So Many Coincidences
Women's Voices Women's Votes has another "unfortunate coincidence" in the timing of its voter registration mailings, this time in West Virginia.
« April 27, 2008 - May 3, 2008 | Main | May 11, 2008 - May 17, 2008 »
May 10, 2008
Electronics Recycling by Mail
Electronics Recycling by Mail.On March 18, the U.S. Postal Service announced that the Clover Technologies Group would provide postage paid envelopes to mail them expired inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods or MP3 players to be reused, refurbished or recycled. Envelops will be available at U.S. Post Offices at no cost to the public. Only a pilot project for now, but could expand nationally. (via)
Obama Gains More Super-Delegates, AP Says He Now Leads
Today was another good day Barack Obama on the super-delegate front, with a net gain of five over Hillary Clinton. According to the Associated Press count, he now leads in super-delegate support by a margin of 276-271.5.
The Obama campaign today announced the support of add-on delegates Kristi Cumming of Utah and Dave Regan of Ohio, Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-AZ), and DNC member Carole Burke of the Virgin Islands.
Clinton meanwhile picked up add-on delegate Arthur Powell of Massachusetts. But that gain was offset when she lost the support of DNC member Kevin Rodriquez of the Virgin Islands, who defected from Clinton to Obama.
Clinton-backing super-del Don Fowler of South Carolina bluntly told the AP, "The trickle is going to become an avalanche."
According to the Obama campaign's numbers, he is 156 delegates away from clinching the nomination.
Advice for 1985: how to survive a nuclear blast. (via...
Advice for 1985: how to survive a nuclear blast. (via delicious ghost)
(link)
What Happens After the Test?
Examiner column for May 12.
Starting in March, students in Advanced Placement classes with May exams begin to ask, “What are we doing with the five weeks after the test?” Often it’s phrased more bluntly: “Are we doing anything after the test?”
My mental reaction to that question always follows the poetic paradoxes presented in a poem by Tom Wayman, capturing the disconnect between student and teacher perception of what’s important. For teachers, the course is about so much more than the test!
To the question “Did I Miss Anything?” asked by a student who has missed a class, the teacher in the poem offers a series of “nothing/ everything” responses that include:
Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning…Everything. Contained in this classroom is a microcosm of human existence
Assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been gatheredbut it was one place
and you weren't here (Wayman, 1994)Like this teacher, I find myself wanting to tell students, “No--we are doing nothing after the test--if you define this course in terms of that three hour goal.”
But simultaneously, I want to tell them, “Yes—we will continue to look at language as a mirror reflecting man’s humanity, and think of this class as a lens through which to understand others, and appreciate their efforts to communicate.”
But I do not say any of the above. Instead, I mumble something about doing “fun things” that won’t seem too painful for seniors about to graduate.
I can see them mentally yawn.
What does happen after the test? The absentee rate, steadily climbing throughout the year, continues to climb. Students fall asleep during the day because they are staying up later, often chatting online with friends about college or summer plans.
Occasionally, I can coax students into doing some real thinking: placing their educations in a larger context, and predicting what skills will be useful to them in college and the workplace.
Often those contemplative meditations on their learning are quite revealing and moving. Sometimes, they are burnt-out and cynical. Either way, students gain a valuable perspective on how school might move beyond the four walls of the classroom.
But most of the time, teachers give into the cynical end-of-the-year blahs, and think of the last several weeks as redundant to the heart of the course.
Do students understand the larger message you hope your course conveys? Do they see that what you are doing in reading, social studies, physics, or math class is really about the world and not about textbooks and quizzes? And that doing “fun things” is not the goal of the course?
Perhaps some do. Meanwhile, I want my students to know that after the test, we will be doing nothing and everything--so don’t tune out yet.
TinyDB
Fun little Google App Engine project: store arbitrary variable data in a short URL, get the data back in XML or JSON. (Via Andy Baio.)
Anna T. Szabó
During the PEN World Voices panel "Rewriting Family," Hungarian author György Dragomán mentioned that his wife was a poet and frequently collaborated with translators. Dragomán blew me away with his generous and gracious comments on translation and translators, so I was interested to learn more about his wife and her translation background. Her name, I learned, is Anna T. Szabó. and she has published several books of poetry. Her website is in Hungarian but her author page on HunLit provides some biographical and biographical information in English and German translation (the English page is more comprehensive than the German).
