“Uit die vertaaloefeningen heb ik lering getrokken: dat een leeservaring begint met het overwinnen van irritatie.” p. 16

“Literaire ervaring kwam niet alleen tot stand door het inzetten van je verbeeldingswereld, je fantasie, je dagdromen, maar ook door het lichaam, door het voelen van je ademhalingsritme, als je een tekst hardop las; of tactiel, door de schaatsbewegingen van je hand als je een tekst overschreef.” p. 16

“Eigenlijk zijn de schrijvers van mijn voorkeur allemaal vertalers. Hun boeken behoren tot de categorie die Calvino nog niet heeft genoemd: de boeken die je leest omdat je ze zou willen vertalen, om ze te begrijpen in wat je niet begrijpt van je eigen taal.” p. 75

Uit: Anthony Mertens, Lezen, man! Essays en kritieken, De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, 2006.

Such a pleasure to come across a good homepage. Here’s Douglas Kahn’s: http://www.douglaskahn.com. He is of course, the author of Noise, Water, Meat, probably one of the best books on sound in the arts.

He’s also editor now of an academic magazine on Sensory Studies: The Senses and Society, behind the academic firewall, but the first issue is available for free: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berg/tsas/numberandsomesessioninfo.

Haven’t read any of this yet, but I’ve collected the links:

The American NEA has published a study on reading: http://www.nea.gov/news/news07/TRNR.html.

Critiques from Matthew Kirschenbaum: http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=fgprwfnh32l7d3thj18vh3jz79k9f6fw

And discussion on if:book: http://www.futureofthebook.org/archives/2007/11/the_neas_misreading_of_reading.html.

All this via Jill Walker: http://jilltxt.net/?p=2184.

Aankondiging:

Een vrolijke avond met Onno Kosters, Han van der Vegt, Arnoud van Adrichem, Joost Zwagerman, Fabian Stolk en Arie Altena

Waar: in Perdu, Kloveniersburgwal 86, 1012 CZ Amsterdam, 020 4220542
Hoe laat: 20.30 uur. Zaal open: 20.00 uur.
Datum: woensdag 21 november

We beleven opnieuw een bloeitijd in de Nederlandse epische poëzie. Er worden weer meeslepende verhalen verteld in een dichtvorm die zich uitstekend leent voor voordracht en commentaar. Vandaar deze avond, die door literair-cultureel tijdschrift De Gids wordt georganiseerd ter viering van het verschijnen van haar themanummer met en over epische gedichten.

Poëzie:
Onno Kosters leest Lonely Planet, een hellevaart op een soms ondraaglijk lichte toon.
Han van der Vegt draagt een halfuur voor uit zijn in Homerische versmaat geschreven, meeslepende epos De Paladijnen, dat integraal en verticaal is afgedrukt in De Gids.
Arnoud van Adrichem komt met een aantal gedichtencycli uit zijn debuutbundel Vis.

Commentaar:
Joost Zwagerman licht wat achtergronden toe bij Roeshoofd Hemelt, zijn eerste proeve van epiek.
Fabian Stolk legt uit waarom nu juist de epiek het zo goed doet in de Nederlandse poëzie.
Arie Altena plaatst de epische poëzie in het tijdperk van internet en andere communicatienetwerken.

U wordt door de avond geleid door Dirk van Weelden en Arjen Mulder, beide redacteuren van De Gids.

Het nummer van De Gids is inmiddels uit, en te koop “bij de betere boekhandel”.

Collaborative blog about 18th-century literature, with 2 excellent collaborative readings: http://long18th.wordpress.com/. The critical discussion of The Triumph of Augustan Poetics: English Literary Culture from Butler to Johnson, a book by Blanford Parke, made me almost buy the book immediately…

Reading / browsing books with lots of pictures is like, well, watching a good documentary on television. Or better?

These days I sometimes browse through Vic Gatrell’s City of Laughter, a very detailed account of the satirical prints published in London between 1760 and 1820: with lots of color-illustrations. The text is a bit too detailed for the level of my interest in 18th century London culture, but the prints are great. Review in the Guardian: http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/history/0,,1933468,00.html.

