 2010

nabokov

Posted by admin @ 10:54 am categories: writing

This story makes me want to read more Nabokov.

It’s called “Signs and Symbols,” or “Symbols and Signs,” and I heard about it from this amazing podcast the New Yorker puts out, wherein the fiction editor discusses a short story published some time ago with another writer, who reads it. This one was picked by Mary Gaitskill, herself a talented writer, who has this amazing reading voice. And hearing them discuss it was really cool, as was just hearing the simplicity of language.

Not everything on the podcast has been good — I really disliked Junot Diaz’s way of reading — but almost everything.

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movies

Posted by admin @ 10:48 am categories: art • writing

I went and saw Inland Empire (dir. David Lynch, 2006) last night, with three friends, who ended up hating me for making them see it. I’m kidding, but also not; they were really unimpressed with the film. I knew what I was getting myself into perhaps slightly more than them, so although I too felt that the film was too long (it’s three hours), I nonetheless was intrigued.

Here’s a quote to give you a feeling of how weird Lynch can be, taken from the wiki page to give it context:

In an NPR “Weekend Edition” interview, Laura Dern recounted a conversation she had with one of the movie’s new producers. He asked if Lynch was joking when he requested a one-legged woman, a monkey and a lumberjack by 3:15. “Yeah, you’re on a David Lynch movie, dude,” Dern replied. “Sit back and enjoy the ride.” Dern reported that by 4 p.m. they were shooting with the requested individuals.

Now here’s the thing about this film: it doesn’t have a plot, but that doesn’t mean it’s not about anything. In some sense, it’s about this woman’s inner life; I definitely see connections between this and Mulholland Drive, although I liked that film a lot more. But I doubt even Lynch would say that the film makes complete sense. It is an art film, as much as it is a film about Hollywood, or a film about violation and the hole to oneself. I don’t know. I guess I’m curious about it because of the mystery, because I want to make sense of it. And that’s not so easy to do.

The part I liked best at first thought is the part from roughly 15 minutes in ’till maybe the end of the first hour, where the lead actress (Laura Dern, playing an actress named Nikki) is cast in a film called On High in Blue Tomorrows and we see her life beginning to blur with her character’s life. I thought this part was really cool.

When Joe was visiting (Joe visited!), we tried watching Synecdoche, NY (dir. Charlie Kaufman, 2008), which we didn’t get all the way through. It just seemed too weird, too unrelated. I wonder if I would’ve sat through Inland Empire in the same circumstances — probably not. But I nonetheless sort of feel like I liked it more than Synecdoche; I felt like Kaufman was just pushing a bit too hard, and Lynch somehow has his crazy ideas linked in a way I prefer. Synecdoche is also about the links between theater and real life, but more heavy-handed about it somehow. And maybe I disliked it because unlike Inland Empire, the characters did feel real and then they disappeared, while Dern’s character always felt like a caricature, a stick figure.

I also have in recent days watched:
Matilda (dir. Danny DeVito, 1996)
Joe had never seen this, so we watched it. On youtube. Still good every time.

On the plane, coming back and forth from the US, I had some shitty-as-hell movie options. As such, I watched:
* Dragonball Evolution (dir. James Wong, 2009). Honestly wasn’t that bad. It was silly and ridiculous, but it was kind of fun.
* Eragon (dir. Stefen Fangmeier, 2006). I read the book and thought it kind of fun but also hilariously bad. The movie more or less had me feeling the same way.
* Whip It (dir. Drew Barrymore, 2009). I kind of liked this film. They played it on my flight from LA to Chicago, I think, for everyone to watch. It was embarrassing but also kind of cute, and I do like Ellen Page. I know. Still. It was fun, and kind of silly. I like Drew Barrymore. Shrug.

Here in Madrid, with some friends, I went and saw Up in the Air (dir. Jason Reitman, 2009), which was actually a lot better than I thought it would be. Amusingly, two of my friends thought we were going to see Up, which was amazing but was not by any means the same film. This one stars George Clooney as a business man who is constantly traveling, firing people for companies. It’s surprisingly touching, and quite interesting; I really rather liked it. I don’t think it should win a Best Picture award, but I did enjoy it.

Anyway, quite a few movies in the past while, considering how rarely I’d watched films in the months before. Good fun.

Joe’s visit was really nice, too; we hung out around here, made awesome Alfajores, and I got to show him around Madrid, and take him to El Escorial. Overall, a good time.

