Category Archives: dust

On false starts

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Ever start a project only to find out you were doing everything wrong and you need to start over from scratch. Some times writing projects are like that–you write a page before you realize that you were on the wrong track, that you were in left-field, that you were lost. There are nights when no matter what you write, you aren’t going to like it, and it turns into a false start that you mercifully throw away the next day. False starts are strange mirages that seem real enough, but then they quickly turn to sand and flow away through your fingers. I can’t even count the times I’ve written four or five sentences, realized it wasn’t working, and thrown it away. The development of a real idea, something concrete that catches the imagination, is often a very fleeting moment, a bit of creative lightening that never strikes twice in the same spot. That lucid moment when you decide to write about love or death, war or peace, is not always or ever obvious. Often, the creative juices flow, but slowly, sometimes painfully, in the middle of the chaos of a regular day, hidden within the mundane noise of everyday routine. That one great idea–a mere fragment of an idea that pops up in a lecture, a reading, a song, a newspaper headline–does not announce itself as a great idea. I use my false starts to weed out the vegetable patch and find that one clear idea that is yearning to be developed into something elegant, more elaborate, more complex. But the false starts fall into the gutter like autumn leaves, brown and gray, having served a purpose, now discarded, turning slowly to dust.

On a hot day in central Texas

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I need to whine a little bit about the heat because, surprise, it was another hot day in central Texas today. To say simply that it was hot is to underestimate completely the phenomenon that is hot weather in Texas. By 9 a.m. one could already feel a very hot sun beating on one’s shoulders, and that blinding white light of endless sunshine was quickly invading the long shadows of the morning. One doesn’t know whether to put on more clothes to protect from the heat or wear less clothing in a futile attempt to stay cool. The point is that no matter what you do to try and stay cool, you will get hot if you must flee the cool comfort of your air-conditioning. Trying to stay cool in the heat is pointless, futile, torture. Just walking ten minutes to another building is a challenge because there is never enough shade. The heat is a lot like wearing an extra coat and you can’t take it off. No matter where you go, it follows you around, turning the inside of your car into an oven, burning the lawn to a crisp, reddening your skin, and making you feel tired and spiritless. If I wanted to live in a perpetual sauna, I would have one installed in my backyard. Instead, Mother Nature has installed a persistent high pressure dome over central Texas, driving the daily temperatures up to 100F almost every day. Now, there are people who like the heat and moved to central Texas to take advantage of this suburb of the sun, but I don’t get it. I know that some people have swallowed their fair share of winters, snow, cold, and ice, and don’t ever want to see another snow bank again and have taken refuge in central Texas, one of the hottest places in the United States outside of Florida and California. I think they are over-reacting, but then again, I find nothing attractive in this non-stop heat, sweat, and steam. Growing up in the cold, cool spaces of Minnesota, I put in my time with dead cold temperatures, icy roads and sidewalks, blinding snows, and endless gray days, but I think, and I know this is totally subjective, that the cold was a little less oppressive than the endless heat of August and September in central Texas. The heat makes even the simplest chores a lot of work. Even going for a walk, getting a little well-needed exercise, is almost impossible. Doing any kind of yardwork is almost impossible. Being outside for any length of time borders on dangerous. Perhaps it would be less oppressive if there was a break in the daily routine, but this time of year the weather is the same every day for about two months. It doesn’t rain, and it cools off very little at night and lows in the eighties are not uncommon, especially in August. The monotony of the daily heat is depressing, continuous, unending. I know I have a bad attitude about this, that dealing with the heat is just a state of mind, that a bit of heat is really not the end of the world, that sometime in October, the temperatures will go down and relief will come. In the meantime, this hot weather makes me feel out of sorts, grumpy, even. In the meantime, I can only dream about cool air, frosty mornings, errant snow showers, and cold rain.

