Monday, April 6, 2015

a repost for myself, alone: "your kin have bought the rest by their suffering the loss forever"

a repost for myself, as i keep forgetting who i am, and 
my strengths and purposes. 




From -- Pour un tombeau d'Anatole by Stéphane Mallarmé

RÉSUMÉ :




Le 6 octobre 1879 mourait de maladie, à l'âge de huit ans, le petit Anatole,fils tendrement aimé de Stéphane Mallarmé. Les deux cents feuillets présentés ici par Jean-Pierre Richard furent rédigés par le poète à la suite de cet événement, et pour tenter d'en amortir en lui le choc. Ceci déjà annonce leur valeur : elle tient à leur extraordinaire poids humain ; aucun écrit de Mallarmé ne possède cette qualité brûlante, immédiate, cette puissance crue d'émotion. Mais le pathétique s'en trouve aussi médité et dominé, repris par un esprit souverain, l'esprit d'un grand poète qui met en oeuvre toutes ses ressources créatrices afin de dépasser ce fait indépassable et insupportable : la mort d'un être cher. Comme tant de grands poèmes mallarméens, ces notes décrivent un combat, la "lutte d'un génie et de la mort", lutte à l'issue de laquelle la mort eût été vaincue par le génie. Anatole eût finalement été sauvé par un poème dont ces pages tracent le plan et constituent l'ébauche. Si Mallarmé n'a pu finalement écrire ce poème, il est déjà très important pour nous qu'il ait pu le rêver : car l'on voit ici s'annoncer, ou se prolonger, maint thème développé dans l'oeuvre publiée. Une longue introduction redonne à cette méditation funèbre toute sa cohérence ; elle montre la profondeur, la rigueur, le caractère très purement mallarméens.



Retired Educator here. This is the esquisse, the design, the carefully laid out spaces of an architecture in decline that never knew the light of day and whose replication is full of violence and 'translationary' rape. I love the Paul Auster translation but haven't the inclination to type out his doings of the first ten poem-fragments. Here, however, is his translation of the first section:

child sprung from
the two of us -- showing
us our ideal, the way
-- ours! father
and mother who
sadly existing
survive him as
the two extremes --
badly coupled in him
and sundered
-- from whence his death -- o -
bliterating this little child "self"


There is an inside joke among language teachers and that is to say, liltingly, "Native speakers disagree..." But I hold translations and translators to a higher standard than one of simply being able to correctly channel word and sentiment. "Translators disagree..." is not a problem to be left alone -- rather it is like solving a crime: The problem must be worked.

Or maybe it is more the artifice in play, like that of building replicas of gothic ruins. There is, you know, a robust aesthetic of ersatz ruins, despite the sniff:sniff of those who claim it all romantic kitsch. For the literal minded, it is more a question of restoration.

We work it, we work it, we end up, still, with over 200 ruinous fragments -- la genèse d'un poème -- about the death of his son. Never does the original take completed form; Never could the translation be more than ego-driven lattice work that might bolster the crumbling brick and stone of the original.

Remember always -- and this is, I think, specific to all of Mallarmé -- that in his originality, even his [soi-disant] completed works, there is a high concentration of negative space: the "irrecoverable state of devastation and destruction" that defines a ruin, n.

Were I to work it instead of admiring the sweat of someone else's brow, I would not be snobbish envers literary history -- This work, in particular, demands it. But how do you work and knead anything beyond "[l]e 6 octobre 1879 mourait de maladie, à l'âge de huit ans, le petit Anatole, fils tendrement aimé de Stéphane Mallarmé"? Where is the literary history in that, beyond the date, beyond the age, beyong the provenance?

This is what William Marsh wants us to know -- that Walter Benjamin informs his translation and that he has been respectful of spatial and architectural elements in Mallarmé through some very successful homophonic and anagrammic schemes. There are dangers in citing the authority of Benjamin here, as I don't see the role of the translator of Pour un tombeau d'Anatole as primary authorship, no matter how solemn the task. At the same time, there is no room for error. On this one, native speakers in no way disagree. The less we can posit through the work of literary history and analysis of style, the more dangerous and fictitious our bold restatements become.

Denials of death and negations of history, the fake piles and slivers of disrepair of plaster and paint, trompe-l'oeil trumped, while what is real and undone, or real and never finished, stands as a testament to death, and a validation of certain history: ruins of roman kitchens, the arches and apses of abbeys and cloisters, the armaments of towers, turrets and battlements ("oh, my!")

