text:
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After getting an EPC light and loosing all turbo power i finally managed to get it on Vagcom.
Can anyone shed any light on the below results, i.e. is it a big job, costs etc. has anyone had to replace this sensor
P.s. i have a freeware version can you clear the DTC with this??
Address 01: Engine
Controller: 8L0 906 018 J
Component: 1.8L R4/5VT 0005
Coding: 05700
Shop #: WSC 00647
2 Faults Found:
18047 - Accelerator Position Sensor 1/2 (G79/G185): Implausible Signal
P1639 - 35-10 - - - Intermittent
17963 - Shareware Version. To Decode all DTCs
P1555 - 35-10 - Please Register/Activate - Intermittent
Readiness: 0000 0000
Address 03: ABS Brakes
Controller: 8N0 907 379 E
Component: ESP 20 CAN V003
Coding: 18446
Shop #: WSC 01236
No fault code found.
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P1555 is "Charge Pressure Upper Limit exceeded"
Presumably the ECU went into limp mode because the boost was too high. The gurus here could probably explain the reasons better than I can
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thanks jona.
Anyone else? ANy idea where its located, diagrams etc.
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18047 - Accelerator Position Sensor 1/2 (G79/G185): Implausible Signal
P1639 - 35-10 - - - Intermittent
That's the accelerator pedal sensor. It consists of two potentiometers in one unit on the accelerator pedal assembly. There are two for safety backup so if one fails and is telling the ECU to go full throttle but the other one says part throttle the ECU sill stay part throttle and flag up a fault code like you've got. Before you change the sensor (~£50) you could try a few things.
1/ Clear the fault code and see if it comes back (full version of Vag-Com)
2/ Check the wiring loom to the pedal sensor - may be a loose, corroded or shorted connection.
3/ Use some switch cleaner. Now, I think it's most likely that the potentiometers are of the plastic variety which have a very long service lifetime and are most likely sealed. I've never tried cleaning one of these and don't know how it would respond. The more common or garden carbon track potentiometers (it won't be one of these), like you get on amps, radios, dimmers etc, or the wirewound type, respond very well to switch cleaner (e.g. Servisol) and you can get years more use out of them once cleaned. If it's sealed you may not be able to get the fluid in.
Fault code 17963 = 17963/P1555 - Boost Pressure Control: Upper Limit Exceeded
Could be a faulty N75 valve or blocked or leaking hoses. I'd check your hoses first but an N75 is not too expensive. I can't see how your faulty accelerator sensor would have anything to do with this.
Hope that helps
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hemTT - just replied to your PM but posted here for info to others:
Looks like John-H has covered all the same thoughts I had...
If you have the full version of VAGCOM, check Display group 062, fields 3 and 4 show the two sensors in the pedal...
- Observe display field 3 and 4.
- Slowly depress accelerator pedal completely.
Percent indication in display field 3 must rise uniformly. The tolerance range 12 to 97% is not used completely during this.
Percent indication in display field 4 must also rise uniformly. In the process, the tolerance range of 4 to 49% is not completely utilized.
The indicated value in display field 3 must always be about twice as large as value in display field 4.
Replacement is of the whole accelerator pedal module, very simply unplug cable, undo the two nuts holding it to footwell wall and remove. Install is the reverse of removal. But being the whole module I don't expect it to be cheap unless poss an exchange part... or maybe www.audittspares.co.uk has a secondhand one
Hope that helps...
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You guys sound you in the know regarding VAGCOM, care to look at my results...
http://www.tt-forum.co.uk/ttforumbbs/vi ... hp?t=90967
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thanks for your posts John-H & Chip_iTT.
And Wak for your advice
Excellent help as always.
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text:
A Civil War Soldier Who Fooled Everyone
A woman who fought in the Civil War disguised as a man is the subject of a new movie.
"Rebel" is the story of Loreta Velazquez, a Cuban immigrant who grew up in New Orleans and joined the war as a Confederate soldier, but then became a Union spy.
Filmmaker Maria Agui Carter worked on the movie for twelve years. In this interview, she said she felt Velazquez's story needed to be told. "She writes a memoir in 1876. This was considered so transgressive, she broke all the rules," she said. "Women were supposed to support the war, but by darning socks, and supporting the men, they were not supposed to go and fight it themselves."
"Rebel" is part of the Athena Film Festival, which features female filmmakers. It runs through Sunday at Barnard College.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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Most Editions | First Published | Most Recent
Procès-verbaux des comités d'agriculture et de commerce de la Constituante, de la Législative et de la Convention2 editions - first published in 1906
Agence générale du clergé1 edition - first published in 2001
Links (outside Open Library)
No links yet. Add one?
History Created April 1, 2008 · 2 revisions
|June 6, 2012
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|April 1, 2008
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text:
gos is simply truth
Essay by: alhain
Status: Finished
Genre: Non-Fiction
in reality we are the no-thing, to say we are the source of all that we see in this world. we are god to mean we are the small ring within the bigger one. when the bible talks about god, in reality it is not talking about a being who is suspended somewhere into some magical sphere but it is talking about the truth of all things. so we are also this truth, whatever you find in this world is a truth you have found about yourself, but do not make the mistake to hold on to it as the ultimate truth. the purpose of truth you have found is to create another truth and it goes on like this until i dont know when. do i then say that you are meant to be a criminal and stuff? i dont know how to answer to this question but i believe you are called to be the truth examining the others little truth coming to you as the truth. in reality you are nothing more but the space between the thinking and the doing. you decide in that moment what your experience is going to be. people say that you can control the mind, but in reality you cant. the only way you can control the mind is by letting it be whatever it is going to be. the same goes for feelings and emotions. so you see now why you are created in the image of god. you are the one to derive some order out of this self made desorder. it is like god took a perfect picture and cut it into small piece and scatered them all over the place for him to be able to put it together again, but this time the pieces are so numerous that god has even divised himself into small pieces and those peices as they got smaller lost their memory of the conectdeness with god but they have not so lost , they have simply forgoten and this god did it purposely for him to have to know his own true potential. see now why some say that god created the world to behold god? you are that part of god itself, now you are conscious of the mess god has created to find itself. now as you become aware of this there is only you who can put in order the puzzle trough what you have found. so we have doctors finding the cause of deseases, we find people realising their dark nature, we have poets creating fine arts and so on. we also have criminals finding that they have not put the pieces just at the right place. god isnt playing us for fools, she is enjoying herself in our findings of the perfect moment or the pefect picture. you are that perfectness trying to realise the perfect, can you do just that? who do you think you are? you are the space between the reading and the thinking. what then do you say about this?
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text:
Hasson, Felicity, Keeney, Sinead and McKenna, Hugh (2000) Research guidelines for the Delphi survey technique. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 32 (4). pp. 1008-1015. [Journal article]
Full text not available from this repository.
DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2648.2000.01567.x
Consensus methods such as the Delphi survey technique are being employed to help enhance effective decision-making in health and social care. The Delphi survey is a group facilitation technique, which is an iterative multistage process, designed to transform opinion into group consensus. It is a flexible approach, that is used commonly within the health and social sciences, yet little guidance exists to help researchers undertake this method of data collection. This paper aims to provide an understanding of the preparation, action steps and difficulties that are inherent within the Delphi. Used systematically and rigorously, the Delphi can contribute significantly to broadening knowledge within the nursing profession. However, careful thought must be given before using the method; there are key issues surrounding problem identification, researcher skills and data presentation that must be addressed. The paper does not claim to be definitive; it purports to act as a guide for those researchers who wish to exploit the Delphi methodology.
|Item Type:
|Journal article
|Faculties and Schools:
|Faculty of Life and Health Sciences
Faculty of Life and Health Sciences > School of Nursing
|Research Institutes and Groups:
|Psychology Research Institute > The Bamford Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing
Institute of Nursing and Health Research > Education and Professional Issues Research Group
Institute of Nursing and Health Research
|ID Code:
|Deposited By:
|Dr Felicity Hasson
|Deposited On:
|20 Jan 2010 20:22
|Last Modified:
|15 Apr 2014 10:51
Repository Staff Only: item control page


text:
Colts vs. Patriots Gets A New Look
By: Christine Roy
The time has come for the always anticipated Indianapolis Colts vs. New England Patriots game. Or wait, is it still anticipated? With Peyton Manning now playing for the Denver Broncos and rookie Andrew Luck at the helm, this game has completely changed. Its gone from a battle of future hall of famers to a battle of young versus old. Tom Brady is established while Luck is having a rookie season to remember. He has completely transformed a defeated Colts team that was 2-14 last season to a 6-3 team that we could see in the playoffs.
Tom Brady will take on Andrew Luck and hopefully his experience will win out in the battle of young versus old. (FILE:USPresswire)
On Sunday the Patriots will be up against yet another rookie with nothing to lose. Luck has already proven he is a legitimate player and can lead a team. It is the Patriots' job to shut him down early and watch out for an always dangerous Reggie Wayne. He leads the team with 931 receiving yards, good enough for second in the league behind Calvin Johnson. The good news is that Luck is more of a traditional NFL quarterback. He isn't a threat to run but he can work outside of the pocket. We know the Patriots needed a complete overhaul after their poor performance last week and here are three things they'll need to do in order to succeed on Sunday.