Less academic – so closer to watching a documentary on tevee is The Seventy Great Journeys in History, published by Thames and Hudson. I love a book like this for the pleasurable way in which it fills gaps in my knowledge. And it’s nothing I have to know for any special reason.

I love clicking from one wikipedia-entry to another too as a way of discovering, filling in gaps and learning, but sometimes you just want to lie in a chair with a picture book.

Available in december in Dutch, and in spring 2008 also in an English translation: De Monografie, a complete overview of the works of Dutch avant-gardist, conceptualist, theatermaker, composer and pioneer of electronic music Dick Raaijmakers.

Arjen Mulder and Joke Brouwer of V2_ have worked by now almost three years on the book, and have gone through Dick Raaijmakers papers and other archived ‘stuff’ for it. (I’ve seen quite a few originals pass by here in the V2_ office…).

If you order the Dutch version now, you’ll get a discount. More info: http://www.dickraaijmakers.nl/

Omar (Munoz-Cremers, but he’s Omar here) has made a selection of his writing on music (mostly done for Kindamuzik and De Subjectivisten), burned a pdf of it, gave it the title Toekomstdagen 2002-2007 and put it online at lulu.com as a free download. Which means you can order a hard-copy as well: http://www.lulu.com/content/1285472.

Just finished reading Tom McCarthy’s Remainder.

Years ago I invited Tom McCarthy to do a lecture at the Mediamatic symposium on emulation – as I liked the essays he wrote for Mute. He often wrote about technology and literature: Pynchon, DFW’s Infinite Jest, that sort of stuff. He came and gave a great lecture that I remember was mostly on Shakespeare’s Sonnets…

Remainder made a litte ‘row’, because it was first published by a small art press in Paris (sic), managed to catch attention, and subsequently was published in England too – and was very well received.

Remainder is a novel, amusing, intelligent, well-written, thoughtful, and full of great ideas. It is required reading for anybody interested in contemporary art, re-enactment and authenticity. And certainly for artists who deal with the issues of re-enactment and authenticity in their work.

(Btw: I loved it).

Two years ago F. and me visited New York and Long Island for the wedding of F.’s brother M. We stayed a few days in Queens, I travelled up to Bard College on the train through the beautiful Hudson valley in early autumn, I paid a visit to Bitforms for Sonic Acts, and for the wedding we were in the Hamptons. I enjoyed it, but – possible partly due to the horrible travel (F. wasn’t allowed to fly to NYC on account of a supposedly non-valid passport, had to fly to Dublin first, arrange a new passport and fly back), I decided that was enough of ‘Merika for me. NYC is exciting, but Amsterdam is enough of a city for my taste.

So when I was presented with another visit to the States, this time to Boston, for the wedding of F.’s brother R. I wasn’t too enthusiastic. I’d rather spent my holiday in Europe, somewhere in the mountains…

We decided to stay for 3 nights in Boston, and then go for 4 days to nearby Cape Ann. Short visit, minimize the hassle. Have a holiday too.

Actually, the choice for Cape Ann was made rather late. We would’ve liked to go up to the mountains, but that turned out to be much travel without a car. Plus: camp sites were already closed during the week, and accomodation not easy to find. (Later we learned that accomodations in the White Mountains are booked-out a year in advance for the October-period). The choice for Cape Ann was basically made in account of three factors: 1. coast (F. loves the sea). 2. easy to reach by Commuter Rail. 3. Gloucester, on Cape Ann, is the town of Charles Olson.

Friday

Flight from Schiphol tot Boston. Survived by reading 200+ pages and the essays in the recently published ‘Scroll-version’ of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road – which made me all enthusiastic again for the ‘spontaneous prose’ and the energy of Kerouac, while noting this time, how well-written this book is, and also how sad actually, it celebrates the speed and the travel and ‘life’ and energy, but the heart is sad for the emptiness of it all – so I was reading that while listening to almost the complete set of the Impulse Studio Recordings of the Classic Coltrane Quartet during the 7 hour flight to Boston. Arriving, going through customs and catching the subway to South End, where we walked through a late summer evening to our room, found through http://www.hosthomesofboston.com/, an architect’s house on Dwight Street. Simple, but with may shelves filled with books. To my amazement amongst them the complete works of Tobias Smollett, the complete set of The Spectator and Johnson’s English Dictionary. What?