The ruin can be exploited as a point of meditation -- and as a place of mediation between those things we all are caught in -- life after the other's death, the unimaginable death of a child. Mallarmé is cobbling together all that he can of the experience, saving in his way his son's life, literally making, and carefully crafting, the artifice that is the tomb for Anatole. This ruin of a tomb wants to make the reader squirm, makes the reader question what is inside verus outside, what is private, what is public, what is visible, what is hidden, and what may well be absent, gone forever.

So, yeah, fearless translator, set yourself up as intrepid author! Just kidding.
It's late and we're all tired.

William Marsh explicates his process:

Drawing impetus from Walter Benjamin's claim in "The Task of the Translator" that "a translation issues from the original--not so much from its life as from its afterlife," the following poems attempt to define the "afterlife" of Mallarmé's Anatole while carefully acknowledging both Auster's work and the notion (again Benjamin) that "a translation, instead of resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original's mode of signification, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language." With the intention of honoring both the sense and form of Mallarmé's poem (its mode of signification), these new renderings make use of both homophonic and anagrammic translation tools in constructing the English versions (or harmonies) of the original fragments. Employing a set of devices including anagram, same-sound correlations, exact or near-exact cognates, as well as common etymologies (near-matches of meaning), the poems excerpted here try to rebuild the Mallarmé texts in such a way that both the syntactical variety and the physical shape (letters, words, lines) of the originals are reflected as well in the English.



[sections 1-10] [fragments]




1

enfant sorti de
nous deux--nous
montrant notre
idéal, le chemin
--à nous! père
et mère qui lui
en triste existence
survivons comme
les deux extrêmes--
mal associés en lui
et qui se sont séparés
--d'ou sa mort--annu-
lant ce petit <> d'enfant




an infant dies to
us both--de
monstrates our
ideal, child-man
--anew! father
& mother quietly
entrust existence
survive a son in
the two extremes--
malassociating him
acquiescing separate
--death is more--nul
ling this tiny "self" denied



2

(3
meilleures
comme s'il
était encore--
quelqu'ils fussent,
des qualificatifs
digne--etc.
les heures où
vous fûtes et ne
fûtes pas



(3
better is
he becomes --
that which was,
engraved qualities
dignity--etc.
the hours you
fought but never
fought past



3

malade au
printemps
mort en automne
--c'est le soleil
-----
la vague
idée la toux
2



ailing in
springtime
mourned in autumn
--celestial soul
----
the wave -
idea attacks
2


4

fils
résorbé
pas parti
c'est lui
--ou son frère
moi
je le lui
ai dit
deux frères
---



if he's
reabsorbed
is a-part
it's he
--or his brother
me
shall i
say it
two brothers
---


5

refoulée restée
en flanc--
sur de moi
siècle
ne s'écoulera pas
juste pour
m'instruire




repelled - - resting
in womb--
over me
century
won't roll past
just for
my instruction



6

pas connu
mère, et fils ne
m'a pas connu! --
--image de moi
autre que moi
emporté en
mort!




unknown
mother, a face un
recognized! --
--image of me
other than me
transported in
death!



7

qui s'est réfugié
ton futur en moi
devient ma
pureté a travers vie,
à laquelle je ne
toucherai pas --




what's in refuge
your future in me
become my
purity through life,
which i shall not
touch upon --



8

il est époque de
une
l'Existence où nous
nous retrouverons,
sinon un lieu--
--et si vous
en doutez
le monde en
sera témoin,
en supposant que
je vive assez vieux
_______




it's the epoch of
one
Existence in us
in us retrieved,
is not in lieu--
--& if you
doubt these
mundane
testimonies -
let's suppose that
i live long enough
_______



9

préf.

père qui
né en temps
mauvais avait
préparé à fils--
une tâche sublime

--
< remplir--d'enfant
la sienne--la douleur le désire
de se sacrifier à qui n'est
plus l'emporteront-ils sur
vigueur (homme qui'il n'a pas été)
et fera-t-il la tâche de l'enfant



pref.

father who
eve'n in times
gone bad had
prepared a son--
a touch sublime

--
"the double re
plenished--the child's
his own--the dull hour the desir
ed sacrifice to one who's no
more will triumph over
vigor (man he wasn't to be)
& through it all the task of infancy



10

le but suprême
n'eût été
que partir pur
de la vie
tu l'as accompli
d'avance
en souffrant
assez--doux
enfant pour que
Cela te soit compté
pour ta vie perdue--les tiens
ont acheté le reste par leur
souffrance de ne plus t'avoir




the highest aim
nothing but
to part pure
from life
you accomplish it
in advance
in suffering
all this--gentle
infant so that
This will be counted
part of your due--your kin
have bought the rest by their
suffering the loss forever








Bard College's literary journal Conjunctions publishes innovative fiction, poetry, criticism, drama, art and interviews by both emerging and established writers.

