a meditation on personal translation
Tyler Cowen reviews a newly translated collection of van Gogh’s letters.
As for his letters to Theo, these are so full of life that it’s easy for the reader to assume that his brother is getting the “real Vincent.” But is he? Through much of this period, Theo is supporting van Gogh, either by sending him money, by selling his art (or trying to), or both. Writing to Theo, the artist comes across as whining, manipulative, and in careful control of the flow of information. It’s a kind of faux frankness, maybe not untrue but designed to portray a mind in creative ferment and to fit a certain stereotype. There is often first a thanks for money received, a blizzard of reports about what van Gogh is doing and painting, and then at the end a suggestion that even more painting, activity, and creative ferment might be possible if only Theo would do everything to support him. Time and again, the reader wonders just how much van Gogh and his brother trust each other. In the letter of August 14, 1879, for instance, he complains that Theo has advised him to give up his quest to be an artist. “And, joking apart, I honestly think it would be better if the relationship between us were more trusting on both sides,” van Gogh suggests, before apologizing for the possibility that so much of the family sorrow and discord have been caused by him. These look and sound like letters to his brother, but in essence we are reading fund-raising proposals.
The larger review serves as a meditation on personal translation — the way we interpret ourselves for others.
Advice to the lovelorn?
“She had never been made love to after this fashion before. She knew, or half knew, that the man was a scheming hypocrite, craving her money, and following her in the hour of her troubles, because he might then have the best chance of success. She had no belief whatever in his love. And yet she liked it, and approved his proceedings. She liked lies, thinking them to be more beautiful than truth. To lie readily and cleverly, recklessly and yet successfully, was, according to the lessons which she had learned, a necessity in woman, and an added grace in man.”
Anthony Trollope, The Eustace Diamonds (Oxford, 1973; vol. ii, p. 367)
Harry Potter and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Warner Brothers is counting on adaptations of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series to fill the void left when the Harry Potter series ends.
L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” — the book that “The Wizard of Oz” is based on — is just the first story in a series that spans 14 books. All fourteen books are now part of public domain. The original film, however, is not in public domain. In other words: Any reproduction of an element that was solely a part of the film’s story and not the book will have rights fees still associated.
let he who is without sin cast the first one-eyed wonder worm
Members of the Atheist Agenda, a student organization at the University of Texas at San Antonio, are encouraging students to trade in religious texts for pornography this week with their “Smut for Smut” campaign.
A few weeks ago actually.
orange book
Gouache and graphite.
Gordon Lish: Collected Fictions
For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.
(Via @orbooks | http://ORBooks.com)
Natural Harvest
The seventh taste?
Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants. Despite all of these positive qualities, semen remains neglected as a food.
«We like lists because we don’t want to die.»
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Getting Ready
Barry Hannah, Captain Maximus, “Getting Ready”:
He sold all his fishing gear at a terrible loss, and they moved to Dallas, address unknown.
Then Roger Laird made an old-fashioned two-by-four pair of stilts eight feet high. It made him stand about twelve feet in the air. He would mount the stilts and walk into the big lake around which the rich people lived. The sailing boats would come around near him, big opulent three-riggers sleeping two families belowdecks, and Roger Laird would yell:
“Fuck you! Fuck you!”
High Lonesome
Barry Hannah, the quintessentially Southern author of “Geronimo Rex” and “High Lonesome,” has died, The Associated Press reported. He was 67 and died on Monday at his home in Oxford, Miss. The Lafayette County coroner told The A.P. that Mr. Hannah died Monday afternoon of “natural causes,” but declined to elaborate until he had provided details to the author’s wife, Susan. The coroner said the death was not under investigation.
let’s hear it for the who
Harvard Book Store gets Espresso Book Machine
What forward-thinking authors and publishers are after is a means of leveraging the “long tail” principle, which holds that declining distribution and inventory costs have made it possible to profit by selling tiny quantities of many different products rather than—as was formerly the rule—immense quantities of only a few products. By bridging the still-pronounced divide between electronic and “tangible” publishing, advances like the Espresso Book Machine could represent the realization of this model in the familiar space of the bookstore. “Even with conservative assumptions about demand, we will profit from this service,” Heather Gain, marketing manager of the Harvard Book Store, told Bookselling This Week.
See Poets & Writers article here. Heads up, Andrew–although you have probably already seen this article.
March elimae
Enjoy. (It’s free.)
quote out of context
What follows is that the more strictly I try to repeat what Joyce has done, the more freedom I have.
(via marginal revolution)
For Cindy
On Writing, Publishing, and Living
In an age with an unprecedented amount of published material, both printed and electronic, these words ring even truer.
“We need more true mystery in our lives. Hem. The completely un-ambitious writer and the really good unpublished poem are the things we lack most at this time. There is, of course, the problem of sustenance.” – Evan Shipman to Hemingway (in A Moveable Feast)
Lately, I’ve been wondering if sitting quietly in a café, pretending to read a newspaper, and not writing is the most earnest expression in our age: no echoes of language, nothing to reblog, just pure unmitigated self sitting with self. I might, after a time of blank staring, find myself constructing sentences in my head, maybe a paragraph, simply letting the words roll around in my mind. I will not. I repeat. I will not write them down. They are my secret sentences, not yours.
I try to do this at least once a week.
correction
An earlier version of this post misquoted Mr. Remnick on his comparison between the book and a New Yorker article he had previously written. He said the book would not be a “pumped up” version of the article; he did not say that it would not be a “pimped out” version of the article.
quote out of context
To the formal study data, I feel I must add one last statement about the afterlife, passed along to me by Allison DuBois, who received it from an unnamed discarnate during a private sitting: ‘I can wear pleated pants now.’”
slotted bookshelf
Dezeen comments:
San Francisco designers Mike and Maaike have created a shelf with slots specifically cut to house seven seminal books about power and society.
Cool stuff, even if Plato’s Republic, is really more about the human soul than it is society (well, sort of).
photo out of context
quote out of context
I have tried to show that, just as sex made biological evolution cumulative, so exchange made cultural evolution cumulative and intelligence collective, and that there is therefore an inexorable tide in the affairs of men discernible beneath the chaos of their actions.
this unique 18-minute genre has its own requirements
From a Wired article on how to ace a TED Talk:
“I’m surprised to see that half the people here know my career in some detail and the other half don’t know who I am,” he says.
Science is fine, but not when it messes with our illusions.
If she had included solar power and African child warriors, it would have been so perfect a TED talk that there would have been no need for others.
Wolfram wraps his talk by saying that when it comes to trying to boil down the universe to a simple algorithm, “it’s almost embarrassing not to at least try.”
“Just because someone has an ego,” he says, citing a writer whose name I can’t read from my scribbled notes, “doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”
Imagery
I once watched a well-dressed gentleman physically tear the pages from a novel with his own teeth, then dispose of the remains into the rushing air through an open window.
– Nick Cernis, convincing us to read a book a week.
(via)
quote out of context
“Telling trout purists you’re chasing lowly catfish with a fly rod is tantamount to telling Heidi Klum that what you’re really attracted to is bearded women with no teeth.”
Creating a Bookfuturist book
You should go take a gander at my call for submissions.