19 de mayo de 2014

Vamos a revelar una intimidad

Bueno. Resulta que me pidieron un poema para una muestra en Bozar y tenía que estar traducido al inglés. Yo tenía algunos traducidos por Mark Dow, mi traductor oficial, y otros traducidos por Andrew Graham-Yooll, pero ellos eligieron un poema muy antiguo y nunca antes trasladado (está en Las últimas mudanzas, Ediciones Vox). Y le pidieron a Mark que lo volviera inglés. Mark y yo siempre andamos intercambiando sobre traducción; me responde sobre las rarezas que suelo encontrar en mi oficio o arte sombrío. Claro que en el medio se nos cuela la vida misma, porque somos ante todo amigos. Esta vez hice de autora viva y colaboradora, y durante una semana estuvimos considerando cosas. Yo creo que la versión inglesa quedó bárbara. Pero Mark, además, armó, --para mandarle a la hija de un amigo, que estudia traducción-- este documento que pongo debajo. Es decir, nuestro diálogo íntimo.
Qué sé yo, me pareció lindo ponerlo. A mí al menos me gustaría leer el intercambio de otros.
   
Perspectiva desde una bañera

Después habrá una discusión.
Por ahora todo es cerrar los ojos,
mantenerlos cerrados a la altura del agua,
respirar, volver a sumergirse.
El límite entre el agua y el aire
coincide con la línea de pensamiento
que lo que hace es fundir y refundir
en cualquier orden
un par de escenas o secuencias, fotografías
tomadas con una cámara automática,
siempre más o menos el mismo material,
- es lo que se ha podido reunir -
animales salvajes avanzando
hasta quedar en primer plano,
alguien que le enseña a una chica
a usar una pistola en el desierto,
o igual una persona en una bañera
- y aquí vendrá la discusión:
quién es la persona,
quién soporta
la línea de pensamiento, o quién
apretó el gatillo,
tomó la foto, quién señaló la posición
donde habría que ubicarse
para obtener una buena vista aérea
de la bañera.

*

Perspective from the Bath

Later there will be some discussion.
Right now the main thing is to close one's eyes,
keep them closed at the surface,
take a breath, slip under again.
The border between water and air
is coincident with the thought process
that dissolves -- fade in, fade out -- 
pairs of sequences or single shots
in any order, photos
taken with an automatic camera,
always the same material, more or less,
whatever happens to have been provided --
wild animals advancing to foreground,
someone showing a girl in the desert
how to handle a gun,
or maybe just somebody in a bathtub,
which bring us to the discussion:
who this person is,
who bears
the thought, who
pulled the trigger,
shot the picture, and who determined
the precise position from which one
would have this aerial view of the bath.

 *


Perspective from the Bath
you prefer this straightforward title translation to Bath Angle, correct? i think youre right. i really don't know... you choose it. oy.
            i decided "Bath Angle" isn't the sound of lw; i tried "Angle from the Bath" but went           back to your original. you're probably very right.

            likewise with "in any order" (i'd overcomplicated it).

            and i moved "more or less" for a more englishy sound.

            --i have some confusion about the actual process at the beginning: and how strange, i      just realized that even while translating cerrados as closed, i imagined the eyes open,       playing with the reflection from under and above the surface!

Later there will [changed from "would". perfect!] be some discussion.
Right now the main thing is [changed from "was" yes] closing one's eyes,
keeping them closed at the surface así es,

Later there will be some discussion.
Right now the main thing is closing one's eyes,
keeping them closed at the surface

Right now the main thing is to close one's eyes,
keep them closed at the surface,
take a breath, slip under again.

            qué cosa el inglés, que tiene dos posibilidades de infinitivo. i like it this way, too. i guess        the second line is closer to the meter of the original (well, "the original". something i         wrote).


taking a breath, slipping under again. i would maybe split this one with a coma (taking a breath, then slipping under...?).
comma not coma! . . . 2 "then"s ok? the comma is up to you. i would only put one "then", whether here or there. i think i prefer no "then"s after all. agree.

The border between water and air
is coincident with the line of attack / thought process
i was thinking of a more physical --geographical-- "coincidir" ("fits into"?) yes of course i knew i was going too far here. and yes it has to have that physicality of one thing fitting into or onto -- or being mapped, as we say -- onto another...
also, i don't like "train of thought", though, even though in another context it would be the perfect translation, because here the "train" metaphor gets in the way. wasnt there a broken train of thought in the rainstorm poem i translated? "the thought process": i have qualms about the double th- (and another th- in next line), but one thing i like is that old people will remember that we used to take film to be processed... you're right! i didn't know where did that "train of thought" came from! but yes, the train has nothing to do with the line. and wasn't it just yesterday that we took film to be processed? yes, let us stick with "thought process".  no, the train is natural and perfect -- everywhere except here.  and yes, it was yesterday.

that dissolves -- fade in, fade out -- 

            --i love that fundir can mean merge or break.
            * te lo anoto abajo igual

pairs of sequences or single shots,
either one in front of the other, photos
taken with an automatic camera,

            --"automatic camera" doesnt seem right in this technological era. i'll come back to that     again. 

always more or less the same material,or: always the same stock footagei think i prefer the first one. keeps the (vague) ambiguity...right
whatever happens to have been provided --

wild animals advancing as far as the first scene  foreground?,
wild animals advancing to foreground,
you really should be your own translator and get rid of the incompetent middleman! hey -- don't even dare. anyway i imagine this clipped phrase (as opposed to advancing toward the foreground) sounds like a movie script and maybe tempers the melodrama of it a bit (the only aspect of the poem i have trouble with). mark, i don't even remember having written this poem... ja well, perhaps it was the day before yesterday, then.  "anteayer" (btw) is one of my favorite words. .  there is also "antes de ayer", which is the one i normally use.  maybe the stock footage does that too...but maybe thats absurd?

