New 2008 project.

Resolutions, incremental actions, and all that. I'll update it until it's done. I think it's the first time this has ever been done in English. Well, for a theoretically large audience, anyway.

Two momentous bar-going birthday parties in three days, the latter on Christmas.

I'm taking a bit of a break.

Thought I'd post once in December. No real content here, move along.

My Slavicist hobby continues...

I've recently read my first book in Slovak, and think it would make for an excellent translation into English.

Granted, "The Old Man and the Ocean" is a bit of a clunky title, and "Ernest Hemingway" doesn't seem like a Slovak name, but it was a compelling read nevertheless.

New hobby: trying to learn things about Sorbian!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

...oh, is that all?

One earthquake under my belt, anyway. Well, one California one.

Pro pána krále!

Burner of Corpses was just over one hundred and thirty pages. I translated a first draft in nine and a half months. Six pages was probably my maximum for any one day.

I've done that amount of new writing in the last seventeen days. Twenty-eight more pages to go. I think I can be done in the next forty-eight hours.

Pan Theodor Mundstock

So this novel, Fuks' first, had been the bane of my existence.

Not really, but it certainly was a non-starter.

I tried a hand at it in October 2005, after I got done transcribing Burner of Corpses. Got a few pages into it.

Didn't pick it up again until October 2006. Did maybe a page, couldn't even make my way out of the first chapter. I put it on my to-do list for 2007 back in January, after a whole lot of other stuff (The Way to the Promised Land, some reading, lots of transcribing.) Did the aforementioned stuff, and then stalled.

Wrote part of one sentence on August 17. Part of the same sentence on August 19. Finished the sentence on September 1st. Managed to hack my way into Chapter 3--twenty-four pages, all told--right before I moved.

I picked it up again a week and a half ago, figuring if I did a page and a half a day I might get done by the end of the calendar year. But then it became my job for four hours a day. Eighty pages done since last Monday--eighty pages in eleven days. Forty-seven of those since Monday morning. That's four days. I've broken my own record for productivity, I think, five or six times, and certainly all four days this work week, and am about to write through my second pen.

Seventy-eight pages to go. If I keep this pace up, I'll have done a quarter of everything I've thus far translated in three weeks' time.

Wow.

"Instantly there was a racket that sounded to the keen ears of the bloodhound like a police dog being forcibly dressed in women's clothes by a leopard, and that is precisely what it was."

James Thurber, Further Fables For Our Time.


I love Thurber, and not just because of The Thirteen Clocks He's strongly reminiscent of Čapek. Except less horticulturally inclined, I suppose, but no one's perfect.

In California, unemployed, translating up a storm, &c.

We don't know where we're landing yet, but we're definitely taking the leap. Random errands and packing today.

Montpelier--->Burlington today.
Burlington--->Ann Arbor (we think) tomorrow.

And points west.

Sorry if I've been hard to get ahold of. It's going to get slightly harder (goodbye my cell phone). I'm gonna keep writing, both for myself and for others.

To work.

Pan Theodor Mundstock

I translated originals for the first time in over five months today, rattling off a couple of pages of Pan Theodor Mundstock, and did some editing on a collection of short stories I finished transcribing, oh, a year ago?

Progress is being made. I'd like to have edited and formatted versions of the two collections of short stories, as well as a second computer draft of the novella I've just finished. All while continuing to chip away at the largest project I've yet undertaken.

This illustrates some of the problem of a massive quixotic project composed of several slightly-less massive projects running in parallel. And highlights the important fact that you really can't do multiple things at once.

No way out but through, however. We'll see what September brings.

Wheat and chaff

Casting a ruthless eye to one's library, especially in the light of a very long move, leads to some interesting discussions. What complicates things is that there are two conversations at work--what can I get rid of wholesale (and the concomitant question of "how?"), there is also "what can I take with me?" The results have been...interesting. Mostly it's a matter of giving up, grudgingly, some side interests. I don't need seven books right now on German, I need an actual desire to learn to read German.

I need one translation project text and that's it. In May of 2005 I was translating Czech with a book, my dictonary, a red pen, and the back of an e-ticket confirmation in the Vienna airport. (I still have those integrated into the notebook I'd run out of space in, naturally.) I don't now need three Čápek plays, say, even if they are Czech postwar editions, even if one is R.U.R, which I might want to read at some stage, it's just distraction. I hope this streamlining is good for productivity. (Now, don't think I'm trashing these other texts, oh no. They'll be kept.)