1. Make Adjustments When Necessary What we haven't seen from the Patriots so far this season is a lot of in game adjustments. Due to the versatility of Wayne, they're going to need to actually do this on Sunday. They'll use him for the shorter passes as well as the down the field shots. It will be interesting to see how the Patriots defense chooses to cover him. Indianapolis is no joke when it comes to offense. They are the sixth best in the league averaging just over 20 points per game. Their defense is matched with the Patriots when it comes to points allowed giving up 22 points per game, so this could turn into more of an offensive matchup than we bargained for.
2. Win the Special Teams Battle This team needs to step up on special teams. They about break even with the yards they allow on kickoff returns and the yards they pick up. We haven't seen a solid special teams unit in years, we've only been given the glimmers of great runbacks that are not frequent enough. Should this game become more about the offense, special teams is going to play a big part. Bill Belichick talks every week about the three phases of the game and it's about time the Patriots make some sort of move here.
3. Convert Third Down Opportunities The Patriots have allowed opponents to convert on just over 44% of their third down attempts this season. Meanwhile the Colts only let teams pick up the third down 37& of the time. Offensively these two teams are ranked first (Patriots) and third (Colts) when it comes to third down conversions. It's a close matchup with the Colts defense statistically winning out. It will be important for Brady and this offense to convert on every opportunity. The run game needs a rebound and with Wes Welker missing some practice this week with an ankle injury, they have their work cutout for them.
So is this the start of a new era? Sunday is set to be a teacher versus student type of atmosphere and it has become more of a buildup than I think anyone could have anticipated in September. The Patriots still have a lot of improving to do and on Sunday let's hope they give us a little bit more breathing room and control the game early.
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text:
[Date Index]
[Thread Index]
[Author Index]
Re: Re: Replace list element based on a condition how to
Thanks to all for the many great replies in this thread. That clears up my misunderstanding of how datatypes are implemented in Mathematica. I can see they may result in replace pattern failures if you are not mindful of a variable's datatype. - Kurt
----- Original Message ----
From: Bill Rowe <readnews at sbcglobal.net>
To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
Sent: Fri, January 22, 2010 3:40:26 AM
Subject: [mg106763] [mg106747] Re: Replace list element based on a condition how to
On 1/21/10 at 4:53 AM, canopus56 at yahoo.com (Canopus56) wrote:
>Another newbie type question. Several responders recommended:
>>In[18]:= lst1 /. n_Integer :> fncHourFix[n]
>Q1. What is the "_Integer" part of "n_Integer"?
This and more is answered in the documentation. See
tutorial/PatternsOverview for various details about patterns and
pattern matching. For a the specific answer to the question
above, see the fourth entry which can be directly accessed as tutorial/SpecifyingTypesOfExpressionInPatterns
. . ..


text:
ED Magedson – Founder
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text:
THE sight of Miranda Kerr tucking into a creamy pudding must be a rare one.
But the slender Aussie beauty at least feigns sweet treat indulgence in her
latest ad assignment.
With a winning smile on her pretty face, Miranda tantalisingly rests a spoon
on her lips with one hand and holds her bowl of afters in the other.
The snap forms part of her new campaign promoting Qantas, the airline based in
her native Australia.
The model proves she's just as able to drop jaws with a full set of clothes on
as she is when she's barely wearing a scrap.
Another stunning image features the catwalk queen touching up her makeup in a
Not that she requires many alterations, flaunting a face and hairdo that many
would class as perfection.
Meanwhile, Miranda has stepped out in public for a meal with her hubby Orlando
The couple look loved-up and happy as they leave the Sydney eatery, quashing
rumours their marriage is on the rocks.
The model's manager blasted reports of strife last month, saying: "There is
absolutely no truth in the headline or story."
Miranda and British actor Orlando married in the summer of 2010, having dated
for just under three years.
The brunette pin-up gave birth to their first child, son Flynn, in January
last year.


text:
A Dedicated Team: Our Greatest Asset
Stonehaus takes great pride in its outstanding team of experts.
Regardless of your particular construction needs, we have the personnel to get the task done quickly and efficiently.
Meet some of our highly trained and experienced team leaders below.
Robert Hauser
President and Chief Executive Officer
Bob is a graduate of The College of William and Mary with a Bachelor of Business Administration. He has lived and worked in the Charlottesville area for more than 25 years after beginning his real estate career in Northern Virginia. Through a keen understanding of the real estate market, Bob has become a prominent fixture in the Charlottesville real estate development community. He lives in Albemarle County with his wife and family.
Michael Ball
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Michael holds a Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Virginia in English and Economics. Prior to joining Bondstone, he was the Vice President, Controller for Gaffney Homes, a Charlottesville/Albemarle based residential construction firm that was awarded Builder Magazine's America's Best Builder Award during his time with the organization. Michael received his MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia. During his time there, he received the Faculty Award for Academic Excellence. Michael also volunteers as a youth hockey coach. He lives in Albemarle County with his wife Jennifer, son Henry, and daughter Vivian.
Jay Kalagher
Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Jay is a graduate of Belmont Abbey College (N.C.) and serves as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Stonehaus. Prior to joining the company, Jay served as Vice President, Sales for WorldStrides, the nation's leader in educational student travel. A ten year sales and marketing career at Oce, a worldwide leader in digital printing and software products, was preceded by successful sales careers in financial services (Oxford Capital) and office product sales (Xerox Corporation). Jay is a licensed real estate broker and a member of the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors. Jay has built, grown and led numerous sales teams, developed and implemented sales and marketing plans and driven business results with a focus on revenue growth to ensure shareholder results. He joined the company in June 2007 and resides in Charlottesville, VA with his wife, Carey and three daughters.


text: Researchers have identified four new species of horseshoe bats with large, strangely shaped noses in eastern Africa. Scientists had thought all four belonged to a single species, Hildebrandt's horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hildebrandtii), first described in 1878. But reports of different echolocation frequencies recorded among the bats suggested there might be rifts in the species. (Sonar calls are often used to identify different types of bats.) Researchers led by Peter J. Taylor, of South Africa's University of Venda, found R. hildebrandtii indeed included four cryptic species with subtle differences in their sonar calls, skull shape and DNA. Cryptic species often cannot be distinguished by their physical features, putting the burden on genetics research to identify new creatures. The horseshoe bat family is characterized by their intricately shaped flaps dubbed "noseleaves" around their nostrils. While most bats emit sonar from their mouths, these bats send out their echolocation signals from their noses. Previous research showed that grooves created by the horseshoe bats' noseleaves help focus their sonar calls. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/09/13/4-freaky-new-bat-species-discovered/#ixzz26UnEd2Rg


text:
Follow Harriet on Twitter
About Harriet
- The Poetry Foundation's blog for poetry and related news.
- More about Harriet
- Contributors
- Archive
Translation and its discontents, part quatre
"When I was reading an anthology of contemporary European poetry, I was struck by how much its poems tended to sound alike: in most cases, I couldn't really tell what country or language a poetry had come from until I checked."
If poetry aspires to the condition of music, then maybe translated poetry aspires to the condition of… world music? C.K. Williams, quoted above from an essay in the March 2009 issue of Poetry, surveys the world of his office and says:
"Here are some of the poets that are with me on my desk or the table next to it as I write this: two different translations of Osip Mandelstam's poems; a book of translations of Giacomo Leopardi; a collection of Thomas Wyatt; another of Gerard Manley Hopkins; an anthology entitled New European Poets, which includes poems from every possible nook and cranny of Europe; a book of essays of Eugenio Montale, as well as his last book of poetry, It Depends, the astonishing singularity of which I only recently came to appreciate; Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Duino Elegies;' a collection of Blake; Alcools by Guillaume Apollinaire, in French; a book of translations of early Celtic poetry, with those magical strings of modifiers; a translation by Marilyn Hacker of a contemporary French poet, Guy Goffette, whose work I'm not familiar with, but which I plan to read soon; and several anthologies of English and American poetry."
Doesn't sound like he's bragging with that list: my own desk (thanks for asking about it on another Harriet thread, Jason!) sounds suspiciously like Williams's, and I'm sure yours does too. Greatness, much maligned this past week, has nothing to do with it! Au contraire! Williams finds the same small, still voice in all those books of translations… it's what often gets called translatorese, a kind of Esperanto for the well-intentioned.
I've always thought it curious that during a kind of 16th-century Golden Age of Translation into English, poets would translate works from Latin and Greek for a readership that was far more likely to know the original languages of texts than we are today. And the effect could be dramatic – as Hannibal Hamlin from the Folger Shakespeare Library put it in a recent letter to the TLS, it was
"George Chapman's Homer that sent Keats into raptures, and it was Arthur Golding's Ovid that Ezra Pound called (extravagantly) 'the most beautiful book in the language.' Virgil was translated by Gavin Douglas and the Earl of Surrey, Plutarch by Thomas North, and the Greek and Roman lyric poets by almost everyone. This was also the age that produced the English Bibles of Tyndale, Coverdale, and the translators of the Geneva and the 'Authorized' Version, as well as the Psalms of Philip and Mary Sidney (among hundreds of others)."