The starting point for the [preceding] poems lies in Paul Auster's excellent 1983 translation of
Mallarmé's long poem, Pour un tombeau d'Anatole, released by North Point Press under the title A Tomb for Anatole.

Crazees





















© 2015 L. Ryan

outta date ONE

If these are potential stunning new topics astew, in the stir, a-ruminatin', bubblin' in majestic marinations, enter your guesses as to where we've been hanging out these past three weeks, roughly.  Make your entries in the comment section, being as specific as possible, Dear and Belovèd, Chronically Afflicted Readers!

1.  The top three most complete songs-with-lyrics, unavailable in listenable form, that accompanied our time away, had no discernible relationship to our "vacation spot," a term used entre guillemets because of the highest irony and because you cannot -- glad am i -- get a visual of my tired pseudo-academic visual of the hand meme.  No discernible relationship to my mind, but perhaps to yours, more keen with insight?

Acadian Driftwood -- The Band* $
Angel From Montgomery -- John Prine* (w/Bonnie Raitt)
Delta -- CSN*
Lookin' Out My Back Door -- CCR*
I'll Rise  --  Ben Harper*
Mr. Tambourine Man  --  Bob Dylan*
Pancho and Lefty  --  Townes Van Zandt*
I Am Not Waiting Anymore -- The Blind Boys of Alabama*

*With weird abruptions, eruptions, abortions, elisions, allusions, transliterations, and inexplicable circumlocutions; without the intended intrumentation, although we thought to achieve the playing of the fairly simple few in "I Am Not Waiting Anymore";  We also confused a cardiac alarm with a car alarm -- on an armored vehicle equipped with automatic weaponry.

$In a febrile reworking of two lyrics --

Fifteen under zero when the day became a threat
My clothes were wet and I was drenched to the bone
Been out ice fishing, too much repetition
Make a man wanna leave the only home he's known
Sailed out of the gulf headin' for Saint Pierre
Nothin' to declare
All we had was gone
Broke down along the coast
But what hurt the most
When the people there said
"You better keep movin' on"

Everlasting summer filled with ill-content
This government had us walkin' in chains
This isn't my turf
This ain't my season
Can't think of one good reason to remain
We worked in the sugar fields up from New Orleans
It was ever green up until the floods
You could call it an omen
Points ya where you're goin'
Set my compass north
I got winter in my blood

-- of which aberrant specifics I gladly no longer have recollection, the gulf's mild break to the coast, and the sugared fields breaking bad pointing the sweet way, in urinals and bedpans, our bedclothes wet and foul, I seemed always wet and drenched to the bone, at night taking up "Delta," but in waking fits of warmth, water running, smoothing our roughened legs, electrocution always a threat, monstrous white treaty-breakers (reflections of the high command of the motherland in long white billowing attending coats) directing, driving, monitoring, channeling, channel-blocking, calcium-channel-blocking the pressures of our waters, our various surges of wetnesses, of corporate bodies, of cerebration, of Baudelaire's Spleen, of kidneys and salty urines, of frothy spit, of one sticky, rivulet of blood....

oh, i quit.




© 2015 L. Ryan

OUTTA DATE 2

In Emory Hospital, more specifically the CCU spooky unit, the spooks had the Psych Unit Group A, consisting of a large African-American man, leader of the group, in, oh, so many ways, and three Oriental young women, one interesting, in terms of her dress, possibly in other terms, but I, obnoxious, never gave her a God-lovin' chance... oh, and the other two... well, they did not deserve a God-lovin' chance.  Nor a Lisa-lovin' chance, neither!  Cruel AND racist. Actually, I've no idea, no notion whatsoever where the other two originated from, but my linguistic skills can assure you that their primary languages were in the Pacific Island Rim...somewhere. One ceaselessly applied Cover Girl darkER girl skin make up at roughly 5-minute intervals.  Distracting, to say the least.

