from "Notebook from a Return to My Native Land" by Aimé Césaire
Césaire was a master of neologisms and in this anti-colonial call-to-arms he employs them to explore his own hybrid identity.
The proceedings get murky though when he gets to the end and the "immobile verrition" seems to house the author's political standpoint and his transformative linguistic subversions. The phrase has given English translators fits, because Césaire coined "verrition" from the Latin "verri": to sweep, scrape or scan. "Verre" is also the French for "glass," so you have an immobile, transparent, scraping, sweeping, scanning thing.
It's a bit of jump to include "revolution" into this phrase, although quite understandable given the context of the rest of the poem and the politics of its author. But it's not quite enough to substitute a fresh, ambiguous, violent word with a shopworn one like "revolution," so this translation opted for "revolvolution." Interesting enough, with a suggestion of double motion: physical and political.
"Motionless Revolvolution" only became problematic when Volvo co-opted the word for a marketing campaign.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Erroneous Content Reports
from Sarah Palin's Facebook
The AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book.
Sarah Palin voices displeasure at the leak of her forthcoming memoir, Going Rogue. But it's not clear if the timing of the reports or their basis in fact are what draws her ire. Then again, if her book is full of lies, then this missive has found her a scapegoat.
The AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book.
Sarah Palin voices displeasure at the leak of her forthcoming memoir, Going Rogue. But it's not clear if the timing of the reports or their basis in fact are what draws her ire. Then again, if her book is full of lies, then this missive has found her a scapegoat.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Mermaid Run
November 14 event at Crissy Field, San Francisco
Much respect to the women who will gather and exercise and celebrate their health and their womanliness--but mermaids can't run. Because they don't have legs.
Much respect to the women who will gather and exercise and celebrate their health and their womanliness--but mermaids can't run. Because they don't have legs.
Gettin' Had in Texas
from L.A. Plays Itself
You gotta watch out for people around here, you know, you get had. You don't wanna get had, you come out of Texas, 'cause you're gettin' had in Texas.
At 3:00, the savvy Angeleno issues a word to the wise to the Texan neophyte. Indicating the gay cruisers on street corners, Fred warns Joey that some of these unscrupulous types will either rip him off or suck him off, or both.
The double-entendre reveals the assumption behind impromptu homosexual encounters in 1970s Los Angeles: that they're a zero-sum game, the opposite of making love.
You gotta watch out for people around here, you know, you get had. You don't wanna get had, you come out of Texas, 'cause you're gettin' had in Texas.
At 3:00, the savvy Angeleno issues a word to the wise to the Texan neophyte. Indicating the gay cruisers on street corners, Fred warns Joey that some of these unscrupulous types will either rip him off or suck him off, or both.
The double-entendre reveals the assumption behind impromptu homosexual encounters in 1970s Los Angeles: that they're a zero-sum game, the opposite of making love.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
You Quisling!
from Late Show with David Letterman, January 7, 1998
He just fired you! What do you mean he's...what is wrong with you...You quisling!
Norm MacDonald explains his firing from Saturday Night Live to David Letterman, who had left NBC years before and clearly has a bone to pick with some of the higher-ups of that network. MacDonald opts not to vent, to Letterman's clear consternation.
That's when Letterman calls MacDonald a "quisling," albeit in the self-mocking tone that the talk-show host has perfected. The term is interchangeable with "Benedict Arnold" and refers to a collaborationist Norwegian politician. Vidkun Quisling delivered his country to the Nazis, but MacDonald merely takes a career setback in stride.
Letterman is subtly recruiting the younger comedian for some kind of war against NBC, or against the establishment of media executives. If Letterman wanted only to call MacDonald a coward or a toady, he could have referenced "Lindbergh" or "Chamberlain" or someone like that. Instead he accuses the sanguine MacDonald of the ultimate betrayal.
For his part, MacDonald responds with drunken befuddlement (a tone that he has perfected). Whereas Letterman's comedy derives from a magisterial denigration of anyone who has the guts to sit on his couch, MacDonald wins laughs from his attitude of sheepish self-dismissal. The two funnymen are friendly antipodes for the whole exchange, even as the dictionary bit starts to expose Letterman's aggressive comparison (at 9:00).