I guess the more I look at it, the more it's how many books I take with me, versus how many I leave behind, with an eye, to borrow a phrase, towards radical parcimony. I'm even toying (halfheartedly) with the idea of leaving my giant Czech dictionaries at home, though that would leave me at the mercy of the Internet for my word-finding needs. I might even leave some Fuks behind. That's unlikely too, but this feels like a healthy streamlining instead of a purge.

Ten more days of work.

EDIT: I think I can get everything I want to take with me, books-wise, into a single paper box. It's hurt, and it will hurt, but there's a lot of good in there. Nick, heads up that you may be getting another box of mailed books, if you're so inclined.

Finished with two things...

I put in three and a half weeks' notice at the job today, and then came home, and, after some desultory packing, finished transcribing The Way to the Promised Land . Two short story collections, the novel, and now this novella. About 160,000 words, all told.

It's a start.

If it weren't for punctuated equi,li?bri;um...

I was going to follow that title up with "there'd be no equilibrium at all" but then realized that didn't make sense. It's the equilibrium-rupturing what's important. It's the punctation that's important, for many reasons besides separating us from the e e cummingses of the world.

I'm nine thousand words into an August transcribing jag. ( The Way to The Promised Land emerges from an inchoate state) Three months of negotiations with management have left me itching to take on a landlord who is acting both childlishly and illegally tomorrow. The lease is up in three weeks, and California beckons shortly after.

So how much can I get done before then?

To work.

You know those Germans...

So evidently the middle English had a word for Prussia, a variant of the then-Middle French Pruce (currently Prusse, if my high-school French hasn't mouldered away completely). This variant was Spruce.

Whence the name of the genus of tree (whose leaves provide an emergency source of Vitamin C), and (I am given to understand) the verb and adjective, after an apparently trim and tidy "Spruce leather." Those Germans were stereotyped for their meticulous cleanliness even then, it seems.

I'm seven thousand words in to August's transcribing binge, and brought my Czech-English dictionary home from work, where it had languished lo these several months.

I daresay I'm sprucing my writing up a bit.

UE 203 contract negotiations finished--ratification on Monday!

So I've been engaged in contract negotiations: what are our rights and protections as a union? How much money's on the table, and how do we spread it around?

After three and a half hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, almost seven on Thursday (until 11:30) and then another six yesterday (9-3) we finally hammered out a tentative agreement. It's a two year contract, we kept fully-funded single-premium health care for the life of the contract, and got some nice raises this year, and at least cost-of-living increases (if not more) for those who stick around.

Ugh. Trying to revise and update a seven-tier wage scale with a bunch of different steps with people placed on those steps in different ways back when it was a different scale the year before and trying to figure out contract language to deal with all the random situations people have worked their way into.

But we had a good committee, and no one has to deal with this for another 21 months or so. Now we just sit around and watch the daily machinations of store life show us where all the loopholes are.

It's good to be done.

A second post?

Well, it is a day off now after all. After some interesting-ish bouts with productivity, I may have inadvertently stumbled on a way to get some things done.

My afternoon:

1-2:50. Internet-based wasteland. Although I supposed I did archive a bunch of e-mail. Better strike that second sentence and refer to the first.
2:45. Mix small vodka tonic. Add ice. Have preliminary sip.
2:46-3:05. Shave, clean bathroom, make bed, shake out dog bed, wash dishes, put away dishes, rinse recyclable bottles, wipe down counter, finish getting dressed, hang up some clothes.
Now: Back to computer, lightly sipping drink.

This seems like something it would be easy to abuse (jusht one more and then I'll shweep the kitshen, I shwear!) but it seems to be working so far.

Yes, it's a worthless blog post, but it's something, and that, I feel, must be better than the nothing that was up here. Hmm. Maybe I can type a thousand words before my ice melts...

Apologies and explanations...

To Jef and Jesse, I offer apologies for the lack of a letter. It's been a good summer, but times have been trying of late, what with the increasing stress of negotiations and the summer thunderclap that was the death of an old friend which has hit me harder than I would have thought possible.

I cannot write more right now. Nevertheless, I remain optimistic. My grandmother would have told me that everything would look better after a good night's sleep. And I look to get up swinging in the morning.

Ars longa, vita breva and all that.

To work.

Let's try something

You write me a comment and I'll mail a letter within two weeks of getting your address. The catch: you'll have to send something back within two weeks of getting something.

Also, am struggling with productivity on the Czech front. But one thing at a time.

First the cell phone...

