Wednesday, September 3. 2008
Reading Leonel Rugama Posted by Konstantin Tovstiadi
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Following the lead of Emily Dickinson and Zinaida Gippius, here comes a very short poem from a Nicaraguan poet, Leonel Rugama - written in 1969, when he was nineteen, one year before he died, shot by the police for guerilla activities, refusing to surrender (famously responding to the appeal to surrender with "tell your mother to surrender"). Introduced to me by R.E. Davis - a friend and a poet - and one who wishes to have his last words to be no less glorious than Rugama's.
EPITAFIO Aquí yacen los restos mortales del que en vida buscó sin alivio una a una tu cara en todos los buses urbanos EPITAPH Here lie the mortal remains of one who in life searched without relief for one by one your face on every bus in the city Rugama, Leonel. (1985). The Earth is a satellite of the moon (Translated by Sara Miles, Richard Schaaf, and Nancy Weisberg) In Spanish, the poem flows better because the Spanish verb buscar, to look for, requires no preposition between itself and its subject - buscó tu cara, looked for you face. In English, the preposition is wedged in between - perhaps it could be moved to read 'searched without relief / one / by / one / for your face'? Thursday, August 28. 2008Wikibashing
One thing I can't stand among academics is mistaking quantity for quality. This behavior takes many forms - assigning 15 books to read in a class when carefully picked snippets from 5 would do, putting a hundred questions on a test when 20 would do, conducting a hundred interviews when data would saturate after 30. Another form of academic nazism is paying too much attention to the protocol at the expense of the content. Here we have people taking off 10 points for 1.1 inch margins instead of 1.0 inch margins prescribed by APA, but letting through bad arguments and not rewarding great ideas; respecting peer-reviewed journals but turning up their noses at non peer reviewed ones; talking ad nauseam about Research 1 universities and then giving sucky lectures and getting horrible evaluations.
There is one particularly disturbing form of academic snobbism - Wikibashing, bitching about Wikipedia - how it is unreliable, incomplete, biased, wrong - an untouchable for a 'true academic'. I couldn't disagree more. It is sheer blindness to believe that everything on the Internet is good information; but it is also myopic to dismiss a resource only because it is an online collaborative project.  I will start with a far-fetched example. In my home town, we have a big park right next to our house. I had to cross it on my way to school for ten years, and then every day on my way to the university for another five. The park has paved paths and boulevards; but it also has well-trodden trails that criss-cross it in every direction. They are made by the people scurrying to work, to the shop, to the bus stop; they are usually the most efficient ways to get from place to place. Landscape workers fight these every now and then by planting shrubs across them, digging ditches, putting lines - but the people always win, and the trails return. The park planners knew what they were doing when they laid out the paved roads; but they can't beat the efficiency that comes out of the collective wisdom of thousands of people, thousands of trials, day after day. In the same way, collective knowledge accumulates in truly collaborative projects like Wikipedia and without any top-down control (given enough time) distills to levels unthinkable in any managed top-down environment. The established reputable sources can still be unreliable. I still remember looking up Mt. Elbrus in Britannica - only to find the most God awful picture of it I have ever seen - shot from the Baksan valley, with lower mountains in the forefront blocking the bottom two thirds of the mountain and the top third covered in clouds. This is not at all what Elbrus looks like. It is a gorgeous mountain, especially from the North, and from the South, too - provided you can get high enough to get an unobstructed view. Worse still, the picture is still there - even in the online Britannica - see for yourself. Wednesday, August 27. 2008Thursday, August 21. 2008
Reading Paul Ricœur Posted by Konstantin Tovstiadi
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When Noam Chomsky has something to say about politics, people listen up. When less known linguists talk elections, no one cares. When Umberto Eco has a book about ugliness, people buy it and read it. No one cares what less known semioticians have to say. In a similar way, when Paul Ricœur publishes his thoughts on translation, the translatology community is eager to hear his thoughts, and is ready to forgive the shortcomings of the enterprise, just because The Great Man Himself was kind enough to grace the subject of their inquiry with his attention.