Today, by contrast (according to Williams),
"there has been what surely has to be called a globalization of art, and a nearly instantaneous awareness, especially in the market-driven visual arts, of what is happening in other aesthetics. Whether this is all for the good, I'm not certain. While I was reading the anthology of contemporary European poetry I mentioned before, I was struck by how much its poems tended to sound alike: in most cases, I couldn't really tell what country or language a poetry had come from until I checked. I thought at first that perhaps the almost universal commitment to free verse was the reason for this apparent homogenization, which is a rather distressing thought. It may have been instead because all the translators of the poems in the book were working in American English, and hadn't sufficiently taken into account the subtleties of the original languages."
Williams says that the current interest in literary translation has its roots in a search for new stylistic tricks "during the the late fifties and early sixties, when much of the poetry being written in America seemed to have become overly formalized, self-referential, stale, and, if I dare use the word, spiritually lifeless."
The problem is that
"Styles are always striving to perfect themselves, by which I mean that styles have inherent in them the potential for enactments that no longer depend on anything but the demands of the style itself: neither matter, content, nor, in other words, world. Stylistically, art is always moving from the transparent to the opaque, from trying to make encompassing and as comprehensive as possible its relations with reality, to a state in which its formal dexterity comes to be its most essential requirement. When this happens, usually during the late moments of an artistic era, the execution of style becomes an end in itself, the end in itself: art becomes style displaying itself, preening, showing off. This is when an artistic style becomes decadent. Decadence in itself isn't intrinsically bad, it's unavoidable, and some of the very greatest art is created at the end of the innovation-decadence cycle. What happens then, though, is that some subtle line is crossed, and the gloriously decadent becomes the offensively empty, sterile, and, with no longer any portion of the quest of the artist's blundering soul a part of it, produces work that is lifeless, stillborn."
The first art works were apparently made in caves, where the artists had to illuminate darkness, and reaching out to others had severe limits. That world was at the farthest remove from what we now call the global. So… do we reach inward or outward? Can we do both?
Another thing I read in the TLS (how global of me!) was an essay by Jon Garvie that had this to say:
"Discussions of globalization share one similarity – an inability to decide what the term means. In the absence of definition, commentators rely on description. Globalization reveals its true nature in the credit crunch, or the growth of international civil society, or the Nepalese Maoists who mythologize their rebellions in the language of New York hip hop artists. It could denote American cultural and economic imperialism. Or, for the more hopeful, it is the rise of global values and human rights. These disagreements exist among those who give it credence. Another area of study devotes itself to denying that the term has any worth. However you approach it, globalization is a messy idea for an anxious world."
In an anxious world – and what world isn't anxious? – I don't suppose any qualms will shake the noble resolve of poets to translate other poets, and there will always be readers who need translations. As Williams concludes:
"All over the world, if not every day then in every age, beautiful paintings and poems and pieces of music and buildings are generated: one can almost imagine little flaring lights on the surface of the earth, like those seen in photos from space, though they are much more sparse and scattered than the illuminating devices that bespeckle our globe. And then over time these embodiments of the beautiful are harvested, amassed, collected in books, in museums, in concert halls, to be distributed into the lives of individual human beings, to become crucial elements of their existence. Often, our experience of beauty will be the first hint of what each of us at some point will dare call our soul. For don't those first stirrings of that eternally uncertain, barely grasped notion of something more than mere mind, mere thought, mere emotion, usually first come to us in the line of a poem, a passage of music, of the unreal yet more-than-real image in a painting? And isn't it also the case after all that beauty is the one true thing we can count on in a world of insufferable uncertainty, of constant moral conflicts?"
Institutions like museums and magazines, and concepts like "beauty" and "eternity," are under attack and sound pretty quaint these days – "shit on the curatorial," as the manifesto says – but if you're a cautious optimist like Garvie, you can hope for the best:
"Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel – these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible and, above all, let finance be primarily national. Yet, at the same time, those who seek to disembarrass a country of its entanglements should be very slow and wary. It should not be a matter of tearing up roots but of slowly training a plant to grow in a different direction. That practice of national horticulture now looks resurgent. Globalization brings connections, but no convergence towards consensus."
The best, I was going to say, of both worlds, but we all know there's only one.
Comments (27)
Don, this is a fine post, and I especially like the way you remind us that translation has a history. Certainly, as your post makes clear, it was also implicated in the Reformation (indeed, the Reformation would be almost inconceivable without it). As such, translation was at times central to disputes about political power and Biblical interpretation and, through the Royal Society, to disputes about science. (Anyone interested in this topic should not fail to read David Norton's magisterial A History of the Bible as Literature and Jonathan Sheehan's superb The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture.) Then as now translation was often seen as a double-edged sword, something that could elicit praise and anxiety on both sides of the Atlantic (especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries). While it made possible the dissemination of God's word, for instance, it could be used to undermine the interpretation and, in fact, authenticity of the scriptures. My points here are off topic, no doubt, but I have to mention that I happened to be rereading the other day a passage from Edward Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Savior in which the reader is warned, "and let not Satan delude you by perswading their [i.e. ordained ministers'] learned skill is unnecessary, soone then will the Word of God be slighted as translated by such, and you shall be left wildred with strange Revelations of every phantastic brain." Even so, we should recall that what is recognized as the first book to be published in British North America was, quite famously, a poetic translation: The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre. As you said recently in a different context, that's progress for ya.
Interesting mention of the global language Esperanto!
It's unfortunate that most people still do not know that this comparatively new language has also become a living language.
Confirmation can be seen at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8837438938991452670
Otherwise http://www.lernu.net ?
There are a number of assumptions and arguments I find objectionable in this post. Perhaps I will deal with them in more detail on my own blog later today. But for now, let me make some brief responses:
-Globalization is not some kind of benevolent "world music" factory, there is real power involved.
– Poetry is not just a collection of formal tricks.
– You may treat translation as an influx of new formal tricks to help American Poetry stave off "decadence", but that suggests foreign literature is just some kind of medicine for American Poetry, that it isn't literature in its own right.
– In fact, it is typical of a empire-like power like ours that we can treat the rest of the world as a style mart where we can go and get a little invigoration.
– When Bly, Rothenberg and others translated European and Latin American poetry in the 1960s it was precisely to get away from the Formalism of New Criticism and the poetry it had led to (Lowell etc, who still appears to be the model for your moribund Poetry Magazine). But these folks had a much more dynamic relationship with the Euros than CK Williams suggests.
– CKW (and you by implication) suggest that foreign literature no longer offers anything new to American poetry, that we already know it all. This is a strange assertion to make based on one anthology. It suggests a whole bunch of arrogance mixed with even more ignorance.
– Part of the problem here is the nature of anthologies: By offering little snippets of poets' careers they tend to create a homogenized effect. But this is true of any anthology of American Poetry as well. Or just Modern Poetry: It all sounds the same.
– Another problem: is, as my comment above suggests, that if you lack the right framework, everything sounds the same. Thus to some, all modern poetry is the same (it all lacks rhyme or whatever); but to someone else, the difference between Pound and Eliot is enormous.
– Another problem with anthologies like New European Poets is that you have American poets making selections of foreign poetry. Many of these poets knew very little if anything about the foreign literature in question. Many of them were also older, people nostalgic for the poetry translated by Bly and Co. back in the 60s and bound to pick works that fit that mold stylistically.
– In defense of NEP, Prufer and Miller frame their anthology as a way to begin an exploration of European poetry, an incitement, and unfinished project. At first I was skeptical, thinking people would probably just read it like CK and Don and say: OK, I've got my Euro fix now I can get back to reading American poetry. But since its publication I've received correspondence that suggests other people are indeed taking it as an incitement for further reading.
– Part of the problem with further reading is that not much else is available from these poets. In our translation-phobic American Poetry not much foreign literature is published. Thus many people are actively looking but not finding that deeper engagement with the foreign literature that Prufer and Miller call for.
– An Anecdote: Recently I was urged to submit some translations for Poetry Magazine's translation issue. I was hesitant because I find the journal entirely reactionary and lifeless, but I did submit finally some translations by Swedish poet Ann Jaderlund, arguably the most important post 1980s poet in Sweden ( she sells more copies of her poetry in Sweden than the most famous American poets sell here, in a country 30 times the size of Sweden, and her books are debated in the national newspapers etc, she even has a literary historic landmark named after her "The Ann Jaderlund Debates" that raged in the late 1980s, signifying the onset of a younger generation of women poets). While the journal had recently published the work of Hakan Sandell, a completely insignificant figure in Swedish poetry but notably well within the conservative aesthetics of Poetry Magazine, the journal rejected my Jaderlund submission.
– This to me suggests a couple of things. It shows the importance of the American Filter (in this case Poetry Magazine): The journal does not want things that are different, but want its aesthetics confirmed. No wonder we don't find out about interesting foreign writers, if our publishers and journals are unwilling to embrace their difference.
– It is also significant because Jaderlund is in fact included in Miller's and Prufer's book. The Swedish section was edited by Rika Lesser, a poet and noted translator who has a very fine understand of the Swedish language but who objects to most Swedish poetry written after 1980. Despite this handicap she put together a very brief selection of Swedish poetry that is unquestionably more varied and dynamic than any issue of Poetry Magazine I've read over the past few years. The same is true of a number of those sections. For example, I thought the Ukraine section really good.
