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Thursday, November 19th, 2020
As I make my way through the original and the translation of Texas (having read each of them through once) I'm noticing some minor differences that I just find inexplicable. For instance the Mexican character Salustio in the original (p. 55) is "Jones, a runaway slave" in the translation (p. 33). Why? I'm leaning as a tentative explanation toward the idea that Schnee translated a late pre-publication draft, and Boullosa made some final edits before the original was published which were not incorporated into the translation. No idea if that's correct or not.
 Another instance of this -- in the original we meet "otro que también se llama Blas, y no por bastardo..." in the Café Ronsard (p. 73) -- in the translation the character's name is given as "David" (p. 49) and no mention of bastardry is made, and there is no "also". The también in the original might be referring to Blas the bastard son of Gutierrez? Not sure.
↻...done
posted morning of November 19th, 2020: Respond
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Monday, November 16th, 2020
A section early in Texas consists of short paragraphs describing the events of the years between Texas being declared independent and being annexed to the US. The paragraphs are in order by year; the one for 1836 says Austin was declared the capital of Texas; skirmishes continued. That's incorrect, and in the translation this is changed to 1839 (the correct date), and the order of paragraphs is altered. (Luckily the original text did not have a paragraph for 1839, so there's no need to merge two together.) This seems like the right thing to do.
posted evening of November 16th, 2020: Respond
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A defining feature, even a tic, of the narrative voice in Texas is use of appositive phrases. Very frequently when a character is referred to it is with name + occupation, or name + some defining characteristic; e.g. we see "trapper Cruz" or "Cruz, the trapper" more often (I reckon) than just "Cruz". This is useful to me as a reader, since there are a lot of characters to keep track of; also it is cute. I wonder if it is a common feature of Boullosa's writing or just in this book -- something to keep an eye out for.
posted afternoon of November 16th, 2020: Respond
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Sunday, November 15th, 2020
I notice as I'm reading Schnee's translation of Texas that she skips over a clause here and there. For example, "dio muchos detalles y contó otros, hasta dijo que si Nepomuceno era el que había interceptado el correo, le colgó el bandidaje de los robines y quién sabe cuánto más." (p. 21) is translated as "He gave lots of details and made up others, even saying that it was Nepomuceno who had robbed the mail." (p. 7) Schnee even skips whole paragraphs. In the original, after the section which ends "Agua fuerte saca el puñal." comes
(Dos que anotar cuando el sol refulge en la hoja de metal del puñal de Agua Fuerte: al astro se le ve mejor y al acero parece no pesarle el astro. Parecería que el abrumado firmamento no puede con el peso del coloso; se diría que allá en lo alto está por resquebrajarse el azul, que la bóveda necesita compartir la carga con el velo del polvo terrestre y que el puñal pulido lleva al astro con ligereza.) (p. 25)
[(Two things to make note of, while the sun is shining off the metal sheet of Strong Water's blade: the star appears larger and the steel does not seem weighed down by the star. It would seem the firmament is overwhelmed, that it cannot bear the gargantuan weight; one could say there is a crack in the blue up there, that the vault of the heavens has to share its burden with the earthly cloud of dust and that the polished blade carries the star with ease.)] This word-for-word rendering is poor but gives an approximate sense The translation skips directly to the next section, beginning "Inside the Smiths' home, lovely Moonbeam gets back to work." (p. 9) It doesn't seem like the missing content is incorporated anywhere else... Not sure what to make of this. Possibly Schnee was working from a different edition than what I'm reading?
posted morning of November 15th, 2020: Respond
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I get the impression that Schnee is usually leaving vaquero untranslated when it is referring to a Mexican cowboy, rendering it as cowboy when it is referring to a gringo. This seems right to me, even though it introduces a distinction that's not present in the original text. It jumped out at me during Lázaro's speech at the end of part 1, when he said "one of King's cowboys" had insulted him and then later said "the era of the vaquero is over." The translation brings out a shift in meaning of the word between "un vaquero de King" and "el tiempo del vaquero".
posted morning of November 15th, 2020: Respond
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Thursday, November 5th, 2020
Raya el mediodía en Bruneville. El cielo sin nubes, la luz vertical, el velo de polvo espejeante, el calor que fatiga la vista. En la Plaza del Mercado, frente al Café Ronsard, el sheriff Shears escupe a don Nepomuceno cuatro palabras:--Ya cállate, grasiento pelado. Las dice en inglés, menos la última, Shut up, greaser pelado. --Texas, by Carmen Boullosa
It's high noon in Bruneville. Not a cloud in the sky. The sun beats down, piercing the veil of shimmering dust. Eyes droop from the heat.