On a hot day in central Texas

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I need to whine a little bit about the heat because, surprise, it was another hot day in central Texas today. To say simply that it was hot is to underestimate completely the phenomenon that is hot weather in Texas. By 9 a.m. one could already feel a very hot sun beating on one’s shoulders, and that blinding white light of endless sunshine was quickly invading the long shadows of the morning. One doesn’t know whether to put on more clothes to protect from the heat or wear less clothing in a futile attempt to stay cool. The point is that no matter what you do to try and stay cool, you will get hot if you must flee the cool comfort of your air-conditioning. Trying to stay cool in the heat is pointless, futile, torture. Just walking ten minutes to another building is a challenge because there is never enough shade. The heat is a lot like wearing an extra coat and you can’t take it off. No matter where you go, it follows you around, turning the inside of your car into an oven, burning the lawn to a crisp, reddening your skin, and making you feel tired and spiritless. If I wanted to live in a perpetual sauna, I would have one installed in my backyard. Instead, Mother Nature has installed a persistent high pressure dome over central Texas, driving the daily temperatures up to 100F almost every day. Now, there are people who like the heat and moved to central Texas to take advantage of this suburb of the sun, but I don’t get it. I know that some people have swallowed their fair share of winters, snow, cold, and ice, and don’t ever want to see another snow bank again and have taken refuge in central Texas, one of the hottest places in the United States outside of Florida and California. I think they are over-reacting, but then again, I find nothing attractive in this non-stop heat, sweat, and steam. Growing up in the cold, cool spaces of Minnesota, I put in my time with dead cold temperatures, icy roads and sidewalks, blinding snows, and endless gray days, but I think, and I know this is totally subjective, that the cold was a little less oppressive than the endless heat of August and September in central Texas. The heat makes even the simplest chores a lot of work. Even going for a walk, getting a little well-needed exercise, is almost impossible. Doing any kind of yardwork is almost impossible. Being outside for any length of time borders on dangerous. Perhaps it would be less oppressive if there was a break in the daily routine, but this time of year the weather is the same every day for about two months. It doesn’t rain, and it cools off very little at night and lows in the eighties are not uncommon, especially in August. The monotony of the daily heat is depressing, continuous, unending. I know I have a bad attitude about this, that dealing with the heat is just a state of mind, that a bit of heat is really not the end of the world, that sometime in October, the temperatures will go down and relief will come. In the meantime, this hot weather makes me feel out of sorts, grumpy, even. In the meantime, I can only dream about cool air, frosty mornings, errant snow showers, and cold rain.

On translating

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Translating by definition is falsification and, ultimately, betrayal. Languages are not parallel so all translation is marked by what is lost, not by what is gained. All translators know this because it is their job to understand, interpret, and compromise as they switch a text or discourse from one language to another. There is no such thing as a literal translation, and all bilingual people understand this chasm between languages that cannot be bridged by translating. Translation is about changing a text is such a way that it might be understandable to people who don’t speak the original language. All translation is about loss. As I look at an English translation of Dante’s Inferno, I can only lament the loss of rhythm, sound, and rhyme. We get the “gist” of what Dante is saying about sin and shame, ego and pride, but his art as a poet is lost forever: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita. Translating and translation are about the translator turning a blind eye to the myriad and multiple meanings that cling to the original words and sacrificing the author’s creativity and originality so that the text might be accessible to others who fall outside the circle of the author’s language. Yet, translators prevail, get hired, and they do their jobs with little shame or humility. Translations are as ubiquitous as taxes and death. Could it be, all along, that translation is the world’s oldest profession? The problem, of course, is not translation, but the multiple languages the people of the world speak, that Tower of Babel from which we are doomed to inhabit forever. Yet, I am not in favor of making one language a required, dogmatic official language. The more common norm is for people to live in multilingual societies. Even today there are many areas of the world where people speak two, three, or even four languages according to the demands of the social situation. Being multilingual does not solve the problem of translation but it does eliminate the need for translation. If a person speaks Italian, reads Italian, then anything they experience in that language is self-explanatory even if the person’s first language might be German or French. Translation only occurs if the original language is a barrier to understanding the text, or conversation, or song. The only way to approach translation is to assume failure before you even start, and by assuming failure, the translator can only produce a new text which was inspired by the original. In a sense all texts are failed translations of other texts, and there exists no ur-text or Q manuscript which might have been original. Misreading, misunderstandings, ambiguity, mistakes, lacunae, accidents, double-entendre, obscurity, complexity, prejudice, bias, and misinterpretation all plague the translator who cannot avoid or evade his/her own human condition as imperfect translator. In the end, all translators must recognize their failure, ignore the imperfection of their work, and move forward to the next sentence with the understanding that failure is the best they can do. In a larger sense, this is the existential question of the human condition–translator as failure.