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16 February 2010

some NPR: on justice; on autism

Posted by admin @ 16:50 pm categories: Psychology • writing

1. Bail and the All Things Considered story about it.

There was a three-part All Things Considered piece the 21st and 22nd of January about bail [bonds] and their impact on poor Americans. You can check it out here on NPR’s website (second part; third part). I thought the pieces, by Laura Sullivan, were really good, although I’ll certainly acknowledge that I think she’s a bit biased towards the same direction as I am.

My junior year of college I was lucky enough to get to take a class with Barb Toews, who does restorative justice in Pennsylvania. The class was part of the Inside-Out program, wherein students in college take a class inside of a jail or prison, alongside currently-incarcerated men or women. I very much felt like this class gave me a viewpoint that would have been severely lacking in a class based on a college campus. It was experiential as much as it was academic; although we did quite a bit of reading and had some pretty good discussions, much of our work was anecdotal, as it must be. Still, I came to be pretty severely convinced that our prison system in the US is [still] part of the problem facing society, rather than something that helps. Even before taking this class, it seemed pretty clear that building more prisons is not and never has been the solution.

NPR seems to have a focus (lately?) on demonstrating some of the problems with current law and with the current prison system. A while back, they did a great series on California’s Three Strikes law (by Ina Jaffe). I remember hearing a fairly recent piece about sex offenders, focusing on Florida’s crazy laws. And now this.

These pieces are moving and, to be honest, make my skin crawl. One of the things my class with Barb discussed was programs intended to keep people out of jail — pretrial release programs. Our class focused on restorative justice — it’s pretty self-explanatory in basic idea. (See here.) I’ll grant that it’s ridiculously optimistic as a philosophy, but I think there are pretty clear results in its favor, and it’s not as though a punative justic system seems to demonstrate great results. (Oh no, not at all.) In any case, the NPR pieces are about how bail doesn’t seem to be helping anyone except for bail bondsmen, and how in fact they seem to be severely hurting (poor) defendants and the government itself.

Bail is intended to insure that a defendant, released pre-trial, returns to court to stand trial. If you can’t pay it, you sit in jail until you plea or until you get a trial — which may take months or more than a year. Many of the guys in my class were in this position. You generally only get a bail if your crime is nonviolent. If you can’t pay it, you can instead pay a few to a bail bondsman, who then puts up your bail for you. You don’t get the fee back. The way the system is supposed to work is this: if you then don’t show up to court, the bail bondsman pays your bail to the court, and uses bounty hunters (legal ones) to get you back. But as the NPR story explains, that doesn’t even happen. As in, the bail bondsman makes money from you, but the court loses money. And then police officers end up getting you back themselves. In any case, I’m perhaps focusing on a small part of this — the important point really is that many people can’t afford the $500 needed to pay a bail bondsman. And as such, they languish in jail, which hurts their chances of fighting their case, overcrowds jails, and makes it more likely for them to give in to prosecutors.

Short version: listen to the NPR story.

2. Super cool: Phineas Gage daguerrotype found.

3. Autism on On the Media and Fresh Air.

On the 5th, NPR’s fantastic On the Media had a rather mediocre piece on autism, focusing on the medical journal The Lancet, which formally retracted Andrew Wakefield’s disastrous paper this month. The paper was published in 1998, and is the one that made the bogus claim that vaccinations might be causing autism by using bad science. Immunologists like Paul Offit have worked hard to dispel this idea, but people persist in believing it. What frustrated me about NPR’s story was that they really didn’t do a good job of explaining just why it was retracted, and why even before it was retracted it had still been repeatedly demonstrated to be bullshit.

I really think that was a bad choice.

I got to see Offit speak at Bryn Mawr in April last year, and he was really a good speaker (he works in Philadelphia). My favorite part of his talk was an anecdote he told about his wife’s pediatric practice. As I remember it, he explained that his wife was seeing a young girl, who was supposed to be getting vaccinations that day. In the waiting room, the girl had an epileptic seizure, the first of what were apparently to be many. But imagine that the seizure had waited a day, or an hour. And imagine trying to explain to that girl’s mother that the vaccination had nothing to do with it. Think you’d get very far? Just because they might’ve been linked, however, would by no means reflect on causation. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

In any case, much more impressive were the three Terry Gross interviews of Temple Grandin on February 5′s Fresh Air. I felt like Gross asked some interesting questions; I also just find Grandin to be a really interesting woman. I no longer remember where I first heard about her, but she’s a professor of animal science who has high-functioning autism, and is also an activist in autism treatment and awareness. I recommend listening to the piece (they also have a glowing review of the HBO movie about her, starring Claire Danes — I am curious indeed), or at least reading up on her — Oliver Sacks’ article about her in An Anthropologist on Mars is a great place to start.

And with that, I’ll leave you. Some more personal updates soon.

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