In October 2004, Szabó and other Hungarian poets visited the UK and participated in Converging Lines, a program sponsored by the British Council Arts Group, which teams up writers and translators from the UK with poets from other countries. It works both ways--first the UK writers toured Hungary and later the Hungarian poets came to the UK for reading tours and to participate in translation workshops. Szabó was paired with Clare Pollard, a poet, educator and translator. In creating her translations, Pollard, who doesn't know Hungarian, maintained an ongoing conversation with Szabó. She had a literal translation to work with but the final translation also reflected how she interpreted and incorporated Szabó's comments on variant meanings, word play, sound and structure. The program invited those who attended the public readings to participate in this translation enterprise.
Antony Dunn, who participated in this program, recounts:
We've created a leaflet for every audience member, which contains four literal translations of poems by the Hungarians€“ the very same literal translations that some of the Brits worked from at Lake Balaton. These literal (or plain text) translations contain a range of alternatives, notes and suggestions, to reflect the shades of meaning carried by the Hungarian words or phrases. Some are annotated with details of the rhyme scheme, or the rhythm, or with explanations of the Hungarian colloquialisms employed in the poems. The audience is invited to take these leaflets home and have a go at translation for themselves.
In some ways, it'€™s been rather easier for us, with access to the poets themselves. To be able to ask, What did you mean, exactly? and get an answer.
You can download from Dunn's website a pdf file that contains some of the translations put together by the group, including one of Pollard's translations of Szabó's poem "Around the Tree" (from a longer poem "Winter Diary"). It's a fantastic poem--here's the first stanza:
In the ice-storm these cats now mate,
light frozen on their soft, black skins.
They stage their hot, furred winter show,
wild things.Reading this translation out loud, I'm struck by the cadence and the rhyme between "skins" and "things," as well as the internal rhyme between "soft" and "hot." Also, most of the words are monosyllabic which can't be incidental. A great deal of attention has been given to the sound of this translation, which makes me wonder how its sounds in Hungarian. Hungarian sounds nothing like English so the translation isn't necessarily striving for aural equivalence, but perhaps there is something interesting about the original poem's prosody that the English poem is trying to evoke.
In an on line interview, Szabó, who translates from English to Hungarian, acknowledged that she prefers not to self-translate. "I have tried, but what comes out is not what I had intended." This is an incredible admission and, in a way, contradicts Dunn's comment that having the original authors on hand gave the UK translators an advantage. There is a prevailing assumption (that even translators tend to perpetuate) that original authors always know what their work means. And, frankly, speaking as a translator, I'd rather have a range of meanings and possibilities to work with.
For Szabó, translation is not only a creative exchange (that is more productive when the translator is someone else) but also a way to assess the merits of a work, to go beyond first impressions:
I used to think that mutuality in translation was some sort of a gesture of respect. In fact it is nothing of the kind. It is extremely useful. While you work on the translation you are also in contact with the author. During these conversations you find your place into their world and their vision, and it becomes much easier to get an understanding of their poetry. When you place yourself in the other's poetic world you really get in tune with them. This can be mutual, which is really a very exciting process. It was during translation that I grew to like Pollard's poems a lot. There were poets I started to translate convinced that they were great, and found out during the translation process that they were not. You come to stumble upon subtle shifts more easily, and find that things which look graceful from the outside may not be all that well put together, after all.
This has happened to me on several occasions. I'll start translating a poem I really like in Hebrew or Spanish and, in the process, certain flaws or missteps are revealed. In this way, translation serves as a mode of critical reading. I'm looking forward to reading more work by Szabó and Dragomán. It's been very exciting to encounter their ideas on writing and translation and to find in them something "mutual."
Links:
Two Poems by Anna Szabó, Translated by David Hill
"Poetry in the NIght" (prose) and "This Day" (poem), Translated by George Szirtes
Poems from "The Labour Ward," Translated by Clive Wilmer and George Gömöri
Guess That's A Bad Thing?
TPM Reader EW sent in this little snippet from that DOD document dump about the Times military analysts story ...
(ed.note: This would appear to be the post in question. And this is Dan Senor's WaPo Oped. Senor, you'll remember, originally didn't exist but (living out the old adage) was later created by critics of the administration's Iraq policy because of the felt need for a living caricature of the Bush White House political operatives and hacks sent to mismanage the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq.)
Hillary Holds Private Conference Call With Her Super-Dels: "I Know This Is Not Easy"
Hillary held a private rally-the-troops conference call with her super-delegate supporters this afternoon, urging them to believe that "this race is not over," vowing to them she'd promote Dem unity after the primary, and conceding that she knows what they and the party are going through "is not easy."
