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Sunday, September 01, 2024

Spring Sings in Sydney - What We Learned In Our First Year of 404 Media

 Hey, you!

Out there in the cold Getting lonely, getting old Can you feel time?

How to stop time: kiss.
How to travel in time: read.
         How to escape time: music.
                  How to feel time: write.
                          How to release time: breathe.
~ Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive


Matt Haig


I’m learning to love the sound of my feet walking away from things not meant for me

What We Learned In Our First Year of 404 Media. “We are very proud and humbled to report that, because of your support, 404 Media is working. Our business is sustainable, we are happy, and we aren’t going anywhere.” Fantastic.



How To Sing Infanticide: Karita Mattila On Portraying Janáček’s Villainesses


"The bottom line ... is to remember that she, (and) everybody else in Janáček’s operas, are actually human beings. There aren’t any heroes, there are mostly survivors. … I always think that if somebody is considered an evil person, they must be so stiff emotionally, which makes them act in a certain way." 
Edith Zimmerman: “My main thing is trying to figure out who I am again. And how to make myself happy.”



How A Play About Depression Became A Worldwide Phenomenon


An uplifting play about depression, Duncan Macmillan’s Every Brilliant Thing has become a global phenomenon since its Edinburgh fringe debut 10 years ago. It has been performed in 63 countries in around 400 professional productions. - The Guardian

Anatomy Of An Artworld Fraud


Describing a particularly vertiginous exchange in which “somewhere between $125k and $175k is created out of thin air, a few phone calls and an expensive dinner,” Whitfield outlines two possible responses to making money like that: it can make you feel very clever, or it can make you feel like a fraud. 

When Is It Okay To Quit Reading A Book?

The debate is much older than the internet, but in online reading communities such as Goodreads, or on the literary sides of Instagram or TikTok, the acronym “DNF,” for “Did Not Finish,” abounds—as do arguments about when doing so is appropriate. - The Atlantic

The Walls Have Eyes, Not To Mention Mouths


That is to say, in Chile, artists use murals to communicate ideas. One longtime political muralist says, “In the streets, anonymity is important. … It’s the message that is interpreted by the viewer that I care about.” - The Guardian (UK)

At Asymptote Xiao Yue Shan speaks with the Tawada Yoko-translator, in Nocturnal Tonguejests: Susan Bernofsky on translating Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel.
       Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel is the title of the US edition -- published by New Directions; see their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com -- but this is being published in the UK as Spontaneous Acts, by Dialogue Books; see their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.co.uk, and Bernofsky does address this publisher-in(s)anity:
The UK title, Spontaneous Acts, also has an interesting story, because Dialogue Books -- which is a really great publishing house -- had a vision for the book that was, among other things, a little more commercial than the New Directions version. We asked Yoko Tawada what she thought about Spontaneous Acts, and she said it seemed like a fine title to her. She's very interested in rolling the dice and seeing what comes up, so now we have a chance to see what fortunes this book will have under the title Spontaneous Acts. Will the different titles and different covers find different readerships ?

 

     (As I've often noted, I think it is ridiculous and foolish for different English-language translations (or originals for that matter) to have different titles in different markets -- especially in this age of online-look-up. But publishers obviously know what they are doing ..... And this isn't the first time they've done this to a Tawada-work: what was published as The Emissary in the US was published as The Last Children of Tokyo in the UK)
       Dialogue Books is new to me -- but, as a Hachette UK imprint, is certainly much more commercial than US independent New Directions, and I guess it's good to see Tawada hit it big(ger) in this way.