In the Market Square, in front of Café Ronsard, Sheriff Shears spits five words at Don Nepomuceno:
“Shut up, you dirty greaser.”
He says the words in English.
--Texas: The Great Theft, by Carmen Boullosa tr. Samantha Schnee
The tension between Cortina and the Brownsville authorities broke into violence on 13 July 1859. Brownsville town marshal Robert Shears was brutalizing Cortina's 60-year-old former ranch hand. Cortina happened to pass by, and asked Shears to let him handle the situation; Shears is said to have yelled at him in reply, "What is it to you, you damned Mexican?"
--Wikpedia entry for Juan Nepomuceno Cortina An interesting thing to keep in mind when reading Texas in either the original or the translation is, the characters (of whichever nationality) are switching code much more frequently than is shown in the book. In the original, Shears speaks in English with a word of Spanish; Frank/Pancho relays the insult to Sharp in English (presumably verbatim, though Boullosa only paraphrases him as saying "tal y tal") and Sharp tells it to Alitas in (unquoted) Spanish, and when Alitas repeats it he is using Boullosa's original phrasing, "¡Cállate grasiento pelado!" (p.18)The chisme spreads from mouth to mouth, in the book the dialogue is rendered in Spanish but the attentive reader will be able to guess what language is being spoken at each juncture. By the time it gets down to the Matasánchez ferry, William Boyle repeats it in a phrasing close to the historical record preserved at Wikipedia: "None of your business, you damned Mexican!" Also finding Schnee's translation choice interesting. When Boullosa quotes Shears as speaking in English with a word of Spanish, it seems like it ought to be preserved in translation. I think the code-switching the characters do is a key part of the story -- Boullosa preserves enough of it in dialogue to give a sense that the characters are living in both languages. Will keep track of how Schnee is rendering this.
posted afternoon of November 5th, 2020: 1 response
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Saturday, October 10th, 2020
“Art is how we decorate space;
Music is how we decorate time.”
-- Jean Michel Basquiat
---> POETRY IS HOW WE DECORATE CONSCIOUSNESS
posted afternoon of October 10th, 2020: Respond
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Sunday, September 13th, 2020
The READIN blog may have come to an end. The host will be upgrading PHP from 5.6 to 7.3 (or rather, has done so at some point in the past and will soon be disabling 5.6.) I'm pretty sure the current script will not run in 7.3; I could probably figure out how to upgrade the script but not sure I will take the initiative any time soon.
 Ok, it is working now (by and large) as of October 1 -- will seek out and fix broken features in the coming days and weeks.
posted morning of September 13th, 2020: Respond
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Thursday, August 6th, 2020
For a long time I've been wanting to get a jam going with the tin-can cello and my Stroh fiddle. The problem is, I can't play them both at the same time.... Multiple tracks to the rescue!
Here is the method I've hit on: I compose a rhythm section in Noteflight, then jam against that with fiddle and cello, recording the instrument I'm playing while the rhythm section is playing in headphones. I use Audacity to mix the instruments and vocals with the rhythm section, so I can hear the cello while playing fiddle or vice versa.
Below the fold, a take on "Jagged Sixpence": pretty good although it falls apart a bit near the end. Needs another take of the cello part for the instrumental break at the end. Should see if some better singer than I would be interested in singing this one (and playing guitar). Maybe Malcolm.
posted afternoon of August 6th, 2020: 2 responses
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Tuesday, June 16th, 2020
posted afternoon of June 16th, 2020: Respond
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