Somewhat tantalizingly, Hillary also claimed that there were back-channel talks of some kind going on between the two campaigns, possibly about how to maintain Democratic unity after the primary. Asked by a super-delegate whether there were discussions going on between the two camps about what would happen after the voting concluded, she said:
"There's a lot of communication between both of the campaigns all the time. I don't know how specific it is, but we have very open lines of communication...I know that both Senator Obama and I are committed, and the campaigns are as well, to making sure that when this is resolved" we will do everything we can to "unify the party." She didn't elaborate further.
The call -- convened for super-dels committed to supporting her -- provided a glimpse into the campaign's behind-the-scenes efforts to prevent supporters from bolting even as her prospects grow bleaker by the day.
I was able to listen to the call in its entirety.
Hillary projected a surprisingly cheerful tone despite recent events, and if she is having doubts about what's going to happen, she didn't show it on the call. "Despite what some in the media are saying, this race is not over," she said.
Hillary top adviser Harold Ickes was on the call, too. Some noteworthy tidbits from the call:
* Ickes claimed that there was no discussion internally on the campaign of the possibility that she would angle for a veep slot. "There's no talk within the Hillary campaign about that," Ickes said in response to a questioner.
* Ickes came under questioning from a super-delegate who said he would have "a problem" if she didn't win the pledged del count or the popular vote, and declined to say what she would do. Indeed, he repeatedly maintained that she would still be ahead in the popular vote at the end of the contest, Florida and Michigan included, and predicted flatly that she would be behind by less than 100 delegates at the end of the voting.
* Hillary sought to persuade supporters to hold the line by vowing to them that she would do everything she could to make sure the party unified behind the eventual nominee. "I know this is not easy," Hillary said. She added: "We will close ranks and I know we will be totally unified going forward."
"I just want to underscore my gratitude," she concluded. "This is bigger than me...it's about standing firm [behind] the values we share."
Shearwater
May 5, 2008 - Shearwater performs Rook, joined by a string quartet, woodwinds, trumpets, and a harpist, with projections by Kahn & Selesnick, at the Florence Gould Hall Theatre, French Institute Alliance Française in New York, NY.
The full set on Flickr. Shearwater just keeps getting better and better. Their upcoming album, Rook, is amazing, otherworldly, eerie, and beautiful. Rook performed live is amazing, especially in an intimate theatre in New York City, on a warm spring night.
© 2008 Kathryn Yu. All rights reserved. Use without prior written consent is prohibited. Don't post this on your blog without asking.
How this whole When Obama wins thing got started: some...
How this whole When Obama wins thing got started: some Adaptive Path folk musing about state name changes if Obama won:
Dan was twittering something about Alabama, but wrote "Alambama". He joked that when Barack Obama wins the election, certain states will probably be renamed - Alobama, Califobama, Nevama, Massabama, New Yobama. Of course, I thought that was hilarious and started thinking about other things that would change once Obama wins. So, a few of us started twittering silly little things, thinking of it as an inside joke.
Overnight, a few people caught on giving it a life of its own.
And if you're so inclined, you could Digg When Obama wins and help melt my web server.
Update: It's on Reddit as well.
(link)
May 9, 2008
Omar Wasow on the digital divide
On The Media: Transcript of "Search is the New Black" (May 2, 2008)
And what we’ve seen with the Internet is that the digital divide was really, I think, more about a moment in time where there was a lag between early adopters and mass America. It’s become something that’s much more part of the fabric of everyday America, including black America.
Where we do see a divide on the Internet continues to be around sort of class and education, less so about race.
Omar Wasow spoke with On the Media’s Bob Garfield about African-American media.
On MT Feed Support
The next version of Movable Type, version 4.15 (aka “Cal”), will remove the RSS feed template from the defaults. This touched off a thread recently was spread across the mtos-dev and ProNet mailing lists discussing the reasoning and potential drawbacks to this decision.
Feeds is a topic near and dear to my heart that I have a long history with. Seems we as a whole have never gotten over all FUD and misinformation of the “syndication wars” that some clarity is needed. Here is the most important takeaway from this post:
There is no longer any practical reason to have multiple feed formats of the same information.
It seems this issue comes up every so often.
Any feed reader or software the consumes feeds worth anything can handle both RSS or Atom feeds. Every modern programming language I know of also have libraries from processing both. Not all take advantage of the more specialized and esoteric features of either — some do, but for most uses either if fine.