Saturday

We got up, and immediately found our way to the best breakfast place, with the best coffee in Boston, the South End Buttery: http://www.southendbuttery.com/. We would have breakfast there every morning, and returned a few times more. South End is a richer part of Boston, yet not as rich yet as Back Bay. Quiet. Streets lined with trees. Real nice for a holiday. Boston is a walking city. Everything is in walking distance, and all the districts are small. (The touristy bit is also really small and easy to pass by). The weather was great – it was summer, and it stayed like that for the next week. We visited the public library (with murals by Puvis de Chavannes), walked through the Commons and had of course to hook up with the family that was staying in a hotel in the bussiness district. In the evening we had dinner with them in a very good and far too busy Italian restaurant. Sublime gnocchi but stressy atmosphere. We ended up in the hotelroom of R. and S. – who were to be married the next day. And there we heard that the friend of R. who was supposed to say something at the ceremony had backed-out. F. then said that I wasn’t afraid to speak in public. Which is true. So wouldn’t I say a ‘blessing’? Why not?

Sunday

So the next morning, after a real American breakfast-experience (waffles and apples at the same place in South End), found me browsing the bookshelves for inspiration and quotes on love, marriage, faith. Now all those books in the bed-and-breakfast came in real handy. I didn’t find anything that suited the occasion. All those literary authors seemed to espouse a rather cynical view on the subject. In the end I settled for a bit of Shakespeare that I found in Johnson’s English Dictionary, plus my own words. Shakespeare will always do the job, though afterwards you’ll wonder if he didn’t mean exactly the reverse as what you as a reader just made of it.

Marriage took place in a house in Dedham. Beautiful summer-weather.

We were transported back to the centre of Boston in a bus, that was to drop is off at a Sinatra bar on A-street. The bus was full of (half-) drunken Irish and Americans. The busdriver lost his way in the centre. Having a map on me, I had a fairly good idea of where we were and where we had to go. When everybody was shouting, yeah, we’re real close now!! I could say: “uh-uh, we’re way too far, we should’ve taken a right about a mile back.” Which put me again in the strange and awkward position of the European telling the locals the way to the place they’re heading.

(This happened too on my first visit to the States: when, the driver – a Brooklyn-man – wasn’t sure where to go on Long Island, I said, just flown in from Schiphol and picked up at Kennedy Airport, ‘keep on heading in the direction of Montauk, the place we’re going to is about 10 miles before Montauk’, ‘Whoa, you never bin here and you tellin’ me where to go. Whass this?’ I had done nothing else than look up where we were going on Google-maps.)

Now, as a regular visitor of the monday-night concerts of DNK, the first thing I should’ve done in Boston is to check out when Jorrit Dijkstra (the Dutch free-improv-saxophonist who moved to Boston years ago) was playing. There is a lively avant-garde improv-scene in Boston, and it would’ve been good if I’d played the ambassador of DNK in Boston for a night. But time was too short, too many other things to do. So I am sitting in the Sinatra-bar on A-street behind my second pint of Guinness. The bar is filled with wedding-guests and some sort of jazz-trio playing live, as the door swings open and four guys step in, one of them carrying a saxophone-case: Jorrit Dijkstra. Turned out they had been playing around the corner that very night. (I went up to them, introduced myself to a surprised and somewhat bedazzled Jorrit Dijkstra, but of course at such a moment – I am celebrating, it’s a wedding – there’s not so much to say).

F. and me again traversed Boston on foot that night, half an hour from A-street to Dwight Street.

Monday – Friday

On monday we said goodbye to the family and in the afternoon travelled on the Commuter Rail to Rockport – an hour on the train from South Station, for less than 8 dollars, and a beautiful ride as well. Why Rockport? It seems like a tourist trap (“an artist colony”), but it’s on the sea, it’s easy to reach from Boston, and yes, the coast line is great. Moreover, October is more or less off-season – many of the inns still fully booked, there is no endless line of cars cueing up from Gloucester to see Bear’s Neck. It turned out te be pretty ideal for a short holiday.