I find saying the least impossible.

They found saying the least depressing impossible... until Leader Man took over, with the clear intent of wiping the look of horror off my face, and regaling me of stories of UC-B. He gave me memory tests and told me "I am in charge," and they all clumped out.

Was it an experiment. Was it? WAS IT?



© 2015 L. Ryan

Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels-Devil in a Blue Dress



© 2013 L. Ryan

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Two Emails: Mostly to the Beloved TW [*Already* Revised!]

Sorry for messing up the time, older sibling.  It seemed necessary. What's terribly luddite o'moi, though? I have four Playlists that go with it, all the same, meant to differ, meant  to include some of yours, some of Kathryn's, Hank's, an amazingly creative musician friend of his Aviva (and the Flying Penguins ) -- but really all I desire is to figure if, when, and, approximately, where, you'll ever stop trying to figure out which number of personality disorders to limit me to. I'm thinking an ODD number (ar ar!) -- knowing the six most close, both genetically and environmentally, to my family:
Antisocial personality disorder 
Avoidant personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder 
Dependent personality disorder 
Histrionic personality disorder 
Narcissistic personality disorder
          Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder
Paranoid personality disorder
          Personality disorders
Schizoid personality disorder 
Schizotypal personality disorder

So close your eyes, cross five out.  Not fair! They've one labeled "Personality Disorders," as if the APA could BE so powerful.  Harrumph.

I figure that's gotta be -- forever, wherever, however -- after the quiet and the music -- to send Robert one a'them greetings from Tête-de-Hergé home-drivin' Lisa-Irene-Bianca-Fred-Aunt Louisa-Uncle Haddock-my real ass' kickin' friends Alicia Harden, a cowgirl, and another real one who sends those tart lemon cookies from Cape Cod, as real a cow girl as I am, Eljay Nayr ---- WAY!  Then, if it is not taken, by too many crowds of floating, wifting, laughing folk, could I have dibs on a colorized Elvis? One of yours maybe?

Bob's attempt, and the fact that he never deigns to read this blog ["Too many words, kid."] is appreciated by his other siblings, mostly, [probably only] TW, maybe Kathryn and her attached, very "sweet" Joe X; $ those rude genetically sub-related siblings, who read without any talent for irony when needed, and with an excess of it, when a dearth would barely do$.

TW an I unnerstanz, az well az miz kathryn an mister Joe X, with more 'n more clarté 'n clarté, 'n laffter 'n laffter, those whose Appalachian ways wez thanks 'n wez refletz 'n giggelz..

By the way, we can call "Joe X" sweet because it's a direct quote from Sweetie/Grader Boob/Lumpy. Then I had my one-and-only conversation with Joe, and Lo! He is hysterical, and sweet.  He is wise, and sweet. He is understated, and therefore beats my funny to death, and I so enjoy the change. He and Kathryn are like -- I've got nothing -- not oil and water, not peaches and water -- just Joe and Kathryn, and they like to keep it that way.

And the Birth Mother, Jeanette, You Young SRA Readers, is NOT included in any of this, by ANY of you, got it?  For:  There does come a time...  She's earned it, raised her due, now has complete dementia, essential emotional and financial embezzlement, and all the nursing care that I do... and so I know how it sucks and is coopted (except in our house!)  

I look under my TV and I see happy gifts from both my brothers -- the complete Marx Brothers, Deadwood, all the Harry Potters (HANK!), all the LOTR (Bob, one twice!), The Wire, and many other things I watch over and over without admitting. To Anyone. One of the greatest plays we've ever seen (Hank loves plays, whistlingwhistling): The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of The Marquis de Sade (or Marat Sade)* Don't compromise and get Marat / Sade first.

Separate from the boxes of books, tapes, pictures, patches, wonders I wonders at, and prisms -- I receive TW's tomatoes, peppers (several sorts, textures, heats, respectful seeds, a new way this coming year), but there's nothing like those tomatoes, organic, sun-dried; one comes to know them, as one can, by their tint and translucency.  One is sometimes wrong. Chewiness. Suckiness (What's the positive gardening word?) I'm only in my third year. I soak and pick. It's been great fun, and delicious, so slow we've eaten slow, in complement, compliment.  Then I discovered banana beans. And heavy, and light liquors.Vinegars.Ghee. Polentas. A krap load of sauces, with garlics, and mixed tomatoes, and nuts, cilantro, basils, cumin seed, cumin leaves, oh, and lettuces, lettuce leaves. Oh, we had fun. Not always together. A silly idea doesn't seem so dumb at 3am when there is no one to mock you at the cuisinart, art, art, heh, heh, heh. And a little pesto on the toast ain't so funny after all, eh?  For his part, Fred has become a cauliflower disguiser or presenter, at will, given an in-law-of-sorts' provisions. We keep ém, for safe keeping, in their original boxes.