Choosing one or the other isn’t choosing sides. It’s a matter of usability and practicality. Having the same feed information in multiple formats forces a user to make a choice that they probably don’t understand and one that is ultimately unnecessary. Dean Allen recently wrote about it and before that Nick Bradbury.
But why did Six Apart choose Atom instead of RSS? MT Product Manager, Byrne Reese posted:
This decision was never about standards politics or what format is better than the other, this release is about performance, and in this day and age, there is no need to publish feeds in multiple formats when they are supported equally[1].
We selected Atom because all things being equal, Atom is an Internet standard and RSS is not, and that is more closely aligned with MTOS’ stated project goals.
[1] Here Byrne asked a post to identify which tools do not support Atom.
It’s also worth mentioning that MT (and other Six Apart tools) are standardizing on the Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub) for remote clients to interact with the system. AtomPub uses the same format. RSS does not have an equivalent web services API option. Besides that, there are numerous flaws in the design of RSS that can and often does confuse news readers. The RSS specification is frozen with these flaws; however, there are groups attempting to address them in other ways.
From a software architecture and engineering perspective, to me, it’s quite logical that Atom be used. Popularity, as some as cited, is irrelevant given the circumstances and does not make the tool better.
This decision will only effect new blogs created in MT 4.15 and future versions. It does not stop you from using and creating your own RSS feeds nor will it delete, remove or disable them from your current blog templates.
That said, if you are producing feeds in multiple formats, I recommend you pick one and redirect the traffic to the others to that one. Doing so will help improve performance as Byrne suggests in his reply, means one or more less files to generate when a new post in made.
Have a software product that can’t read Atom files? Post them in the comments.
All text is not created equal.
I randomly had lunch recently with an old media business guy. We were talking, as is often the case, about the news business and the different ways in which newspapers and magazines are moving online. As I was describing TPM and our different distribution channels he asked me if we’d ever thought about repackaging our content and and putting it out as a physical TPM paper product. We hadn’t, I explained, both for business reasons (printing is expensive!) and because our content wouldn’t make a bit of sense in that context.
I was reminded all of this while watching the video that CJR made to accompany Ezra Klein’s piece on the Kindle. While I wasn’t 100% clear what he thinks about the Kindle (I’ll have to go read the article, I suppose), he makes an essential point about web native writing at about the second minute:
One of the first blogs I ever read was by a guy named Demosthenes. And he was writing about some political subject and he said “you know, props to him. Props to Bill Clinton.” And I was struck, like someone had slapped me. I was a poltico, I was into it, but I never thought that you could talk about politics in the language I used in every day life. It shocked me. Now I can’t figure out why it was so shocking. Now I do it every day.
Web natives just write differently. They write like people talk.
You produce a different product online. Hyperlinks, tone, form (shorter post that assume readers have read previous posts, etc.). It makes for a fundamentally different product that simply doesn’t translate back onto the printed page.
And the same is true for the common transition of print to online. Newspaper products, moved online unchanged, just don’t translate. That’s why they get chewed up and repackaged by blogs and aggregators (see my post on the so-called “unbundling” of news).
All of which is just to say that what we’re dealing with is not just a transition in medium. We’re in the process of not just radically re-organizing the media business, but media culture. The language is becoming more accessible and the product more interactive. The pretensions are falling and the author is reemerging from behind the barriers of form.
And once you’re there, you can never go home again. All text just isn’t created equal.
Eight Items or Less: Adidas Is on the Offensive, Moss Goes All Out for Design Week and Cut Copy Takes on NY
1. A penny costs 1.26 cents to manufacture and a nickel costs 7.7 cents. Yesterday the House voted to change the materials used to make both coins and that should save over $100 million a year. BTW: Pennies are still made with copper, though not 100 percent. 2. Watch out Kswiss! Adidas has scored another victory against "stripe" thieves. Now they've won a $305 million award in the US against Payless shoes for trademark infringement because Payless sold shoes with two and four stripes. 3. We'd love to see the marketing ideas that hotels reject. The Wyndham in Cosa Mesa is trying to attract dogs (and their owners) with a "Paws and Claws" package that features a "pet care manager" and "brunch buffet." (via hotelchatter.com) 4. One of our favorite stores, Moss (150 Greene Street), is showcasing three incredible artists during May Design Week. You can see new pieces by Studio Job, Hella Jongerius and honeycomb vases made by bees created by Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny. 5. How fast can you type? On your mark. Get set. Go here. 6. Don't forget: Aussie band Cut Copy is in NYC next week opening for newly-signed Columbia recording artists the Black Kids at Studio B on Tuesday and headlining at the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday. "Prepare to swoon." - New York Times
Pangea Day: 5 films win grants from Participant Productions
(Above: Scenes from the filmmakers' reception Thursday night in Los Angeles. We were asked: "Raise your hand if you came from outside the United States to be here.")