– I finally want to say that there is a fundamental problem with anthologies of this nature in general: They create the illusion that we can "represent" a national literature. That literatures are static etc. Americans can go out and look into a nation's poetry and take what we want. And by implications: there is an American Poetry. I prefer to read across national boundaries not out of some ethical stance but because it's the best way for me to find interesting poetry.
– So while I have some reservations about Miller/Prufer's anthology I think we should treat it like the beginning not an end. Don and CK treat it like an end, and they're worse off for it.
– Finally I want to call attention to your strange statements about "translatese." This has long, as Lawrence Venuti notes in his books, been the code word for what is wrong about foreign lit in translation: it sounds "off." Of course it is also to some extent the desired effect according to various German Romantics (and later Benjamin) who called for translation not to move the foreign text to the target language, but to allow the foreign text to deform the target language. However, you suggest that there is a static effect called "translatese," and that sounds like nothing so much as an attempt to denude the very dynamic process involved in translation. There is no one "translatese" just as there is no one English language. Part of the threat of translation to powerful and conservative institutions such as your own is the way it undoes the illusion of a static English language, a static Literature.
– The other great importance of translation is of course not at all as formalist as that notion: the ideas of the foreign enters our own literature. For an example of this, see Lara Glenum's article about Swedish poet Aase Berg in our most recent issue of http://www.actionyes.org. Here is an American poet who takes a foreign writer seriously, not just as a trinket shop. And it's one of the best essays written about Berg (as Berg told me in an email). Or look at Jen Hofer's work with Mexican women poets.
Please don't connect Williams' opinions "by implication" with my own; I was characterizing and quoting from his piece in this post. For what it's worth: I agree more with you than I ever could with CKW. I'm sorry for the confusing way I wrote this all up. One exception is that I do see lots of static language (translatorese) in translations – notably not in yours – and in my own translations I struggle to avoid it. I don't want to wash dirty linen, to use a cliched phrase, in public, but since you bring it up: there was a split decision here about your translations, and we wanted to see more. There was actually a lot of enthusiasm about the submission, although it's true that things didn't work out in the end; given your low opinion of the magazine, perhaps it was for the best. Also for what it's worth, one of Rika Lesser's translations of Sonnevi is forthcoming in the magazine.
On a happier note, Johannes' translations of Aase Berg were the hit of AWP: a well-deserved success. Check out With Deer from Black Ocean.
Sorry, I misread you.
You said: "Recently I was urged to submit some translations for Poetry Magazine's translation issue. I was hesitant because I find the journal entirely reactionary and lifeless…"
What on earth are you talking about? There's lots in Poetry that's not my cup of tea, either, but the magazine has been publishing all sorts of non-"reactionary" stuff, from special supplements of VizPo, to Jack Spicer, to poems by people like Ange Mlinko, Charles Bernstein, Rae Armantrout, and so on. You sound like you think Poetry is still in the same category as The Sewanee Review or The New Criterion (maybe the only two magazines left, by the way, not open to "post-avant" writing, which is now very much the flip side of the Mainstream coin).
Just because some of your translations were rejected doesn't mean there is some kind of ideological cabal in Chicago out to marginalize the "avant-garde." It's a different time, because there IS no avant-garde.
You should submit more translations, which are excellent!
If you want to remove my letter, I can send you one that does not implicate you.
Also, I agree with you assesment of "translatese" sometimes being the fetishization of a certain foreign-sounding language; but I think this too fits within my critique of the attempt to control something that is very challenging about translation – solidifying what translated texts should sound like.
As for washing dirty linens, I don't think of that as private. For me it's very instructive how foreign literatures are filtered through our institutions. I don't have anything personal against you or Fred or whoever for not accepting my translations. I just think it's revealing.
Sorry to be harsh about your journal, but that's how I feel about it. (I also wrote a longer description of what I see as its problems on my blog a while back in case you're interested.)
Not a problem, Johannes. I'm grateful for the dialogue, in fact, as well as for your work. Fair point about being public, etc. – after all, these threads are called "Translation and its discontents"!!
These are interesting thoughts.
Incidentally there are no Icelandic poets in the collection, from what I can see (I haven't seen the book, but I found an online table of contents). And Iceland certainly is both a nook and a cranny of Europe, has a rich history of literature, at least compared to it's size, and even a nobel prize winner to it's name. Not that I usually feel like defending Icelandic poetry – quite the contrary I usually find myself on the other side of that fence. But I get the feeling that this was more a decision stemming from lack of ambition than a decided stance against the Icelandic poetry on offer. I'd dare say the editors probably just had no (to very little) clue. There's not been very much poetry translated into English from Icelandic – especially not contemporary poetry – pure and simply because there's not a lot of people that speak the language. So I guess it gets forgotten. I'd be personally thrilled if it could get rejected on it's own merits, rather than by the default of noone knowing anything about it (and I'm guessing this goes for Scandinavians as well – Johannes?)
A few examples I've personally done recently can be read here: http://www.norddahl.org/english/tag/trans-series
I find the ideas of translatese fascinating – and although I might agree that static language needs to be avoided I find the threat of an overly normalized language more imminent. That is to say: language that makes the strange-in-the-foreign familiar-like-the-domestic. One part of reading a literary work in translation, one of the fascinations for me personally in reading foreign (let alone exotic) literature is the thrill of the new, the unfamiliar – I don't go to Egypt for the McDonalds, heck I don't even go the US for the McDonalds (while proper diners rule supreme). So when I come to foreign literature I expect the translator not to have squared out the pyramids in his or her attempt to avoid translatese, or foreignese. Some translations end up being a global McDonalds – a diner that looks the same all over the world and has none of the charm of an actual american diner.
In a recent book of poems from Linh Dinh, Jam Alerts, there is a poem in the form of a book review on the poetry translations of a man named Reggis Tongue – and Reggis deals in unnormalised translations. The poem quotes a prologue by Reggis to his selected translations:
"Slovenly translators – bums, basically – think they have to choose between music and sense. To pin down meanings, many of them squash the tune. To ape the melody, they ditch or deface the semaphores. They don't realize that syntax is melody. A translator must ignore the indigineous drumming echoing in his lumpy head and obey the alien word-order, rhythm of what he's translating. Make it strange – never try to domesticate a foreign poem!"
I've written about this in more detail here, if anyone's interested: http://www.norddahl.org/english/2007/09/you-are-a-pipe/
I think all CK Williams is saying is that if you want to know Sweden, watching a stand-up comic on youtube with subtitles or reading a National Geographic article will help you more than reading Swedish Expressionist Poetry in English translation.
"I'm Swedish poetry! Read me!" isn't going to cut it.
First, there's a line; Senegal and Swaziland are ahead of you. They've got poets, too.
Secondly, poets seek poetry; why in the world would they seek Swedish poetry, per se? Poets, and intellectuals in general, are taught to embrace everything that's different, so Florida, for instance, or Cleveland, or Nebraska, is going to be just as interesting to them as Sweden. New York City will be a little more interesting to them because it's bigger.
Thirdly, we do live on a 'global' globe, so an English translation of a poem written by an educated person from Sweden is not going to be necessarily different than a poem written by an educated person from Nebraska.
Fourthly, Americans are still impressed when they see the word 'Europe;' so even though, intellectually, we understand that just because a poet is from Oslo or Berlin, it does not mean his poetry will be any more interesting than if that poet is from Nebraska, we still have higher expectations when we see 'Europe,' gracing the front of a poetry book, since American intellectuals all heart Europe to some extent. This might be a minor point, but these higher expectations don't help European translations.
I might just add one more point that is seldom discussed. Even intellectuals love their own country–not in jingoistic fashion, but with genuine love. I'll be honest with you; I thank my lucky stars I'm American and not Swedish, and I don't mean this in a gloating way at all; I think it's just important to realize that even intellectuals have feelings which are connected to accidents of time and place. If I had Swedish friends or family, this chance connection would no doubt add to my sympathy and interest in Sweden. This is natural. But European demands to Americans to 'Love my poetry!' have nothing to do with accident, and they must, therefore, pass the most rigorous tests.
I have nothing against Sweden or its poets or its intellectuals and I support Don's friendly overtures and wish you all the best; I just wanted to be honest about some of the obstacles to Swedish poetry appreciation–which I'm sure everyone would agree, whether they are "reactionary" or not, is an abstract good.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I can't see what on earth you are talking about.
I used Swedish poetry as an example because that's what I have experience with. Sure, take Sengalese if you want. I'm sure if that's what I translated I could come up with similar anecdotes.
My point is this: we cannot complain that foreign poetry is not very different from our own if we publish only poets who follow our aesthetic, even if those poets are insignificant in their native country. Then foreign poetry will indeed not be different.
To some extent this will always be true since there is no official literature to represent in English.
I said nothing about Kabbala. Or Avant-Garde.
See my blog for further response.
To get back to your original post, I'll first say that I find linking Williams's essay in Poetry with Garvie's in the TLS to be a wonderful juxtaposition. The thread has so far ignored (except for the first comment by Boyd) what you're doing in the post.
