Monday, June 20, 2011

miasma and the spectacle in translation


am considering translating the last finished novel of russian writer konstantin vaginov--bambocciata.
the title refers to a style of painting influenced by pieter van laer--small-canvas street scenes/caricatures of ordinary and low-class people in rome. van laer (see his 'the flagellants' above) was called il bamboccio (poppet) as an indication of his stature and the size of his paintings.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

night thoughts, dyi milk punch, and somebody else's poems: cures for suicide

halfway through june, with klimt's kiss staring at me from the calendar on the wall. twenty-seven, twenty-eight was when they all killed themselves, or tried for the first time. too tired right now to name names, and too sober to add to the list.
a second milk-punch curdling on the kitchen counter--raspberry-infused hornitos, a blacktea-mint-papaya simple, keylimes and cream. i'm learning my lesson from the first (citruspeel pisco, avocado, greentea, strawberry, pecan) that's at the bar, in the throes of clarification (it has to settle and get cloth-strained several times) and tastes like heaven, which is to say, at arm's reach.
there's still the pesk of obligation--i wish i could do it and drink it myself. but for now i have to make do with one eye over my shoulder, and then give it away.
it's got me thinking of o'hara:

'stag club' by frank o'hara

a prickly beer's like
snow on your asshole--
all the asphodels farting
through a poem by robert burns.
joys of interminable beers!
teeth green as grass, the kiss
under the table upside down
mushrooming and sweet sun
over the bitches, their pears.