Last night in Los Angeles, Participant Productions honored 5 films from around the world by giving their filmmakers $5,000 grants. The grants are awarded by Participant, makers of Charlie Wilson's War and the new Standard Operating Procedure and other amazing films, as part of its Outstanding Filmmakers Awards Program. Learn more about the 5 grant winners -- each film links to a page on PangeaDay.org >>
From Africa, DEAR MANDELA (documentary) by Dara Kell and Christopher Nizza (South Africa)
From Asia/Australia, I REMEMBER LEBANON (documentary) by Zeina Aboul Hosn (Lebanon)
From Europe, MY MOTHER’S DAUGHTER (documentary) by Saleyha Ashan (UK); pictured left.
From North America, MOVING WINDMILLS (documentary) by Ari Kushnir (US)
From South America, PAPIROFLEXIA (animated) by Joaquin Baldwin (Paraguay)
Tea Leaf Reading
One of Hillary's most prominent independent backers -- the American Leadership Project -- is not spending any money on Tuesday's West Virginia primary. There's an ostensible reason for it: Hillary has a commanding lead in the polls, and Obama has all but conceded the state. But it will be interesting to see whether the indy groups who have been supporting Hillary continue to plow money into her race. We'll keep an eye out.
● When Obama wins microsite
Last night, folks on Twitter began to contemplate what will happen if Barack Obama wins the nomination. The meme seems to have begun with Andrew Crow's vision for the future:
When Obama wins... unicorns will crap ice cream and pastries.
I collected a bunch of the best ones and made a page that cycles through them: When Obama wins.
Do we really need science to tell us that the...
Do we really need science to tell us that the DNA of an egg-laying, no nippled, duck-billed mammal is unusual?
(link)
Anil Dash's Paste to Win
random sampling of 150 people's clipboards, categorized
Look Who's Talkin': Recent Comments We Have Known And Loved
The useful, thoughtful, and funny discussions in Talk keep us clicking, reading, and grinning. Looking back at the week past, here's just a handful of our favorite threads and comments.
Tuna. In a Can. Love it or Hate it?
"Every year I mix up a wonderful tuna salad that everyone I make it for loves, and every year I eat about 2 bites before I swear I will never do this again! So in answer, NO CANNED TUNA!!! thank you" – huney_bumperFavorite Food Network Show and Chef
"I used to have a crush on Tyler [Florence] until he got puffy in the face." — charm city cupcakeEmotional attachments to kitchen appliances
"Tonight I parted company with my electric range... The family who got it will certainly love it as much as I did, and it will be cared for. And I'm doing it no fever by hanging onto it without using it. It needs to be used. But that still doesn't help the fact that I'll miss it." — beth1Frog Legs?
"Are you insinuating that the senior citizen frogs, like their human counterparts, are fattier and crabbier - hence more fishy tasting, and thus undesirable? Where's Gomer Pyle when I need him?" — PerkyMacIs there a such thing as too much fried potato?
"I'm not so much a fan of french fries, but if it's normal fried potato, I believe there is no such thing as too much. Kind of like friends, the more, the merrier." — Schnauzer_Mama
PEN Worlds Voices 2008
I just got around to organizing my notes on the PEN Worlds Voices Literary festival, which took place last week in NYC. It's an amazing gathering of writers, publishers, translators and readers. The only drawback: there was just too much to do and so many good things overlapped! Here are my notes from the panels and readings that I attended--my notes on the panel "Short Stories" will appear in a separate post:
Wednesday, April 30
Rewriting Family
Housing Works Bookstore Café
Participants: P.F. Thomése, Gyögy Dragomán, Yael Hedaya (Moderator: Stacey D'Erasmo)Dragomán is a Hungarian novelist and translator who was born in Marosvásárhely/Târgu Mureş, Romania in 1973. As a literary translator, he's aware of the limits of translation but doesn't let them become an excuse for not translating. So let's say you can only get 90%, he said, that's something! He also conceded that the kinds of limits or problems that one translator faces may be entirely different for another. If you can't find the solution, someone else will. This is a very generous and optimistic approach to translation and I thank Dragomán for it. An audience member asked about the different between translating poetry and prose and remarked that poetry, in particular, tends to be untranslatable. Dragomán smiled and told us that his wife is a poet and frequently works with translators. "First, the rhyme goes, second, some of the meter....but it's ok! Something stays and that's what's important." I really wish more readers and critics would focus on how much remains in translation rather than fixating on "losses," which I put in quotes becomes often those who assert that something has been lost in translation 1) haven't read the original or 2) haven't/won't read the translation.