A sage media critic reported that the only way Letterman's recent romantic scandal could destroy the man's career would be if his fellow-comedians chose to take him down. The jester after all is the second-most-powerful person in the court, after the king, and Letterman is the King of the Jesters.
He just fired you! What do you mean he's...what is wrong with you...You quisling!
Norm MacDonald explains his firing from Saturday Night Live to David Letterman, who had left NBC years before and clearly has a bone to pick with some of the higher-ups of that network. MacDonald opts not to vent, to Letterman's clear consternation.
That's when Letterman calls MacDonald a "quisling," albeit in the self-mocking tone that the talk-show host has perfected. The term is interchangeable with "Benedict Arnold" and refers to a collaborationist Norwegian politician. Vidkun Quisling delivered his country to the Nazis, but MacDonald merely takes a career setback in stride.
Letterman is subtly recruiting the younger comedian for some kind of war against NBC, or against the establishment of media executives. If Letterman wanted only to call MacDonald a coward or a toady, he could have referenced "Lindbergh" or "Chamberlain" or someone like that. Instead he accuses the sanguine MacDonald of the ultimate betrayal.
For his part, MacDonald responds with drunken befuddlement (a tone that he has perfected). Whereas Letterman's comedy derives from a magisterial denigration of anyone who has the guts to sit on his couch, MacDonald wins laughs from his attitude of sheepish self-dismissal. The two funnymen are friendly antipodes for the whole exchange, even as the dictionary bit starts to expose Letterman's aggressive comparison (at 9:00).
A sage media critic reported that the only way Letterman's recent romantic scandal could destroy the man's career would be if his fellow-comedians chose to take him down. The jester after all is the second-most-powerful person in the court, after the king, and Letterman is the King of the Jesters.
Homegrown Terror
from Slate
Al-Qaida in Mesopotamia has become transformed...without the customary qualifications about its probable foreign leadership, into "a largely homegrown terrorist group." Ah, yes, homegrown: a reassuringly horticultural image with likable overtones of thrift and enterprise.
Christopher Hitchens quibbles with a New York Times description that may be the central confusion in America's Middle Eastern military adventure. Are these guys local or do we have an international conspiracy? Whatever the answer, and however the coalition (or what remains of it) responds to the problem, the jihadists are not like chile peppers or cabbage.
Hitchens later enjoys a gibe about the "overwhelmingly Catholic" Irish Republican Army.
Al-Qaida in Mesopotamia has become transformed...without the customary qualifications about its probable foreign leadership, into "a largely homegrown terrorist group." Ah, yes, homegrown: a reassuringly horticultural image with likable overtones of thrift and enterprise.
Christopher Hitchens quibbles with a New York Times description that may be the central confusion in America's Middle Eastern military adventure. Are these guys local or do we have an international conspiracy? Whatever the answer, and however the coalition (or what remains of it) responds to the problem, the jihadists are not like chile peppers or cabbage.
Hitchens later enjoys a gibe about the "overwhelmingly Catholic" Irish Republican Army.
White Win Flag
from Wrigley Field's flag-hoisting custom
Chip Caray, radio announcer, loves to say "It's white flag time at Wrigley!" when his Chicago Cubs win a game. Stadium functionaries hoist a white flag with a blue "W" to signify the victory. Interestingly, the color scheme was reversed in 1990 to conform with retired numbers on the same flagpole.
When the Cubs changed the flag's color to white, the landlubbers unwittingly made their victory sign a mark of surrender.
Chip Caray, radio announcer, loves to say "It's white flag time at Wrigley!" when his Chicago Cubs win a game. Stadium functionaries hoist a white flag with a blue "W" to signify the victory. Interestingly, the color scheme was reversed in 1990 to conform with retired numbers on the same flagpole.
When the Cubs changed the flag's color to white, the landlubbers unwittingly made their victory sign a mark of surrender.
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