...and now I have my own MacBook too. Mmmmmm, laptop-y goodness. I'm trying to integrate all my writing projects (like the ones I've posed piecemeal to this blog) into nicely organized Scrivener files. (Nick, do you have the full version? Is it worth it?) and beginning to try to conceive of hosting some of my increasing collection of Fuksiana online.

Also, random music uploading and my third Finnish lesson. I suppose I must loves me my adessive case, but I mean, come on. Finnish has such a multiplicity of these things and the adessive has to be a locative "on" case, the instrumental, and the basis for indicating possession (no verb "to have") all at once? And if I have to say Mannerheimintiellä (On Mannerheim Avenue) one more time....

If I...

If I awoke on New Year's Day as the Lord God--no, wait, that wouldn't work, the Lord God doesn't sleep--then if I awoke on New Year's Day as St. Peter, I would say: "What should I do this year for those irascible Czechoslovaks? They are such heretics, and sometimes--blast them--entirely ungrateful; but there must be some good in them. I think that their weather is too extreme; maybe that is why they are so cantankerous and stubborn. It is hot and stormy in the summer, so they grumble irritably; in the winter it's so freezing that everyone thinks only of themselves, acting like icicles to others. The climate does that. And so they don't like anything; winter is too cold and summer too hot; if something is black, it is too black for them, and if something is white, it is too white for them; never in their life is anything just right. They are accustomed to this from this weather of theirs. Wait just a moment, you tricksters, I'll show you; I'll grant you a nice bit of summer, like by the seaside; I'll give you mild winters, with snow, naturally, a little bit of snow is a good thing, and comfortable summers with sun and plenty of moisture--it would be deviltry if I didn't alter it for you. If you were milder to yourselves, your weather would be nicer; but if you don't want to start yourselves, I will do it for you. Let the Lord God help you in the New Year!

If I awoke on New Year's Day as prime minister, I would wonder greatly at that and stoke my chin, at a loss. (Aha, I would say, I have to shave.) When after a while I got used to the miraculous change in my existence, I would stay in bed for a few more minutes, as I had done hitherto as an ordinary citizen, but I wouldn't go back to sleep. I would ponder. "My word, we have the anniversary of the republic to do this year. I know what; I'll call the ministries together and say: "Boys, last year we presided over the monument to Austria; this year we have to preside over the monument to the Republic. Look, we have to put things together somehow; left and right camps, it's for the birds; the republic, it's like--a circle; how can there be a left and right wing of a circle?" Then a number of other arguments would occur to me, but I would put those off until the ministries arrive; then I would get up, making sure--for luck in the new year--that I got up on the right foot.

If I awoke on New Year's Day as the Lord Mayor of the city of Prague, I would gaze a while into the far future and then I would say: "It seems to me that that that Čapek is right; they really should have started in with that green ring around Prague. When I imagine those beautiful lanes...and the clearings for the children...and little groves here and there...well then, let's get to it."

If I awoke on New Year's Day as a millionaire and a man of the ruling class, I would say: "It's already 'twenty-eight? God, how time flies! Ah well, this year I've got to do something with my money, got to set something up in memory of or establish something, as long as it's worthwhile. It's worth some thought, but the money will be there; we will take care of that.

If I awoke on New Year's Day as a twenty year-old, I'd turn over to the other side and keep sleeping; I'd have lots to think about after New Year's Eve.

If I awoke on New Year's Eve as my puppy, I would scratch myself a bit with my back leg (having some disorderly flea on the nape of my neck) and then I would say: "This year I won't anger my master any more, I will go outside nicely, I won't scatter bones on the stairs, I will keep clean, I won't sleep on the couch, I won't run through every row in the garden. For that I would receive a cube of sugar and be immeasurably overjoyed with life.

/1928/

Karel Čapek, Almanac (posthumous collection of short writings)

It has been brought to my attention...

that my earlier post's tone may have been a bit on the confusing side.

I wasn't originally thrilled with the horribleness of Simmons' offer, but had a series of good conversations with a number of people. I accepted but deferred to the fall of 2008. This opens up options to look around--one of my new goals may be URI's library program, with its regional New England tuition. Also, it probably behooves me greatly to volunteer at libraries and look at scholarships and that sort of thing.

So Boston not so much in the foreseeable future, and maybe not at all--but that's probably for the best.

As for the moving, I've moved across town and in with someone. We're here through the summer, and then we'll see where we get taken.

It's good that the first has finally come; the mania of writing and deciding and moving was uplifting, yet draining.