He has a fantastic author website (authors, take note!), where he's posted excerpts from and links to a number of interviews. I recommend highly his interview with James Smith in which he discusses at length his relationship with his translators and how he approaches the task of translation.
Thursday, May 1
Burma: A Land at a Crossroads
Instituto Cervantes New York
Participants: Thant Myint-U and Ian Buruma (Moderator: Dedi Felman)Dedi Felman, who is a founding editor of Words Without Borders, did a tremendous job moderating this panel. Thant Myint-U is the grandson of a former U.N. Secretary-General U Thant and author of The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma and The Making of Modern Burma. Buruma is the author of God's Dust: A Modern Asian Journey (1989), in which he discussed Burma. Felman asked wonderful questions--there is no way to cram a hundred years of history into a one hour talk but Felman, Buruma and Thant Myint-U impressively contextualized Burma's current political climate through a discussion of key events that have shaped modern Burmese history.
Thant Myint-U's 2007 article "What to do about Burma" is a more expansive summary of the points he raised in this talk.
A Few Notes:
1885--British India occupies and annexes "what was left of Burma"--gentry, aristocracy fall apart
--the occupiers were not prepared for a long term occupation--the Burmese response was swift, intense and violent
--mass displacement
1920s/30s--a lot of economic growth
WWII causes a new upheaval, crisis
January 4, 1948--the British leave
Aung San's coalition falls apart
ethnic groups rise up demanding territorial independence
Burmese army grows--"huge army machine develops"
"The solutions create their own problems"--Ian BurumaSince this a literature festival, I wish that there had been some discussion of the kind of literary culture that currently exists in Burma. My understanding is that much of it is heavily censored. In 1993, PEN American published Anna J. Allott's monograph Inked Over, Ripped Out: Burmese Storytellers and the Censors but I've had trouble locating more recent information on Burmese literature. I'm particularly interested in poetry, which was very popular in Burma until the 1960s (shorts stories are easier to censor?). I've come across English translations of poems by Tin Moe, a Burmese poet who was imprisoned in the 1990s for his support of the pro-democracy movement. He left Burma after his release and died in Los Angeles in 2007 at the age of 73. Allott wrote a tribute to him and included a couple of her translations of his work. Norton's Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond, edited by Tina Chang, Ravi Shankar and Nathalie Handal, apparently includes some work from Burma.
(Update: Since I started transcribing these notes, Cyclone Nargis has devastated much of Burma, particularly the areas along the Irrawaddy Delta.)
Kyi May Kaung's poem "Mother Rape"
Thursday, May 1
Publishers Weekly: On Translation
Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate CenterParticipants: Morgan Entrekin (Grove, NY), Michael Krüger (Hanser Verlag, Germany), Edwin Frank (NYRB, US), Halfdan Freihow (Font, Norway) (Moderator: Sarah Nelson, Publishers Weekly)
In this panel, four publishers discussed the status and marketability of translation and the place of translation in their respective publishing houses.
Krüger: Martin Luther's translation of the Bible inaugurated modern literature in German--we are going on almost 250 years of translation copyright--asserting the authorship of the translator
Entrekin: publishing literature in translation generates "psychic equity"--continues a conversation across cultures and languages that draws in readers, critics and authors
There was a lot of discussion about the fact that translation only makes up 3% of U.S. publications, a number that is much, much higher in other countries.
Freihow: Your (meaning the U.S.) homegrown writers are writing about the same subjects generally (as in other places)--what if you didn't tell the reader that it was a translation--would they notice?
Freihow also noted that despite the large number of translations that his publishing house brings out, the number of translations of U.S. literature has gone down. One reason is that English has become almost a second language for many Europeans, so many readers have access to the English original well before the translation comes out. Another factor is that U.S. agents charge very hight rates--this and the lack of translation support from the U.S. means that it makes more financial sense to publish an unknown European writer than a well-known U.S. writer.