Garvie writes about the macro issues of culture and economics, the nation state in the globalized context, and Williams, the micro world of poetry and how difficult it is for a poet, especially a well-traveled one like C.K.W. to see reflected all around him (on his desk, for the purposes of his essay) a kind of dumbing down of cultural difference, a Hollywood version of foreign literatures. What he finds difficult to stomach is not translation itself, but the translation of foreign poetries into the American "house style". His criticism, in essence, is of American facility, American hubris and American marketing procedures, and the fact that many translators have failed to take "into account the subtleties of the original languages."
Garvie's distinction between the globalization of political life (the world of trade, geopolitical cooperation, the swapping of ideas, the concept of international law) and the local life of cheeses and mushrooms and, finally, currencies – since he is a bit of a Euro-sceptic – parallels Williams's argument about the lack of respect for the idiosyncrasies of world literature. The difference between them is the difference between Europeans and Americans. The Europeans want to preserve their own idiosyncrasies, while the Americans want to preserve everyone else's.
I find Williams's discussion of decadence and the necessities of style brilliant. And its connection to the discontents of translation is obvious. In the end, the translation of one generation will reflect the literary qualities and capacities of that generation. As you say, there is only one world and it is both local and cosmopolitan. Garvie is right about the difficulty of defining globalization. And translation wears that difficulty on its sleeves. The real translators are the ones that have gone over in a certain way. Which means they have given up a part of their own culture, and this is a kind of violence against one's own psyche. It makes them tougher and more demanding than the others, the ones that Williams finds insipid.
There is a new generation of translators that rival the masters of the craft and that will prove to be equal to the generation of Fitzgerald, Arrowsmith and Hamburger. Eshelman's work, Mitchell's work, form a bridge to the best of the younger linguists, who are doing amazing work, and who are both more gifted poetically and even more scholarly than their predecessors.
Thanks for that bit of clarification. I haven't read the original essays Don refers to, so I misunderstood him (and Williams) completely.
… our world – the world of Globalization – is not a world of language communities […] any more. Its dominant language is not "learned" by its speakers in the meaning of a mother tongue supposed by the language communities: I am of course thinking of English spoken as a Second or Nth language. Also the traditional language communities that often go together with the Nation States, are loosing their unitary character: instead of one, "proper", Finnish, English, Portuguese, Chinese, we have an even more rapidly fragmenting nexus of special languages (those of various occupations, disciplines, localities, etc., not to speak of the constantly growing number of immigrant dialects). These special languages, jargons, slang, do in fact evolve within the frames of their respective general languages, but are not reducible to them – the influences over language borders often being of much greater importance. The interesting and crucially important thing about this development (both for the future of poetry and to that of the world) is – and this is my main claim, or hypothesis, in this paper – that it does not seem to lessen the possibilities for human interaction, as is sometimes, short-sightedly, claimed, but instead to increase them. We are, again, dealing with the question of the nature of human communality. As suggested, communality and belonging together, a feeling of togetherness, are often seen as mutually requisite. I want to claim the opposite – or to open an other angle: perhaps communality is better understood as an exposure to the language of the other, one that you will (never) understand completely, never "master", but that at the same time, precisely for this reason, speaks to you, situates you in a certain place in the world – from where you, for your part, can start speaking – from which you, from the point of view of poetry, only can start speaking, not as an "individual", as a given "member" of a community (a legal subject of a Social Contract) any more, but – if you please – as a singularity, as one, unique node of an endless multitude. You may be able to start to see what I mean when I speak about the possible social relevancy of the kind of poetry I'm proposing here. Indeed, the very dynamics of this poetry touches upon something that the world in its totality, too, is in desperate need of today. It is interesting, to me, to note that Negri is not far from what I'm after here when he writes: "Perhaps [a new common language] needs to be a new type of communication that functions not on the basis of resemblances but on the basis of differences: a communication of singularities." I for my part would speak of the need and prospect for a new kind of World Poetry not yet in existence.
— Leevi Lehto
Congratulations Johannes, you are the post-avant Franz Wright–willing to travel to any url, day or night, to insulk, whine, and lecture even–as in this case–you are unfamiliar with the essays/writers you attack. This come down to hurt feelings (in this you are like Silliman who regularly negatively reviews anthos/journals that don't include he & his posse pretty much because they don't include his posse)–POETRY wouldn't publish your poems so you fling guano. Wah-wah.
our tendency to look back has become a disorder–not only has every town canonized its 'cultural heritage' for tourist consumption, but there are art museums everywhere, every anthology expects to tap into this 'eternity,' honestly, doesn't it sometimes feel like the whole world is being made into a museum?! and if it isn't 'great' it's 'retro' which is cool…why? i don't know what i would call all of this exactly, and i definitely wouldn't argue that it's something new and unique in our modern world–homer, nietzsche, agamben–they've all had their finger on the 'society of the spectacle.'
artists though, it would seem to me, are as interested in profaning all of this as celebrating it–that is, anthologies aren't our favorite things, and we hate almost everything that gets called poetry. it's not that we ignore the schlock, but that we are opposed to its very order:
"Really, cultures have no imagination or integrity, and genius always operates at odds with or outside of culture; it is synthesis by means of rejection. Great poetry is always one of our last reserves of courage—acultural, amoral, greater than other kinds of heritage, deeper than language (inside of language). And it is almost always compromised to the verge of insignificance. That is why it should be discovered and translated, as aliment and remedy for the culture, as argument against cowardice."
translation is a struggle along these lines, it would seem to me. that is, when it at its best, not at its official academic cowardly worst. sometimes it's bad just due to lack of imagination, sometimes it's politically compromised (politics, as i would define it, is the subversion of personal integrity for social image), and sometimes it's obvious that the translators aren't passionate about what they're doing–we should translate the poems we love, that seems the only decent motive to me–so we can learn to love them in the poetic way–read them ad infinitum–or find out their failures–read them ad nauseam.
another funny thing i've noticed, and maybe it's because i disliked school so much (grade school, undergraduate, postgraduate, you name it) and was so dissatisfied with the methods and egos there, but i never felt that almost instantaneous awareness of foreign aesthetics–russian futurism, symbolism, imaginism, zaum, etc. were all things i learned, painfully slowly, while i struggled with the poems under those banners. trying to cope with a whole language–from its linguistics, to its history, to its poets–is time-intensive and imagination-intensive. there are far too many experts out there, who have far too little feeling for what they do–just over-learned bags of bad habits.
i know i sound a little angry here, and my spit is pretty carefully aimed on the academy, so i'll just say that in and out of the university are people who act against it and who reinforce it, and even within single faculties there is enough diversity to throw things out of whack–that is, i know universities aren't homogeneous, or even functional, and so they make an easy target. the problem, i think, is a basic one, that doesn't have any solution, that can't be changed on any social scale–and that is: littleness of imagination. it's amazing that there's good poetry or art at all to fascinate us, it happens against all odds, and with a regularity that makes me optimistic.
and about the problem of overstylized american english, of all foreign poetry sounding like modern poetry, and so being made to sound like a single modernism:
i have to confess, that when i was working on tsvetaeva (who is almost impossible to translate (completely impossible, according to celan) and looking for solutions and ways of working with her style, her drive, etc., that i decided to start looking back to early 20th century women whose work might give me the right words, the startling prospective, to remind me of ways language can be used that i'm not used to using in my own writing. first of all, i was convinced she had a million things in common with dickinson, and not just all the dashes–but i was reading bogan, h.d., moore, mina loy–and i know it affected my own translations (i meant for it to) even though i can't say exactly how since i never worked with a systematic approach.
i know, this is sexist (it would be feminist if a woman translator did it), reductive, unfair to tsvetaeva, unfair to both languages, is counter-intuitive if what i want to express tsvetaeva's unique voice and argue for her special place in poetry. but i was pretty happy with the results, and it was a very productive move on my part.
i know some who told me the only solution might be homophonic translation, since she created meaning out of sound (think, zukofsky's catullus). so i toyed around with that, too, and got a few fortuitous words out of it.
openness is important. and, in the end, all that matters is if you can write some decent poems, which takes all the resources one has.
Resemblances and differences always mutually depend on each other. You sound a bit 'pie-in-the-sky' for my taste, though I appreciate you disliking the herd. Who doesn't want to stand out from the herd?
As for differences, this was my point up thread when I said a (translated) Swedish stand-up comic making fun of Danes and Finns would teach us a great deal more about Sweden than Swedish Expressionist poetry translated into English. Not that I want to make poetry unfairly compete against other genres, but ultimately I don't think we can escape from this kind of 'competition.' If this kind of comparison is not flattering to poetry, that's too bad. Poets shouldn't live in some inflated, fantasy world, should they? Won't they just be worse poets for it, in the end?
