Translation
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On ‘Babel,’ ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once,’ and violence.
Violence begets violence; to create a better world, we must act as though it could possibly exist.
Abel's sacrifice, Abraham, An Arcane History, authority figure, Babel, Bible, binding of Isaac, blessing, Cain and Abel, Cain's sacrifice, capitalism, curse, disease resistance, disruption, diversity of languages, Edenic language, electrical shock, Everything Everywhere All at Once, fantasy, fear, film critique, film review, folktales, Genesis 22, Genesis 4, germs, great floods, gun violence, guns, Guns Germs and Steel, Ham, hierarchy, hubris, human migration, immunology, inequality, language, leap of faith, love, Michael Bazzett, Milgram Experiment, Milgram shock experiment, Milgram test, multiverse, myths, Noah, Noah's curse, obedience, Old Testament, origin of Bible stories, origin of inequality, origin of languages, parallel worlds, quantum mechanics, R. F. Kuang, Rebecca Kuang, religion, slavery, spoken word, Stanley Milgram, Steel, The Matrix, The Necessity of Violence, The Popul Vuh, Tower of Babel, Translation, why did humans build the Tower of Babel, Yahweh
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On translation and quantum mechanics.
We have so many ways to depict the world – they’re not all equally good for all ideas.
3 body problems, 3-body problem, base ten numbering, Beyond Weird, Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, Chinese, Dance Your Ph.D., Dance Your PhD, decimal notation, describing photographs, Diane Arbus, does God play dice, Eliot Weinberger, God does not play dice, God is a gambler, God is an inveterate gambler, grain size of the universe, Hugh Everette, infinite precision, infinite series, irrational numbers, language, math, math is language of universe, mathematics, meaning of quantum mechanics, metaphoric language, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ninetween Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, Perry Link, Philip Ball, physics, pi, pixelation of physical space, precision, quantum mechanics, quantum physics, Richard Feynman, Science Olympiad, Stephen Hawking, three body problem, translating, translating mathematics into words, translating poetry, Translation, voxelation, what does quantum mechanics mean, Write It Do It, writing
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On translation.
Translation is imperfect, and dangerous, and we should all do it. The act of putting another’s thoughts into our words will bring us closer.
addiction, Cathay, Cherry, Christopher Logue, drug addiction, Ezra Pound, Hayden Pelliccia, Homer, imperfect translation, incomplete equivalence, Iraq, Iraqi translators, literal translation, literary translation, literature in translation, Mark Polizzotti, military interpreters, military service, military translation, mistranslation, Nico Walker, Perry Link, Sympathy for the Traitor, The Iliad, translated literature, translating literature, translating poetry, Translation, War Music
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On the value of religious misinterpretation.
We’re liable to misinterpret old stories when we look at them with modern eyes … but it’s worth knowing what myths might mean in a better world.
Abraham, anachronism, anachronistic crtique, Ants Among Elephants, Bible, can God save us, caste, caste system, Christ, Christian theology, colonialism, conquest, covenant, creation in Genesis, dalit, David Kishik, DK, Dravidar Kazhagam, forgiveness, forgiving god, Genesis, God, God saw that it was good, God’s insecurity, Goldman, grammar, hebrew, Hinduism, human sacrifice, human sacrifice for good harvest, imperialism, incarceration, incarceration crisis, incarceration in the U.S., incarceration in the United States, jail, Jesus, Jesus’s sacrifice, Job, John-Michael Bloomquist, mass incarceration, merciful god, mercy, Noah, Old Testament, oppression, poetry, poetry in jail, rainbow, Rama, Rama threatening ocean, Ravana, Ravana worship, religion, Rudyard Kipling, sacrifice, sacrifice of Jesus, suffering, Sujatha Gidla, Tamil, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, textual analysis, The Book of Shem, The Flood, The Iliad, The Prodigal’s Return, theology, Translation, untouchable, why did Christ have to die, why did Jesus suffer, why does Rama threaten the ocean, why is God jealous, Yahweh
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On Alvaro Enrigue’s ‘Sudden Death,’ translation, and the power of narrative control.
Translators control our experience of stories; those who control stories, control the world.
Alvaro Enrigue, Aztec, conquest, conquistadors, Cortes, fall of the Aztecs, Geronimo de Aguilar, Hernan Cortes, history of Mexico, history of tennis, Hungary, Malinali Tenepatl, Maya, Natasha Wimmer, octopus literature, Ralph Robinson, Robert Adams, Roma, Stanford, Sudden Death, teaching English, tennis, Thomas More, Translation, underage drinking, Utopia, violence, xingar
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On crashing waves of violence and Paul Kingsnorth’s ‘The Wake.’
People are raving about the new film “Racing Extinction.” What might impending extinction feel like for those last few survivors?
ancient humans, Beowulf, CK Scott Moncrieff, distribution of wealth, economics, extinction, Homo sapiens, human evolution, inequality, land holdings, land rights, Marcel Proust, mass extinction, Neanderthals, Norman Invasion, Old English, Paul Kingsnorth, Sapiens, Seamus Heaney, Stonehenge, The Wake, Translation, wealth, Yuval Noah Harari
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On Eka Kurniawan’s ‘Beauty Is a Wound,’ mythology, and misogyny.
Kurniawan’s interests mirror my own — why wouldn’t I love his book?
Annie Tucker, Beauty is a Wound, David Foster Wallace, Eka Kurniawan, feminism, feminist, Flo the Progressive Insurance girl, Franzen, geek, geek culture, girl, Heartbreak, Kurniawan, Mahabharata, Mark Leyner, misogyny, mythology, neg, Neil Strauss, Purity, repetition, Scott Aaronson, sexual assault, The Game, The Pale King, The Sugar Frosted Nutsack, Translation
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On translation.
My turn in our local library’s queue to read Peter Buwalda’s “Bonita Avenue” has just arrived, which means that now feels like as good a time as any to jot down a couple thoughts on translation. After all, I wouldn’t get to read this novel if not for the hard work that Jonathan Reeder did…
Frank Brown Cloud 