Krüger: in our generation things are happening at the same time--so translation has to happen at the same time
Nelson pointed out that about 300, 000 books in English are published every year (the number is higher, I think). In Germany, for example, the number is between 70-100,000, of which 10-20, 000 are works of fiction. (not sure if I understood that correctly--I think the point was that the U.S. publishes a smaller percentage of works of fiction)
"How Many Books are Too Many" (a 2004 NYT article)
"The Non English Patient" (a 2006 panel at the Frankfurt Book Fair, scroll down for a discussion on the number of books published)
Wikipedia tries to keep track.
Krüger: "trash novels" come out very quickly, "non trash" is slow--in a world with so much trash "it is not so bad to have some things that are slow"
Frank: In France, many bookstores categorize books by country--in Italy, by publisher, which means that readers are attracted to a curatorial edge/taste
The panel came to a close with the observation (made by Frank and supported by Entrekin) that U.S. translators are not able to make a living on translation alone. In Norway and Germany, on the other hand, the government and publishing houses offer subsidies to translators and in support of translation.
Transparent Post-Its
It's about flippin' time
Northern Virginia Locked In to Congested Roads
Suburbanites in northern Virginia are finding their streets more clogged with traffic than ever, and, as the Washington Post reported earlier this week, they aren't about to get bailed out by road-widening projects. Here's the crux of the problem, told from the Post reporter's decidedly windshield perspective:
Thoroughfares like Rolling Road are the blood vessels that connect suburbia, the secondary roads that carry commuters to interstates, residents to supermarkets and children to school. They include Braddock Road in Fairfax County, Colesville Road in Montgomery, and even such larger highways as routes 7 and 50. They are the roads that Washington area residents traverse every day, sometimes several times a day.
Just months ago, Northern Virginia residents and elected officials were expecting hundreds of millions of dollars in improvements to such roads. Now, because of budget cuts and state lawmakers' failure to reach a deal on regional transportation funding, drivers can expect only more misery.
The Virginia Department of Transportation recently announced a 51 percent cut in the region's road-building program. Dozens of projects have been eliminated or postponed indefinitely. And rising maintenance costs are eating away at what little remains.
The Post assumes that expanding road capacity is the only answer, and casts the problem as purely a budgetary shortfall. It neglects to mention the role of land use in bringing about this state of affairs. The pattern described in the article is similar to what regions all over the country are facing, as past decisions to separate housing from other land uses come back to haunt them in the form of ever-mounting traffic.
(more...)
PAPER TV: Catching up with Dita Von Teese
PAPER's Whitney Spaner talks beauty, fashion and feathers with former cover girl Dita Von Teese.
Muxtape works on iPhone
Filed under: iPod Family, Internet, iPhone
If you are a Web 2.0 fanatic (which, come on, who isn't these days?) then you probably know about Muxtape. For those of you who aren't religiously reading the latest Web application news at DownloadSquad, Muxtape is basically a way to share your personalized mp3 mixtape. Not only can you subscribe to the tape's RSS via iTunes, but it turns out that you can also listen to Muxtapes on your iPhone!
Just navigate over to the Muxtape page of your choosing and select a song. Mobile Safari will then load the file and begin to play it like normal mp3 audio. How cool is that?
Thanks for the info, Craig!Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
More folding proteins.. but this time a game too
Folding@home runs on idle time, as I understand it, as does rosetta@home. I haven't got a PS3 yet which runs the former - waiting for LittleBigPlanet before I splurge (and have to remove the gamecube to make room). But this, Foldit, is a game, designed to get players to develop actually-useful proteins for use in designing new vaccines.
Solve Puzzles for Science! is the strapline. How can you resist?
Technology Review says:The game, called Foldit, is part of Baker's vision for the future of protein engineering. His algorithms are good at the nitty-gritty of generating completely novel protein sequences for a particular purpose. But humans, who are better at seeing the big picture than computers are, could improve computer-designed proteins by playing the game.
Some of the proteins could go towards helping to design a vaccine for HIV, even. This is double plus good.
(Thanks to Kim!)
Rahm: Obama Is "Presumptive Nominee." Rahm Flack: That's Not News!
Rahm Emanuel said today that Obama is the "presumptive nominee." Sounds like news, no?