Ricœur, Paul. (2004). Sur la traduction. Paris: Bayard. Ricœur's opus won't burden the reader with lengthy discussions; in fact lengthy is not the word that comes to mind regarding this book. The word book is hardly applicable either; it has the dimensions of a pocket paperback - a very thin paperback. When you open it, you realize that there are only 60 pages made of particularly thick paper, sparsely populated with large print with uncomfortably large margins. You get the impression that the editors really wanted to pass it as a book and went to great lengths to stretch the text to afford it the looks of one. There are three essays. The first one was originally presented as a talk and has lost none of the features of an oration in print; it is repetitive, light, and rather commonplace. If you are looking for novel ideas you must have to look elsewhere; the essay is largely a restatement of the obvious, however elegantly phrased, and a dull reaction to Antoine Berman's anything but dull book, L'épreuve de l'étranger. The second essay, Le paradigme de la traduction, is the most rewarding of the three; the third (Un "passage: Traduire l'intraduisible) reads like a brief synopsis of the second and adds very little to what has already been said in more detail in it. The second essay is elegant and witty; if nothing else, it finds new ways to discuss old ideas and provides new metaphors to visualize old divisions. In discussing linguistic relativity, Ricœur justly notes that it amounts to intranslatability: Il faut allors conclure que la mécompréhension est de droit, que la traduction est théoriquement impossible est que les individus bilingues ne peuvent être que des schizophrènes (p. 29). Starting with schizophrenic bilinguals, Ricœur's gallery of vivid imagery continues with a wonderful picture of paranoid native speakers threatened by translation: Travail de traduction, conquis sur des résistances intimes motivées par la peur, voir la haine de l'étranger, perçu comme une menace, dirigée contre notre propre identité langagière (p. 41). But it not just exquisite descriptions and rewording of old dichotomies that we find here; there is an excellent discussion on how the intranslatable is lost in the translation not because it is lost in the process, but because it is a translation of the unuttered and the unutterable in the original: Et si nous n'avions pas côtoye les inqiétantes contrées de i'indicible, aurions nous le sens du secret, de l'intraduisible secret? Et nos meilleurs échanges, dans l'amour et dans l'amitié, garderaient-ils cette qualité de discrétion - secret / discrétion - que préserve la distance dans la proximité? (p. 52). For this thought alone, one is willing to forgive the repetitions and the platitudes; and in Ricœur's defense, his over-reliance on old dichotomies (translatable / intranslatable; home / foreign; fidelity / infidelity) is primarily a reflection of what dominates the scholarly discourse in translation studies; it is not surprising, then, that an outsider exposed to these thoughts should feel compelled to react to them before anything else. Ricœur, Paul. (2004). Sur la traduction. Paris: Bayard. Monday, August 11. 2008
Reading Marta Ketro Posted by Konstantin Tovstiadi
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People who write blogs usually read other people's blogs (sometimes it feels that no one else does). I have a few favorites; a recent find is a Russian blog by Marta Ketro (a nom-de-plume based on "karta metro", the subway map). Here's a short post from her blog, translated into English (poorly translated by me, that is).
The Russian original is here. Those who love you must be killed* Don’t take it personally, please. Those who love you must be killed. It’s best to do it right away, as soon as you notice those doggie-devoted eyes following your face, when you see the arched eyebrows and the curved mouth, when you notice the trailing after you from room to room, always keeping you in sight. You feel sorry to do it, and it seems like there is no reason for it yet. But do it now, or it will be too late. Because of his love, he will dig a warm mouldy burrow not far away from you. For a while he will be watching you from there, but then he will start advancing, nudging you or even dragging you over so you can look in and see, if only out of the corner of your eye, how great everything is in his burrow.  It sure is cosy… There is always warmth, food, clean sheets, and a multitude of curious trifles (every one of which he is ready to give to you as a gift) – it is nice, although a bit stuffy. When the winter approaches, you will start thinking that it is actually good that there are no draughts. Perhaps you will resist it that year; get by through the winter living in a snowdrift, and you will greet the Summer free – almost free, because you will start living with the sensation of a red dot between your shoulder blades, the crosshair of his loving eyes. And you will get used to the idea that after all you should call every now and then. At least reply to text messages. At least eat his cooking once a week. At least sleep with him every ten days. Because he loves you.And then inevitably you will feel guilty – it would seem like you are ruining his life, thoughtlessly using the warmth of his heart and giving nothing in return. And one evening, one particularly lonely evening, you will come to him without a call and you will stay. Because it is nice to see his face light up happily just because you are next to him. It makes you feel like a magician. Is it necessary to say how it will end? How his embraces will become tighter and tighter, how your personal space will become smaller and smaller, his requests will turn to demands, and the expression of happiness on his face will be replaced by a whimsical irritated grimace. So kill him now. And then, once you are alone, look in your wardrobe and take out the picture of The One from underneath a heap of underwear, the one to whom you wanted to give your life, the one who knew how to make your happy, the one off whom you couldn’t take your eyes. The one that killed you one day. * with the exception of children and cats © Marta Ketro, http://marta-ketro.livejournal.com/ Monday, August 11. 2008
Olympus Zuiko Digital 35-100 f2 SHG lens Posted by Konstantin Tovstiadi
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Last weekend I shot my first wedding. I sold my flash a while ago so I wanted to use available light only; a perfect excuse to rent the 35-100 f2 zoom. It came like clockwork from ProPhotoRental in an indestructible-looking case. I have seen this lens before in a store; I knew what I was getting myself into. Surely it is a large lens, and not a light one; but it is not too bad, especially given what it can do. Here are my impressions:
