|
|
Monday, June 10th, 2013
 My latest translation project is the story "Lavender Mist (1955)", from La casa de la loca. An exciting project, and I'm close to finished with it; I'm planning to submit this story to Asymptote journal's Close Approximations contest.
This book is another that I bought on the strength of its cover illustration -- Rafael Trelles' painting "El suceso inesperado" (The Unexpected Event) pulled me right in. Contents:
- "The Madwoman's House (1915)" -- Rosario Diaz, widow of the author Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, works on an unfinished story of her husband's.
- "Glen Island (1900)"
- "Black House (1904)"
- "A Few Prosaic Lines (1915)" -- a woman sews clothing to support her family and writes (and translates!) poetry on pieces of a cardboard box.
- "Lavender Mist (1955)" -- Salvador Suárez visits the MoMA.
- "Birds of the Soul (1963)" -- After he was released from prison, Nathan Leopold ended his days as a birdwatcher in the Caribbean. Here he writes about the Paloma Sabanera (Columba Inornata Wetmorei), the final entry in his Checklist of Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
- "Coconut Milk (1988)" -- A sort of repulsively smug New Yorker named Thomas Smith describes his travails in attempting to reproduce a recipe from Puerto Rican Desserts: An Illustrated Cooking Tour of our New Possession by Rose Kilmer (1900), given him by his uncle William.
- "The Poison Pen (1999)" -- Nurse Belisa Weaver, daughter of an Irish man and a Puerto Rican woman and mother of an estranged son, tries to make some money for her retirement by connecting couples seeking to adopt with pregnant young women.
- "The Green Man's Interlude (20--)"
The final section of the book is "Fragments of a Novel" about a young man who kidnaps people to steal their experiences. Tantalizingly pretty but very difficult to follow.
posted evening of June 10th, 2013: Respond
➳ More posts about La casa de la loca
|  |
Sunday, June second, 2013
posted morning of June second, 2013: 2 responses
|  |
Monday, April 15th, 2013
Erik Johansson
posted evening of April 15th, 2013: Respond
➳ More posts about M.C. Escher
| |
Thursday, February 14th, 2013
posted evening of February 14th, 2013: Respond
|  |
Wednesday, January 30th, 2013
posted evening of January 30th, 2013: Respond
➳ More posts about Dreams
| |
Saturday, January 19th, 2013
New images from ESA's Mars Express craft have me picturing myself riding a more primitive craft down the river with Huck and Jim... they are crablike hexapods with fringes of symbiotically attached smaller organisms trailing from their undersides... (thanks for the link, Gary!)
posted afternoon of January 19th, 2013: Respond
|  |
Saturday, October 20th, 2012
posted evening of October 20th, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about the Family Album
|  |
Friday, October 12th, 2012
dos paisajes de nubes, a lo largo de mi viaje a casa esta noche: sobre East Orange y al muelle en Hoboken.
posted evening of October 12th, 2012: Respond
| |
Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
臺ç£è—éµ²: Urocissa cærulea
Dura menos un hombre que una vela
pero la tierra prefiere su lumbre
para seguir el paso de los astros.
Dura menos que un árbol,
que una piedra,
se anochece ante el viento más leve,
con un soplo se apaga.
Dura menos un pájaro,
que un pez fuera del agua,
casi no tiene tiempo de nacer,
da unas vueltas al sol y se borra
entre las sombras de las horas
hasta que sus huesos en el polvo
se mezclan con el viento,
y sin embargo, cuando parte
siempre deja la tierra más clara. -- Eugenio Montejo
posted afternoon of September 26th, 2012: Respond
| |
Saturday, September 15th, 2012
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, along the banks of the great gray-green greasy Lomami river, a new species of Old World monkey has been discovered; the Cercopithecus lomamiensis or Lesula. What a deliciously expressively cryptic face this individual has! As Rob Helpy-Chalk phrases it over at FB, "He's offering some kind of comfort, but not the kind that depends on being delusional about the way the world is."
 A-and omg, look at the youngsters holding hands:
posted evening of September 15th, 2012: 2 responses
| Previous posts about Pretty Pictures
Archives  | |
|
Drop me a line! or, sign my Guestbook.
•
Check out Ellen's writing at Patch.com.
| |
