Tag Archives: language

Je pense, donc je blague

Posted on October 19, 2022 by JMN

When I’m tempted to post something here with greater frequency than usual, I ask myself: Am I in thrall to a voracious craving for plaudits? Am I a prelapsarian Ozymandias? An attention-seeking missile? Look what I’ve thought — done! — … Continue reading →

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The ‘Burden of Exegesis’

Posted on October 15, 2022 by JMN

There is almost nothing to see, and yet everything is there. (Laura Cumming) Cumming gives a lyrical account of her responses to Cezanne. (I learn from her that the artist dropped the acute accent from his name in his signature.) … Continue reading →

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Translating Winds and Currents

Posted on October 12, 2022 by JMN

(Continued from https://ethicaldative.com/2022/10/08/assaying-a-translation-strange-dawn/ ) An interesting feature of a translation is how “faithful” it is to the source text. Faithfulness (a slippery term) tends to be a matter of degree, to fluctuate as the translation goes forward. The translator, sailing … Continue reading →

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Why Do I Warm to These Two Paintings?

Posted on October 9, 2022 by JMN

Rosalyn Drexler’s elegant painting, “Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health,” is stuck with a lumbering title but sings, nevertheless. I would give it a chill name such as “Composition in Vermilion on Black,” or one with saucy innuendo … Continue reading →

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Assaying a Translation: ‘Strange Dawn’

Posted on October 8, 2022 by JMN

I shove off in the El Toro dinghy of my dreams to navigate Gilgamesh’s Snake (1), sailing on a sea of Arabic towards a far shore, which is the poem’s end. Ghareeb Iskander’s poem has 5 parts: I. SongII. The … Continue reading →

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The Nays of Texas Are Upon It

Posted on September 30, 2022 by JMN

“Knowing truth is important. Right and wrong are truth, not feelings. And they are the same for everyone. Our creator is the source of the rules for right and wrong and they come from his character.” (Member of the public … Continue reading →

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Breaking: Poetry in the Air?

Posted on September 28, 2022 by JMN

Working head of state one day, gone the next. Sic transit gloria. An adoring contingent of Great Britain has lately felt its feelings in splendid public fashion for a queen whose reign exceeded average life expectancy in most of the … Continue reading →

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What He Simply Tries to Do

Posted on September 22, 2022 by JMN

“In his view, painting and drawing are exactly the same difficulty and take roughly as long as each other.” (William Feaver, art critic and one of Auerbach’s regular sitters) Asked whether he has learned something new about his face, [Auerbach] … Continue reading →

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One Good Pareidolia Deserves Another

Posted on September 19, 2022 by JMN

Rocky debate swirls around a squiggle on the “fingerlike menhir” at the entrance to the Dolmen of Guadalperal in Spain. (See https://ethicaldative.com/2022/09/17/the-dolmen-tells-the-wind-hard-weather-ahead/). Opposite a vaguely anthropomorphic shape etched on the menhir’s side lies the squiggle. Angel Castaño, a philologist, believes … Continue reading →

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The Dolmen Tells the Wind, ‘Hard Weather Ahead’

Posted on September 17, 2022 by JMN

A megalithic archaeological site has been exposed by drought in Spain. Some 2,000 years older than Stonehenge, the Bronze Age sepulcher was deliberately flooded in 1963 as part of a rural development project. Like the skeleton of an extinct sea … Continue reading →

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