We stayed three nights at the Seven South Street Inn, which provides a true American breakfast of four courses (like: fruit salad, a big muffin, a smoothie, and pie or quiche – all freshly cooked/prepared). A good place: http://www.sevensouthstreetinn.com/. Just five minutes from Old Garden Beach – every morning that was the first thing: go down to the beach before breakfast.

The weather was formidable. We had fish for dinner every day. We had lobster at Roy Moore’s (at Bear’s Neck, just a fish shop where you can eat the fish at the back, sitting on old crates. We tasted the best smoked mackerel ever, there).

The B&B came with bikes – ‘cheapo’s’, but good enough for going around there. On tuesday we walked to Whale’s Cove and back, and in the afternoon cycled to Halibut’s Point, a small nature park, with a stunning coastline and view.

On wednesday we walked through Dogtown Commons to Gloucester, and subsequently visited Gloucester. It is funny that when you announce you’re going to walk through Dogtown Commons, people will warn you it’s dangerous. We were asked to call in as soon as we’d be in Gloucester, as people got lost in Dogtown all the time. We’d bought a map at the nice bookstore in Rockport (http://www.toadhallbooks.org/, very nice bookstore). Walking through Dogtown seemed quite straightforward. Of course it turned out to be pretty clear. Yet it is true that at the Rockport side we almost lost the trail, and everything began to look the same. So it was easy to imagine that you could become lost. Trails are said to be marked, but often are not. The closer you get to Gloucester, the wider the trails are, and also around there they are marked. Looking back we spent a much longer time in Dogtown Commons, than one woudl expect from a 8 kilometer-walk that seperates Rockport from Gloucester. I think we went in at ten in the morning and came out at three in the afternoon. We spent time looking at the Babson boulders, F. made pictures, we looked around, paused at Whale’s Jaw, searched for the remains of Dogtown, still it seems too many hours for such a small distance.

In Gloucester we paid a visit to the Public Library, looked quickly into the historical museum, had a coffee, spent time in the second hand bookshop where I bought some books and talked about Olson with the owner. (Of course). And passed the Harborside cycling shop when it was closing. Changing my mind I turned around to have a look through the window. “Technically I’m closed, but you’re welcome to have a look if you want” one of the guys said. We did. Great shop: http://www.harborsidecycle.com/. Has great rental bikes too, so if you’re planning to go to Cape Ann and want to do some good riding, go there.

And then I must’ve said the right thing – I think I made a remark about the single speed cyclo-cross bike in the shop – because we (well, that’s the owner Coley Bryan and me, with F. looking around) spent about half an hour chatting there. Chatting about cyclo-cross, Gloucester hosts the most important cyclo-cross race in the States, he was racing himself, they had their own team: Harborside cycles. If you check out http://www.cyclingnews.com and search for cyclo-cross races in New England, you’ll find their names in the results. He’d visited Gent and Amsterdam last year – for the cyclo-cross. We talked about cycling holidays – his brother had just come all the way from Oregon to Gloucester, he’d done the last six stages with him, coming over the Catskill Mountains. We talked about Jonathan Page and the future for American cyclo-cross. Just a nice, energetic chat between cycling-afficionados. So now I ride around Amsterdam wearing a Harborside Cycles cap (“Gloucester, in cod we trust”). I’m thinking about getting the team shirt…

Thursday was supposed to be the warmest day (in fact friday turned out to be even warmer). We had to move from the Seven South Street Inn (fully booked) to Sally Webster’s – equally good just a bit more expensive – for the last night. But we could still use the bikes, so we cycled on the cheapo’s to Long Beach and spent the whole day on the beach. No sun-cream – I thought, well, it’s October, so no real need to worry – and we both got sunburned. Just a day on the beach. We’d had to wait until October for it. So we felt lucky.

On friday, our last day, we went to Whale’s Cove again, found a spot on the rocks in the shade to protect our skins, and read. (Two older American ladies were there too. They saw me carrying two books, and asked: “What are you reading? We are librarians, so we’re curious”. “The biography of Charles Olson and the original scroll version of On the Road.” “Oh! You’ll be fine!”). In the afternoon back on the train to Boston, and then back to Schiphol.

I enjoyed this visit to the States. I think I enjoy New England much more than New York City.