Not according to Rahm's spokesperson. Ben Smith gets the following from Rahm flack Sarah Feinberg:
Easy. Everyone is getting a little over their ski tips. It must be a slow news day. All Rahm said was that Sen. Obama is now the front-runner, which by and large means, because of the calendar, he is the presumptive nominee, at this point. He was stating the obvious.Don't know about this. Rahm also said that "Hillary can't win." For a party leader like Rahm to declare the race effectively over seems like news to us.
Beirut Blogging
A little bit of on-the-ground blogging from Beirut, where things today are still very much in flux.
Late Update: A reader points me to another Beirut blog.
Hillary Campaign Emails Out "Electability" Power-Point To All House Dems
Stepping up its efforts to push her case with super-dels and party leaders, the Hillary campaign is emailing out a Power-Point presentation to all Dems in the House touting her electability and her ability to carry tough swing districts.
You can view the Power-Point in our TPM Document Collection.
The gist of the argument is that Hillary has beaten Obama in the vast majority of tough red-leaning House districts, and has consistently outperformed him among key demographics -- seniors, Hispanics, and rural voters.
You've heard similar stuff in the past, to be sure, albeit not framed in terms of individual House districts, an argument designed to resonate with members of Congress.
The fact that this has been blasted out to every Dem in the House suggests that the Hillary campaign is ratcheting up its behind-the-scenes campaign to win over uncommitted super-dels in the campaign's final days, even as a loss in the a popular vote, in addition to the pledged del count, looms as a likely possibility.
It's unclear how effective this will be, given that the Hillary camp has been making electability arguments for months even as Obama has consistently won over these super-dels at a greater rate.
Dig in and let us know what you find.
May 8, 2008
● NYer Conference, other day one notables
British architect David Adjaye observed that not only are public buildings built for "the public" but they also create "the public" by establishing a space for it to exist. I guess by the same token, buildings built for private citizens also create private citizens...hence, eventually, gated communities and the like.
Adjaye also described his native Africa as layered combination of its different eras: colonialism + nation building + European + Islam + urabn/capitalist.
The chefs panel, with Bill Buford interviewing Daniel Humm, Marc Taxiera, and David Chang, was the most entertaining of the day. Right at the end, David Chang told a short anecdote about a customer who complained to him about the amount of fat in the Momofuku pork bun...pork as in pork belly and pork belly as in mostly fat. Chang told him that's the way it came and that he wasn't getting a replacement. Shrugging, he told the audience he had a different idea about hospitality than most restauranteurs..."the customer is not always right".
Michael Ovogratz, the 317th richest American, explained the current financial crisis. Goes something like this. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening up of China and India for both trade and labor laid the groundwork for globalization. Lots and lots of cheap labor available made made for cheap goods and and low inflation. Between early 2003 and late 2007, globalization kicked into high gear and people thought, this is it, this is the end of inflation forever. But the workers in Eastern Europe, India, and China gradually became consumers. They bought TVs and cars and better food and whaddya know, inflation is back. The bubble burst.
Amy Smith challenges her students to try living on $2 a day for a week...that includes food, transportation, and entertainment. This video of a talk that Smith did at TED in 2006 covers much of what she talked about today at the New Yorker Conference. The NY Times covered her clever inventions back in 2003.
Who's blogging from Pangea Day?
(Above: a scene from Thursday's tech rehearsal on the Pangea Day set)
You can follow news from Pangea Day on the Pangea Day Blog -- and get updates from bloggers at screenings and viewing parties around the world. If you're going to be blogging Pangea Day as well, write to us with the subject line "Blogging Pangea Day" and we'll add you to the list!
Hosting Pangea Day events and blogging:
+ Pangea Day Dharavi/Mumbai
+ A New York City screening hosted by the Acumen Fund
+ Friends of Pangea Day Vancouver
+ Pangea Day Cambridge UK
+ Pangea Day Milano
greenpix zero-energy massive LED display
the largest color LED display worldwide, & the first photo-voltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China. the display requires zero external energy, as the facade harvests solar energy by day & uses it to illuminate the screen after dark. the display comprises of 2,292 color (RGB) LED’s light points comparable to a 24,000 sq. ft. (2.200 m2) monitor screen for dynamic content display.the polycrystalline photovoltaic cells are laminated within the glass of the curtain wall & placed with changing density on the entire building’s skin. the density pattern increases building’s performance, allowing natural light when required by interior program, while reducing heat gain & transforming excessive solar radiation into energy for the media wall.
you can play with the online simulator, or watch a movie after the break.
[link: greenpix.org|via engadget.com]