"Great poetry is always one of our last reserves of courage—acultural, amoral, greater than other kinds of heritage, deeper than language (inside of language)." This sounds 'pie-in-the-sky' also. Why is the amoral courageous? In fact, it could be argued that morality and courage are the same.
are great poets necessarily good people? if not, then courage and morality aren't the same thing. the poet who continues to be important is the one who is still complicating his justification of life and logic, which is the opposite of making all the possible arguments–it's an attempt to formulate the impossible one.
i hesitated to respond to any of thomas brady's comments before, for what i think should be obvious reasons, but…
my two cents.
as a note about all the babel: in her famous elegy to rainer maria rilke, marina tsvetaeva noted that in the afterlife we become 'not nil, but all-tongued.'
that is, it's only in heaven[s] that languages ever correspond.
Could a great pickpocket ever be a good person because he is a great pickpocket?
Let us say no person is necessarily good, no matter how great a poet they are.
So we absolutely sever then, in terms of cause and effect, these two types of good, but in order to do so, we must be cognizant of these two types of good, and one of those is moral, and the other is skill, and by severing them, we say a skill never makes someone moral. and so if we cannot say a great poet is a great poet because they are moral, we also cannot say a great poet is a great poet because they are amoral. And this is what you said.
And now you say the great poet formulates "impossible" arguments.
Again, it sounds like you are pounding a square peg into a round hole. It sounds you are like spouting, which God knows, we all do. Look at me. What did I say? "It could be argued that morality and courage are the same." I think I still might safely say that. If you're in the mood to respond, I'd be curious as to what you think.
maybe you're confusing amoral for immoral; i'm saying morality is beside the point. and that a justification of life is the impossible argument that they (we) are attempting to make possible through a logic of poetics; it's impossibility is what makes it an endless struggle, and the fact that all the unsatisfactory arguments have to be put behind. this last point i think is an interpretation of faulkner's imperative to kill our darlings that makes more sense than the cornball one i hear all the time (e.g., faulkner's telling us that sometimes we have to edit out our prettiest lines in order to streamline our writing).
the poet doesn't formulate impossible arguments, in the plural. he is looking for a way to formulate the single argument that will give his life meaning–something harder to come by the more critical he is of himself, the more he sees of the world, the closer he gets to a death that can't be avoided.
and i'm out.
Thanks for responding.
I'm not confusing amoral and immoral; only an immoral person would do that! Amoral is the last refuge of the immoral.
However, you did describe "poetry" as amoral, and not the poet, so in that case I will agree with you, but only in the sense that Poe articulated: a tale should have "a moral," but the moral should be artistically concealed.
When you say "justification of life," do you mean in Milton's phrase "justifying the ways of God to men?" Are we in the realm of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor? How do we reconcile God with evil? Is that what you mean? And how is the "logic of poetics" attempting to do that for you? I'm curious.
Actually, in the workshop circles I run in, "klil your darlings" is uttered all the time.
"looking for a way to formulate the single argument that will give his life meaning-" This is very, very ambitious, I think, for poetry, and you've got me beat there, but all power to you!
If you want to explain a little bit more, I'd love to hear, but I understand if you feel this is not the place.
Thought this might be relevant to the topic, just sent under Ron Silliman's post of Friday,
March 6.
Quoting a paragraph entire, as the statement really is quite extraordinary:
>"Just as glaring an absence I would think is the complete absence of poetry in translation, or in another language. Part of this, of course, may well be that very little literature in translation genuinely qualifies on its own as great literature – The Rubiyat, The King James Bible, that just might be the entire roster."
"Of course"? A lot of unpacking to do with that little interjection alone, Ron. There are cake-layers of apparent assumptions about "translation" in your claim. Here are a few quick questions, for starters:
The unstated but evident premise of your dictum above is that literary "greatness" is a function of "origin" and "authenticity." This seems ironic, to say the least, coming from you. Are you asserting that an original work in one language is always and necessarily aesthetically superior to any of its possible transmutations within others? How would you defend such logocentrism, if you'll pardon that term?
More specifically, do you mean such paucity of "greatness" is characteristic of "literature in translation" *in principle,* as in translation in *all* languages, or do you mean just in English? If the former, general case, and safely assuming you are highly fluent in no more than, say, seven Indo European languages, how do you know?
Or if the latter (i.e., just English), do you more strictly mean translation in "formal," "literal" modes? *If you don't* mean that, and you indeed believe that translation in principle is more or less incapable of achieving literary significance, on what theoretical basis do you argue this? After all, there has long been a range of the possible in translation practice, including (nothing new in saying so) the seeking of deeper fidelities through strategies–sometimes radical–of linguistic and cultural dynamic equivalence. If such creative approaches are legitimate options within the task of translation, which they certainly are, what exactly are the ipso-facto elements that prevent translations in such "freer" modes from ever reaching high literary achievement
— or as you put it, becoming "great"? (In fact, the two works you mention as constituting the tiny roster of exceptions are examples of creative translation–FitzGerald's text is significantly invention, actually–so you can perhaps see the corner you're painting yourself into…)
Are you saying that no work among the many Renaissance translations of classical literature, for example, rises to the quality of literary greatness? (If you would like me to list you some candidates in English and Spanish, let me know. But so much, I guess, for Keats's impressions of Chapman's Homer!)
More up to date, are you saying that Pound's Cathay, which changed the whole history of modern English-language poetry, is not a great work of literature? Or if it is, is it because it's not a *real* work of translation?
Likewise, are you saying that Louis and Celia Zukofsky's Catallus is not a great literary work? Or would you argue that it is great but not a work of "translation"? Again, which one is it not, since the logic of your pronouncement fairly prevents it from being both.
Just kind of scratching the surface here in mild stupefaction…
But I have always wondered, Ron, why, in your great outpouring, you hardly ever mention poetries outside English, which of course leads directly into matters of translation. After reading your quote above, I'm honestly wondering if the answer is this: that the subject is largely off your poetic radar. That would be a shame, if so. Because there's no American Tree without the water of the other, brother.
Pretty bad timing, I see, on sending that comment above, given the loss in Ron's family. There is nothing untoward in the comment, but I feel bad about the circumstances of it, since the loss obviously far exceeds in importance any controversy of the moment.
Goransson bewrays himself to be deeply unreliable through his remarks concerning Haaken Sandell.
Posted in Uncategorized on Friday, February 27th, 2009 by Don Share.


text:
Kiminoi "Emperor's Well"
Junmai Ginjo, Yamahai
Description: A prototypical Yamahai nose filled with earthy, gritty, ricey, shroomy, grainy elements with a waft of creme brulee. And yes the flavor matches the aroma as this deep and layered sake has a gamey attitude that is full and robust. Look for flavors such as rice and grains that blend into a gentle earthiness with a vein of vanilla. A Ginjo that tastes like rice - how novel! Velvety, gutsy, and complex this brew is bold and yet subdued. More richness comes out at room temp and so does a peek-a-boo view of marshmallow.
One word to describe this sake brew: Gamey
Food Pairings: A game griller special--Grilled Fish, Light Pasta, Shellfish, Grilled Meats, BBQ & Skewers, Fried or Salty Dishes, Deep Pastas, Stews & Soups, Fare with Heavy Sauces, Game and Fowl, Salads, Grilled and Steamed Veggies, Tofu and Soba, Turkey, Ham and Game, Stuffing and Gravy, Fried and Mashed Potatoes, Hamburgers, Pizza, Sandwiches
Taste profile: WINE: Deep Dark Reds/Huge Whites; BEER: StoutsBrewery: Kiminoi Shuzo
Sake Type: Junmai Ginjo, Yamahai
Bottle Size: 720ml
Founded by: Tanaka Family in 1842
Prefecture: Niigata
Toji (Master Brewer): Hiroshi Hayatsu. Hayatsu-san has been working with sake for three decades.
Ingredients: Ricetype: Gohyakumangoku; Water: On-site well water. Soft water; Yeast: Kyokai #10; No sulfites, no preservatives.
Seimaibuai (amount of rice left after milling): 58%
Alcohol Content: 15-16%
Sake Meter Value (the lower the sweeter, the higher the drier): +2
Acidity: 1.6
Amino acids: 1.5
Serving temp: Chilled or slightly warmed


text:
A Mountain Woman and Other Stories HTML version
There was a bit of unfinished sewing there, and it fell out as he lifted the cover. It was a
baby's linen shirt. Jim let it lie, and then lifted from its receptacle a silver thimble. He put
it in his vest-pocket.
The campaign came on shortly after this, and Jim Lancy was defeated. "I'm going to
Omaha," said he to the station-master, "and I've got just enough to buy a ticket with.
There's a kind of satisfaction in giving the last cent I have to the railroads."
Two months later, a "plain drunk" was registered at the station in Nebraska's metropolis.
When they searched him they found nothing in his pockets but a silver thimble, and Joe
Benson, the policeman who had brought in the "drunk," gave it to the matron, with his
compliments. But she, when no one noticed, went softly to where the man was sleeping,
and slipped it back into his pocket, with a sigh. For she knew somehow -- as women do
know things -- that he had not stolen that thimble.


text:
You got to show proof. That is what it is all about. Seeing as how it is possible to make this acommodation by showing (in court) that you were insured w/o a way to prove it,at the time of the citation. It would seem logical that the one thing that was legal (insurance) would also be waved.
I have recieved a "no insurance ticket" before 'cause I couldn't show prof that it was insured, ie: didn't have the new card. The moment I went to court to show that I was insured, but didn't have my new insurance card they let it go with a $25 court proccessing fee.