someone showing a girl in the desert
how to handle a gun,
or maybe just somebody in a bathtub
-- and now the discussion: what. i like that "now". are you unsure of it? nope. i just forgot to erase the yellow hi-lite from before. oh. this is how people misunderstand each other all over the world.
            i think "which brings us to" is more colloquial english for picking up the train of thought. and turns out, maybe, to be a good translation of "aquí vendrá". yes, i totally like it.

who this person is,

who's positing the idea, who
who bears the thought, who here i was trying to use both senses of "soportar": http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=soportar you didnt comment on "bear" perhaps because i neglected to hi-lite it. too easy but perfect. obviously you knew and wanted me to feel useful. (thanks).  i guess i thought it was perfect and didn't stop to say anything...? mark, you are being much more than "useful". you're a great translator. por qué decís así? the thing about my being "useful" -- i was making a joke!! i guessed so, but lately i have been undergoing a certain uncertainty regarding voice tones and moods... last week i thought my beloved cousin was sort of angry with me, something technically impossible. i even cried. she could hardly believe it.   weird b/c I just exchanged an email with the PNReview editor about emoticons and this problem. I've also become aware of my serious propensity (!!) for inventing the worst when I get a text that just says "OK" or "k".  see above. though on a purely linguistic level, I do love "k".
what do you mean, "k"? instead of "ok". just love it.
yes. very common. in fact I was shocked when a guy my age texted me the entire word "Okay" (capitalized). [Nina: this guy was your dad!] of course it is common for people to say "k" but somehow the listener hears the ghost of the "o" (my theory).
lovely theory. i just tweeted it.
  •             · 
·  Laura Wittner @LauraWittner Protected Tweets May 9 les vengo con una noticia adorable: en estados unidos es común textear "k" en vez de "ok".
Laura Wittner @LauraWittner Protected Tweets May 9  también decirlo, claro. aunque de alguna manera todos escuchan el "fantasma de la o". me dice mi informante.



            now about those "who…" phrases:

            there is no question mark in your original: am i correct that the syntax is not:
                                   "Who is this person[with a missing '?']"
            but rather:
                                   "The question is who this person is…" right option (and then i guess it would          be: "who is the one who pulled the trigger...").

            answer me that, and then we can deal with the awkwardness. what awkwardness? well, in             english we'd need to say "The discussion is about who the person is" etc.

            i would also ask whether you're thinking that the "who" to the series of questions is the      same person or maybe more than one, but i suspect you don't know, even f you once did,    which i suspect you did not. mmm... something leads me to believe i could have been      talking about (maybe) different persons.


pulled the trigger,

            --just so you know some work went into this: my first intuition  of "apretó el gatillo" was    pet the cat!

took the photo, and who determined
the precise position from which one
would have this aerial view of the bath.

who this person is,
who bears
the thought, who
pulled the trigger,
shot the picture, and who determined

            this new end i love.

*i guess you know it, but just in case: it is the "línea de pensamiento" (train of thought?) which "funde y refunde", not "us". about that "fundir y refundir", i was thinking of something like... "merge" or "fade", i don't know, those things they do with film clips.
oh! i misread it as "que lo que se hace es..." ;  concerning your "...que lo que hace..." instead of the more direct "la linea...que funde y refunde": is it a kind of exagegrated formality, so to speak? and as for merge/fade, i thought it was more a splicing and cutting! oops. it's that dictionary you sent to me... i always suspect wordreference. com is mostly made by argentine people. they always include some very suspicious expressions -- i mean, very common expressions heard only in buenos aires! "que lo que hace" is not exactly formal, it's more like...
and yes, i like this new, riskier option! our friend john koethe has a nice article on "risk" in poetry somewhere or other...anyway, i like doing that in translation: instead of choosing between options, using more than one.  i played with that idea in the nutty Genesis translation i did. did you see it on FB? so here, i saw on that cinema term site that "dissolve" means fade in and fade out. that surprised me b/c i assumed dissolve was the fading out, and that some other word would mean fade in... ... the thing with those technical terms is: will most readers acknowledge those "hidden" meanings? fuck 'em! ok. speaking of tone, though, is this really ok with you? I mean, I don't think we're using any really obscure terminology.  yes, it is, sir.

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Dow
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2014 1:57 AM
Subject: bonus vocab

Dissolve - A transition between two shots, where one shot fades away and simultaneously another shot fades in. Dissolves are done at the lab in the printing
phase, but prepared by the negative cutter, who cuts in an overlap of the two shots into the A&B rolls. Labs will only do dissolves in fixed amounts, such as 24 frames, 48 frames, etc.


Edge Fog - Exposure along the edge of the film from raw light, in most cases from a lightleak, due to the camera door not being taped. Edge Fog can sometimes be visible in the frame or sometimes outside of the frame effecting the clarity of the latent edge numbers.

and… maybe the real title for your poem:

Dutch Tilt - A composition with the camera viewing the scene at a diagonal. Same as a canted angle. Some nice examples can be seen in Carol Reed’s “The Third Man.”



15 de mayo de 2014

Otro O'Hara y me calmo


Escultura heroica                                                          

Nos unimos a los animales  
no cuando cogemos
             o cagamos
no cuando cae la lágrima

sino cuando
         mirando fijo hacia la luz
         pensamos.