- this is a lens from Olympus' top tier - the Super High Grade, in the same rank as the 7-14, 14-35, 90-250, 150 and 300. It is built very well - all metal construction, a wide focusing ring with excellent dampening and lots of travel, a well placed zoom ring, a well balanced tripod leg. The hood has a little door on the bottom for rotating filters; it also has felt-like lining on the inside to capture stray light and reduce flair.  An x-ray view of the Olympus E-3 with the 35-100 mounted - without the hood, this lens is as long as the 50-200 extended to 200 mm. With the hood, it is about a third longer still. When you show up with this lens at an event, no one has any doubts who the official photographer is. I had it mounted on the E-3 with the vertical grip and the grip strap. Nothing says "get-the-hell-out-of-my-way-with-your-point-and-shoot" like this lens. It sure stops Uncle Joe from talking to you about how he is going to get better pictures with his Digital Rebel. This might sound stupid, but it is important - it lets you work in peace. - the 35-100 / E-3 / grip / 2 batteries combo is heavy. 3kg heavy to be exact. At the end of the day, you feel it in your right wrist and left forearm. But well worth the weight once you see the pictures. - focusing is a bit less noisy then on the 50-200 (non SWD); and it is much more accurate then with any of the High Grade (again, non SWD) lenses. Sometimes it felt like after the lens acquired approximate focusing the sound of the motor would change as it micro adjusted itself to perfect focus. For a long and bright lens, precision of focusing is super important, and this lens can do it. Out of the 1200 shots I took at the wedding, 900 were worth keeping; and only maybe 50 were tossed because of focusing errors. - zooming is all internal, which is good because people can't tell if you are shooting a general scene or actually sneaking up to take a portrait shot. The reach is long enough for events where you can move around - it would be too short for a concert in a big hall, but for weddings this is a perfect reach - long enough to be 5-10 meters from the action (=out of the way) and still capture everything. The wide end is a lot easier to work with than the 50mm on the 50-200 - even indoors, unless you are trying to shoot a group picture in a tiny hallway, you can usually get by without changing to a wider lens. - this is one of the only two lenses in the whole SLR world that is a continuous f2 zoom. Having a fixed aperture is great - on the 50-200 you might start shooting at 200mm and f3.5 and as you roll down to 50mm you have to force it to go back to f2.8 manually - if you forget to do it, that's a half stop of light lost, which sucks if you don't have much light to start with. - I always thought the Super High Grade description was marketing BS. Now that I have used one - it is not. Going from Standard to High Grade you experience a big change in quality; but just as you thought it couldn't get any better, you try the Super High Grade, and the improvement is even more noticeable. - optically, this lens is flawless. Its sharpness rivals or even exceeds the 50mm macro; and it is cuttingly sharp at all focal lengths, and at all f-stops, even at f2. There is no light falloff in the corners, no corner softness, no aberrations, no barrel or pincushion distortion - just perfect sharpness, wonderfully smooth background blur, and insanely rich color and contrast.  From left to right: 35-100, 50-200, 11-22, 8FE - this is a dream lens for people and portraits. If I made a living from people's photography, this lens and an e-3 would be all I would ever need. - this is the best lens in any class I have ever used. I have shot with both Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VR (on a D300) and the Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 L IS (on a Canon 1D Mark II) and optically they are light years away from this lens. Their only advantage is silent, fast focus - which for many many applications is more critical than the ultimate image quality. In a slower paced, controlled settings, though, the 35-100 is an easy preference. - the only problem for me with this lens is resisting the temptation to buy one for myself. This is a pro lens - you shouldn't have one unless you sell your photos, and unless the lens will pay for itself. At about $2000, this is not a cheap lens; but given what it can do, it is worth it, beyond any doubt. Saturday, August 9. 2008Scammunication
Every now and then a university professor has to become a con artist. Every now and then you have to teach something you don't believe in - because that is a part of the required course, because the dean said so, or because saying otherwise would be true but not PC enough. It is not a pleasant thing to do - one of the biggest reliefs for me of not teaching for the last two years was this liberation from con artistry.
I haven't taught long enough in countries other than the US; but I have seen it happen here for sure. And then it also seems that the amount of wishful thinking in education varies from discipline to discipline, from department to department. Communication is a fertile ground for educational hoodwinking. Everything is communication, and depending on the skill of the teacher it is either the biggest treasure for the student or the biggest soap bubble waiting to burst. Communication is a vital skill, yet an auxiliary one - you cannot make a living just communicating - even though paradoxically that may be all you end up doing. It is a tool not a trade. On the academic side, it is an embarrassment of a discipline. It constantly has to justify its existence by differentiating itself from media studies, journalism, linguistics, rhetoric. It constantly has to explain itself - this is what we do, and this is why it is important. The most uncomfortable thing is to explain why the laymen don't see that there is a place for this "science" - you have to fall back on the elephant-in-the-room type arguments - we are so ubiquitous you can't see us. This is like McCarthy era conspiracies about not being to detect the Soviet missile system - we have no evidence of their existence because they are so sophisticated we can't see them, hence they exist. And that is even before you have to explain how come no one in Europe studies communication (except for the Dutch, who really study argumentation). And before the fact that no one gives a hoot about communication in Ivy League schools (not that they should be seen as an example in anything). Before you get to see the I-want-to-be-an-experimental-psychologist-but-suck-at-statistics inferiority complex of some communication "science lovers". Is it really that bad? Yes and no. They are communication departments made up of talented, motivated, engaged scholars that produce real work. I have seen one myself. But unfortunately the vagueness of disciplinary boundaries also creates loopholes for unimaginative, anti-intellectual, tradesman-style time waste masquerading as scholarship. I have a rule for calling my parents - never call when sad. I should make another communication rule for myself - never right angry blog posts. |
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