I am sure that with a small amount of persistance and logical explanation the fine will be dropped by half


text:
Hello. i am going to be installing windows 7 tomorrow, and i had a question before installing. i was watching a video on how to install it properly, and it said to go into your bios on boot, and change the boot order to CD instead of HD. My question is should i do that, or simply go into setup and boot from DVD?
hope this makes sense.


text:
The Russian connection: See all our coverage | Read about our investigation
Bradford PlumerOct. 12, 2005 3:07 PM
Oy. Harold Meyerson reports that Andy Card is confirming some of my worst fears on Harriet Miers:
As White House chief-of-staff, [Card] found the most intriguing article, he said, to be Article II, which established the presidency and the executive branch. Miers, he continued, understood Article II as well, and would defend it "when challenged by those given the power to challenge it by Article I [i.e., the Congress] and Article III [i.e., the courts]."
At minimum, he suggested that Miers would be the staunchest proponent of executive power over that of the other two branches that the Court had seen in a very long time.It's worth unpacking this statement, because it's much more significant than one might think at first glance. Neil Kinkopf, a former lawyer in the Clinton administration's Office of Legal Counsel, wrote a Legal Affairs article a while back noting that Republican administrations for decades have adhered to this "exclusivity" view of the executive branchthe view that the Constitution divides executive and congressional power into separate spheres, and one cannot encroach on the other. The view appeared in 1989, when then-Assistant Attorney General William Barr wrote a memo to all federal agencies saying: "Only by consistently and forcefully resisting
congressional incursions can Executive Branch prerogatives be preserved." And it came up in the torture memos written in 2002 by Jay Bybee and John Yoo, arguing that the executive has sole control over the military, and as such, Congress cannot stop the president from ordering torture or other coercive interrogation methods.
At least in modern times, the Supreme Court has generally dismissed this "exclusivity" view, with important results. In 1952, the Court barred Harry Truman from seizing steel mills under strike, on the view that the Constitution "enjoins upon its branches separateness but interdependence." In 1974, the Court rejected Nixon's claim of executive privilege to withhold Watergate tapes. In 1988 the Court upheld a congressional law creating an "independent counsel" to investigate and prosecute government wrongdoing, on the theory that Congress may regulate the executive branch. The constitutional theory outlined by Cardand, apparently, Harriet Mierswould, apparently, reject this reasoning.
Does it matter? Yes, and not just because such a view would prevent Congress from banning torture. In his Legal Affairs article, Kinkopf noted that in 1988 Congress required the Department of Health and Human Services to mail every household an educational pamphlet on AIDS. The Reagan administration didn't like the pamphlet and refused to mail it, and the Reagan OLC argued that Congress was encroaching on the president's exclusive right to administer the DHHS. Congress ordered the mailing regardless, but a Court filled with Miers-esque judges might have sided with Reagan. In 1989 the first Bush administration tried to use the "exclusivity" view before the Court to strike down a law authorizing whistleblowers to bring lawsuits on behalf of the federal government against fraudulent contractors. And so on. A judge sympathetic to the "imperial presidency" view is a very bad thing, and seems to me like a much bigger deal than Miers' supposed lack of qualifications.
Bradford PlumerOct. 12, 2005 1:06 PM
It's hard to know what the Bush administration plans to do with this:
President Bush's tax advisory commission indicated on Tuesday that it would not propose replacing the income tax with a national sales tax or a value-added tax, but would recommend limits in the popular tax deductions for mortgage interest and employer-provided health insurance.
Interesting. Depending on how that mortage-interest deduction gets phased out, a lot of home values could end up dropping as a result, on the theory that currently, many folks are already bidding up the price of homes until it roughly offsets the value of the deduction. Since the deduction would only be limited rather than eliminated, I'm guessing this would disproportionately affect the upper-middle-class. (Same with the health care deduction for businesses, which is largely regressive.) To balance against this, the commission has recommended eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax, which would give many of thesepresumably upper-middle-classhomeowners an offsetting tax cut, depending on the details, but ultimately, the bulk of the AMT affects high income-earners, primarily. Best to wait until CBPP comes out with an analysis before judging.
In the past, the White House has screwed the poor in order to benefit the well-off; but creating winners and losers among the upper-middle class? Seems treacherous. Or maybe not: Kevin Drum once noted that this constituency is the easiest group for the Republicans to abandon when it comes to tax cut politics. Guess he was right.
Oh, and a flat tax is still under consideration.
Diane E. DeesOct. 11, 2005 10:40 PM
"He is doing great. He has big broad shoulders."
That was First Lady Laura Bush's assessment of her husband and his handling of disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and September 11. In her interview with NBC's Today, Bush went on to say that the people in Louisiana "are rebuilding their lives and other people want to help them."
She was a few miles from my house when she said these things. Her husband was hammering nails at our Habitat for Humanity headquarters in a photo op that even the insulated pod people in his inner circle should have told him to avoid. I listened to the radio this afternoon--all of New Orleans' radio stations are still broadcasting out of Baton Rouge under the United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans umbrella--and the usual conservative callers were enraged that Bush had made another trip to Louisiana to have dinner and engage in yet another shallow photo session. One of the hosts, not known for his liberal thinking or even for deep thinking, remarked that "if this is the compassionate conservative, I'd hate to see the mean-spirited jerk."
Over the last several years, Louisiana, formerly a solidly Democratic (moderate, of course) state, has become more and more conservative. The state went for Bush in 2000 and 2004. Today, though--at least in south Louisiana--there is agreement that the White House and the entire federal government let Louisiana down in the worst way. There are a few who want to blame Governor Blanco, Mayor Nagin, or Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard, but they are becoming a smaller and smaller minority.
As for people rebuilding their lives, thousands are not. They are in other states and will never come back. Many are still living in shelters; the luckier ones have moved into the few FEMA trailers we have seen. Untold numbers of people in New Orleans and surrounding parishes have lost their businesses, just like that. Thousands more have lost their jobs. Those who have returned to New Orleans cannot shop for supplies. There are no hospitals. There is no payroll for law enforcement officers. There is no public transportation. Hundreds of people are still unaccounted for. The tax base is nonexistent. And unlike other areas who have received large relief packets from the federal government, Louisiana has been told we will have to repay the money.
There is no way to really understand the devastation unless you live here. Pretending that Bush--a man so out of touch, one of his aides had to make him a DVD so he would have a clue about what happened when Katrina hit--is prepared to handle the tragedy that has befallen Louisiana is just adding insult to a region that has already suffered catastrophic injury.
Julian BrookesOct. 11, 2005 7:34 PM
Just posted at Mother Jones: "Friendly Fire," by David Goodman.
For a candidate who just lost a congressional race, Paul Hackett has been a popular guy this fall. The tough-talking Iraq combat veteran turned a special-election fight in Ohio's Second District into this summer's political sleeper hit, energizing Democrats and converting Republicans in the deep-red counties outside Cincinnati and pulling 48 percent of the vote in a district where John Kerry got a mere 36 percent. Soon the national party came courting: Hackett met several times with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer, chair of the Senate Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), both of whom encouraged him to run for the seat of Ohio's senior senator, Republican Mike DeWine, in '06. Hackett said he wouldafter been told by Ohio Congressman Sherrod Brown that he wasn't planning to runand on October 3 he publicly threw his hat in the ring.
Then, last week, his phone rang again. It was Sherrod Brown calling to tell Hackett he'd changed his mind: he was running after all. Then Schumer called, and this time he wasn't delivering a pep talk. Hackett got the distinct sense that he was being asked to make way for the party insider. "Schumer didn't tell me anything definitive," he says. "But I'm not a dumb ass, and I know what he wanted me to do."
Continue reading "Friendly Fire" at MotherJones.com
Bradford PlumerOct. 11, 2005 4:43 PM
Mark Kleiman is thinking about what the Democrats should do on Harriet Miers. I'm certainly not much good at giving political advice, and there's no reason why anyone should listen to what I suggest, but here are a few odds and ends:
Obviously, the key consideration is this: "If Miers is defeated, would her replacement be better or worse?" With that in mind...
Whatever else one can say about her, say this: Miers is an administration hack of the first order, utterly subservient to the Bush family. She will almost certainly rule Bush's way in a number of upcoming Supreme Court casesHamdan v. Rumsfeld, Padilla v. Rumsfeld, challenging the authority of the president to detain and torture whoever he wants without Congressional oversight. This, to me, is the most important issue on the Court's docket in the near future, along with abortion.
The Senate recently passed a bill regulating treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. How long will that bill last? The White House OLC, under Alberto Gonzales, has argued that "any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of battlefield combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the Commander-in-Chief authority to the President." As a legal matter, I think this is flat wrong. As policy, it's disastrous. But would Miers endorse this view, or something like it? Another, more "principled" conservative might put limits on Bush, although that's a gamble: Antonin Scalia has argued, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, that American citizens have a right to challenge their imprisonment, but "enemy combatants" abroad do not; Clarence Thomas, meanwhile, basically believes the executive branch can do whatever it wants. Miers will almost surely take Thomas' view; if she was defeated or her nomination withdrawn, her replacement might take Scalia's slightly-less-bad view, which would be better than nothing. But maybe not.