Back to Brother Bob's email of last week:

Those of of us who recommended the suit remember the face, the voice sincerely asking mostly, okay, only, the Mom, who gave good, not out-of-date advice. It was short, sweet, followed by a "Good luck, Sweetie, we love you. Let us know how it goes."

Clink.
Two icy cold Diet Cokes.
A Christian Brothers Chablis.-- quite possibly the last put to barrel, then bottle.

It's of the mid-70's, I think of, also, even earlier, back in Miami, swimming, water polo, Bob breaking away, me the only one I knew was cycling, playing tennis, softball, loving language, maths.  It was Phillipines-N.C.-Miami-N.C.... then a fairly happy split up. Bob to USF. Kathryn to Peace College. Me stuck in G'boro alone with Mom; Dad in Vietnam.  It was, I've said, without shame, the happiest year of my life. The end of the decade was not so happy. I shipped off to an insane little private college where everyone had too many words, and, that year, great basketball!  Then I decided to live in the mountains with true loonies, addicts, alcoholics, people on parole who drove stick-shifts up mountains, and weirdos. Carrot juices, and steam baths. Other amenities! Then I went back to school(s). Eight, to be exact. One, to be exactly worth it.

In case you were wondering, yes, we knew how not to accumulate, how to pack, quick and well, and how to stay out of each others' way.  Except me. And my "[t]oo many words, kid."

Later separations proved, proofed, punched back down, rose again, a little less, a little more, depending. Lacking stinky mother proofs, that bell jar, some jar stinky talent! (A reference to sourdough proof, don't freak out.)

Bob, before he gave up the moniker "Grader Boob" for "Lumpy," currently a contest too heavy for moi to elaborate, between Lumpy One and Lumpy Two--well, I'll present the little that I know, soon. Not my kind of contest.

I would imagine it was about the time one of Bob's students left this fetching review.  There are  worse. We've ALL received worse!  What "tickles"me, in the Southern sense, is this student's goldarn consistency.

Ryan is a bit harsh on grading and he can be a bit moody sometimes. He will help in anyway he can though with your essays. He does explain everything clearly though. He also expects you to do all the readings he gives. He will get very mad if you don't do that readings.
**********          ***********          **********          **********          ***********

From:  Robert Ryan
Mar 2X, 2015 (X days ago)

Howdy--

Ric just sent some pictures from way back, mid 70s.

One, with me and Steve in front of our vending step van, shows the shift changeover from one driver to the next. He did coffee machines; I did coffee, candy, sodas, and so on.

The other, with the vest and tie, has me in part of the suit I wore on a date with Teri to Bern's Steak House, a well-known eatery. And it was on that date, in that suit, that I horrified a waiter by asking for a well-done steak.
Visibly flustered, he stammered at me, "Sir, I'm not even sure that our chef will cook it that way. May I recommend at most, at most, medium or perhaps medium well."

The horror... the horror.

Who knew that the hair would go and...

Well, no more anecdotes today!

Love,

Bob





[Lisa, here: I believe this is "the suit," bought to take one Teri to dinner to ask her hand in marriage.
Teri declined. Her reason? He lacked sufficient ambition. Repeat after me: the phrase of your choice,
because this is a family blog. I know that, well, Jesus wept, but hardly least of all, for Kathryn, Mom,
and Moi, as well, huddled around the phone, weeping and cursing.The photo, so free of well-done steak
 juice (prob'ly the young Ryan's plan, the man lookin' so unfed, and ain't he got the hood up?)
Lisa, years gone now.]

We'll go with Bob's explanation!  He and Steve were vending machine hippy-dippy
machine refillers, which is where I guess that $+%;;@!) Teri got her ideas about
Ambition.She never followed him as he followed him into his classrooms in 
2015, I guess, the !@)(;;^$.
oops.




*by Adrian Mitchell (Adapter), Peter Weiss (Author), Geoffrey Skelton (Translator)


© 2015 L. Ryan