On matters concerning things other than the executive branch, Miers is likely to vote no more conservatively than anyone else Bush might nominate. From what we've seen, she might cast a few surprise liberal votes on social issues, especially when it comes to criminal justice, while taking a more consistently pro-business line than a "principled" originalist might do. (Of course, there are very few principled originalists anywheresee "14th Amendment, affirmative action and"so this doesn't really matter.)
The danger with replacing Miers with a more qualified and "knowledgeable" Justice, one who has a firmer grasp of constitutional issues, like Michael McConnnell, is that a persuasive replacement could potentially convince the centrists on the CourtBreyer, Souter, Kennedyto swing further to the right. Dahlia Lithwick has suggested that Scalia's antagonistic temperament has alienated many of his colleagues, and Marisa Katz has noted that Rehnquist was unable to convince the liberal justices on his court to sign onto his opinions until he became more likable and less harsh. I already worry that John G. Roberts will be more effective than Rehnquist at this, and we don't need another like him.
Politically, if Miers' nomination was sunk, that might harm the Bush administration, but based on history, Bush's ability to ram stuff through Congress seems unrelated to the fact of individual victories or defeats. The Bernie Kerik fiasco didn't hurt the White house, and neither would this. The administration's frequent bumbling of late seems mostly due to the fact that Karl Rove is focusing on staying out of jail. One good thing that could come out of a Miers confirmation would be that evangelical turnout in the 2006 midterms might be depressed; but on the other hand, William Galston and Elaine Karmack have recently observed that evangelical turnout has been mostly constant since 1988, so this seems pretty unlikely.
Prediction: The current conservative infighting over Miers will have precisely zero effect on anything substantive, nor will it harm the Republican Party in any way. Read Stanley Coser. Six months from now, they'll have forgotten all about their little grumbling.
At an emotional level, I agree with Jack Hitt: Democrats shouldn't even show up for the vote to confirm Miers. This country is fast becoming a banana republic and the best thing the party can do is to let voters know who holds the reins in Congress. More "seriously," though, I don't really know.
Oct. 11, 2005 1:49 PM
In a recent interview with Salon, Sen. Russ Feingold got vocal about the mess in Iraq and the likelihood that we won't be hanging a "mission accomplished" sign over a working democracy in Iraq before it comes time to withdraw troops. Meanwhile, Robert Kuttner notes in the Boston Globe a CBS poll reporting that 64 percent of Americans "oppose Bush's conduct of the war," and hence:
[A]n antiwar candidate such as Feingold would be an odds-on favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination over bigger names disabled by their own fatal caution.
Keep your hat on Hillary, winning the nomination in 2008 will take more than a diplomatic distaste for war, Bush cronyism, and a federal disaster, or even a season of what some on the right are calling Hillary's primetime infomercial.
Oct. 11, 2005 12:40 PM
Recall that Bush, in the wake of Katrina, was able to suspend federal labor laws that require federal contractors to pay a prevailing wage.
That was bad enough.
But now it seems that not only are workers at companies with federal contracts being paid below the prevailing wage, but they are being radically underpaid. Body and Soul links to an LATimes story today which notes that some workers are only being paid $4 an hour!
Jeanne then writes:
If all you care about is putting up structures, cheap is good. If you're trying to rebuild a community, the most important thing is giving people something to come back to. Four dollars isn't it. If anybody cared about the community, they'd be paying way more than prevailing wages, and giving evacuees priority on getting the jobs.
Oct. 10, 2005 10:01 PM
There are a few things I expect of the Democratic Party and groups that it hires, employs, works with, etc. 1) Provide great healthcare to all employees and 2) Respect your workers by honoring their right to strike, organize, and collectively bargain.
Unfortunately, this does not always happen. Nathan Newman directed me towards a rather disturbing story: a Denver-based company called Telefund has been allegedly engaging in Union Busting. What makes this so upsetting is that many progressive organizations outsource their fundraising efforts to Telefund, including, among others, The Democratic National Committee, Amnesty International, the Sierra Club, and Mother Jones.
Now, there is no indication that any of these organizations are aware of the union busting activity as it has only just come to light. But now that the story has surfaced, an investigation is needed.
Nathan is right, the DNC (and these other progressive organizations) should not associate itself with any institution that so egregiously violates its workers' rights. I can only hope that they act swiftly to resolve the matter.
[Story originally found at YAL]
Bradford PlumerOct. 10, 2005 9:11 PM
I see that Andrew Sullivan has made the flat tax his new pet issue, noting, among other things, that the Eastern European countries that have implemented the flat tax have all seen stunning rates of growth in recent years. Well, good for them. Since this issue is likely to come up sooner or later, though, here are a few initial, mostly scattered points:
It's unclear what's boosting those Eastern European economies, exactly. These are all countries that have emerged from communism, privatized industry, and seen an influx of western investment over the past decade. You'd expect them to grow quickly, no? I'd like to see more before ascribing magical powers to the flat tax. Slovakia, for instance, had 4.2 percent growth in 2003, "the strongest growth in Central Europe," right before it moved to the flat tax. Huh. And President Ivan Gasparovic has recently said that the wave of new foreign investors are attracted by the country's cheap labor costs rather than its flat tax rates.
Similarly, this IMF paper wonders whether Russia's boost in tax revenues following its flat-tax reform in 2001 were due to voodoo economics or merely to better enforcement. See also "Demythologizing the Russian Flat Tax" by Clifford Gaddy and William Gale.
Flat-taxers love to hype the simplicity of the "postcard size tax return," but as analysts have pointed since the days of Cain and Abel, the simplicity of a tax system has nothing to do with the tax rates. Progressive tax rates don't make our system complicated. Once you know your income, you can just as easily multiply it by 23 percent as by 17 percent with a calculator. Try it! The real difficulty comes in actually defining one's income and calculating all those deductions and exemptions. That will never be easy for some people, say, Dick Cheney, no matter what kind of tax system we have. We can still have a simplified tax code that happens to have different rates for different income levels. There are good and fair ways of doing this.
It's worth noting that when you add up all federal, state, and local taxes, this country already has fairly "flat" tax rates. According to CTJ, the top 20 percent of earners pay about 32 percent of their income in taxes, the next quintile 29.8 percent, the next quintile 27 percent, and the next quintile 23 percent.
Popular resistance to a flat tax, at least in the United States, will come from people who don't want to give up the concrete deductions and exemptions they currently have in exchange for theoretical future gains down the road (from supposedly higher economic growth). I have a feeling that this is a psychological phenomenon that's very difficult to get around.
Home values would very likely decline in the short term if we switched to a flat tax and eliminated all deductions, on the theory that right now, the home-mortgage deduction enables buyers to bid up the prices of real estate. The price decline wouldn't change anything on net, but people who currently own homes would obviously be screwed.
So, for that matter, would many large businesses. Some corporations get deductions for interest on loans that they've taken out to purchase new equipment, as well as deductions for the depreciation of current equipment. Businesses that have been borrowing and investing in new equipment aggressively would get a kick in the teeth if the United States eliminated all deductions and moved to a flat tax. I daresay that manufacturing would suffer the worst; just don't tell Clyde Prestowitz.
If Congress can't, for political reasons, eliminate all those deductions and exemptions, then the effective flat tax rate is going to be very, very high. Certainly higher than the 15 percent effective federal rate that about 60 percent of all taxpayers currently pay. Of course, those are the bottom 60 percent of income-earners, and they have precisely zero sway over the current Republican Party, so that's obviously not a political concern for anyone in power.
In theory it's possible to design a progressive flat tax, or simplify the tax code in all sorts of progressive and sensible ways, as Dick Gephardt has suggested. But that's not the flat tax that Andrew Sullivan, John Breaux, or George W. Bush have in mind. Any tax reform that lowers the rate on the wealthy will have to raise taxes elsewhere, obviously. There's no getting around this, except with deficits. If I had to bet, I'd bet that the GOP shies away from real flat-tax reform (for reasons #5, 6, and 7 above) this fall and instead just enacts further tax cuts for its allies. Democrats are in danger of coming to power soon; best to leave them a nice big deficit mess and let them reap the political whirlwind.
Bradford PlumerOct. 10, 2005 6:34 PM
The Center for American Progress has a new report out called "The Second Term Revolving Door," documenting new Bush administration officials who have ties to business, as well as former officials who are moving on to plush lobbying careers. In a the abstract, it's hard to see the big deal: clearly a number of appointees in the executive branch are often going to have business experience; nor is it a big deal if civil servants want to cash out after they leave government. This administration, on the other hand, deserves very little benefit of the doubt, especially after it let industry lobbyists infiltrate the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration (see here for a long list) and corporate cronies oversee their former companies in Iraq.
Perhaps most notably among the current batch, both Philip Perry, the General Counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, and Michael P. Jackson, Deputy Secretary for DHS, have ties to Lockheed (Perry a former lobbyist; Jackson a former COO). Tim Wiener reported in the New York Times last fall that Lockheed is "increasingly putting its stamp on the nation's military policies" through its corporate connections. That process seems to be accelerating.
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