On translating

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Translating by definition is falsification and, ultimately, betrayal. Languages are not parallel so all translation is marked by what is lost, not by what is gained. All translators know this because it is their job to understand, interpret, and compromise as they switch a text or discourse from one language to another. There is no such thing as a literal translation, and all bilingual people understand this chasm between languages that cannot be bridged by translating. Translation is about changing a text is such a way that it might be understandable to people who don’t speak the original language. All translation is about loss. As I look at an English translation of Dante’s Inferno, I can only lament the loss of rhythm, sound, and rhyme. We get the “gist” of what Dante is saying about sin and shame, ego and pride, but his art as a poet is lost forever: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita. Translating and translation are about the translator turning a blind eye to the myriad and multiple meanings that cling to the original words and sacrificing the author’s creativity and originality so that the text might be accessible to others who fall outside the circle of the author’s language. Yet, translators prevail, get hired, and they do their jobs with little shame or humility. Translations are as ubiquitous as taxes and death. Could it be, all along, that translation is the world’s oldest profession? The problem, of course, is not translation, but the multiple languages the people of the world speak, that Tower of Babel from which we are doomed to inhabit forever. Yet, I am not in favor of making one language a required, dogmatic official language. The more common norm is for people to live in multilingual societies. Even today there are many areas of the world where people speak two, three, or even four languages according to the demands of the social situation. Being multilingual does not solve the problem of translation but it does eliminate the need for translation. If a person speaks Italian, reads Italian, then anything they experience in that language is self-explanatory even if the person’s first language might be German or French. Translation only occurs if the original language is a barrier to understanding the text, or conversation, or song. The only way to approach translation is to assume failure before you even start, and by assuming failure, the translator can only produce a new text which was inspired by the original. In a sense all texts are failed translations of other texts, and there exists no ur-text or Q manuscript which might have been original. Misreading, misunderstandings, ambiguity, mistakes, lacunae, accidents, double-entendre, obscurity, complexity, prejudice, bias, and misinterpretation all plague the translator who cannot avoid or evade his/her own human condition as imperfect translator. In the end, all translators must recognize their failure, ignore the imperfection of their work, and move forward to the next sentence with the understanding that failure is the best they can do. In a larger sense, this is the existential question of the human condition–translator as failure.

On walking in the shade

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Summer, July, specifically, always reminds me of my eternal for shadow. The sun and I just don’t get along at all. Light snow and 27F and I’m happy. So today I’m out for my daily constitutional and it’s already pushing 90F really hard, there are no clouds in sight, and the early morning shade of the buildings is already in short supply. I move from tree to tree only the sidewalk, but the shade is quickly dwindling, and the white light of the sun beating down on the Castilian central mesa is brutal. At just around 2,030 feet of elevation, the air is just thin enough to let the sun fry you to a crisp if you let it. Since the average humidity is just under 30% on any given day in summer, the shade is a nice refuge from the sun–you feel warm, but you aren’t going to pass out from heat stroke either. You can even feel the breeze when you walk in the shade. The problem is, however, there isn’t enough shade to go around, and frequently the geometry between the angle of the sun and the orientation of the buildings is wrong, leaving you out in the sun. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no vampire, I can handle a little sun, but this is not the time of year to find out how much. Funny thing is that when you want a little heating from the sun–mid-January, let’s say–you can’t get it because of the low angle of the sun all day. The shade is the last refuge of the air-conditionally challenged. Sitting in the shade and drinking a nice, cold glass of lemonade is a fine thing do on a hot July day, but installing new sidewalk in the middle of the burning sunshine holds absolutely no interest for me. I saw lots of people working out in the sun this morning even before it was really hot, and none of them looked as if they were enjoying any of it. Things slow down in July precisely because there is not a enough shade to go around and everyone must share. The shade is lit by indirect light which means the bright whiteness of the day won’t hurt your eyes–colors are muted, shadows are deeper, a million shades of gray play off the multiple urban surfaces of the city. To sit in the shade on a hot summer day and do nothing but relax is a pleasure which must be experienced rather than narrated. When you have already been sweating, your mouth is dry, your head is hurting, you feel hot, and the shade is nowhere to be seen, summer seems incredibly cruel. I’ve been through cold, ice, and snow, biting winds, and bitter cold temperatures, but I’ve never felt worse than when I’ve had to work in the blazing sun with no respite in sight, sweat streaming down my face, running everywhere. There is something about the bright light, the heat, that hurts my soul, that makes me feel bad, that makes me want to stay inside, to forget my daily constitutional. Yet, walking outside is such an important part of good health, both mental and physical, that I must face my worst enemy and venture out into the sun, the light, the heat. Yes, I wear a hat, sunscreen, and that helps alleviate the heat, but it doesn’t make it go away. Only the earth, tilted on its axis, moving blindly around the sun, changing the angle of the sun, gives me any relief, but in the meantime, I will continue to walk in the shade.

On walking in the shade

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Summer, July, specifically, always reminds me of my eternal for shadow. The sun and I just don’t get along at all. Light snow and 27F and I’m happy. So today I’m out for my daily constitutional and it’s already pushing 90F really hard, there are no clouds in sight, and the early morning shade of the buildings is already in short supply. I move from tree to tree only the sidewalk, but the shade is quickly dwindling, and the white light of the sun beating down on the Castilian central mesa is brutal. At just around 2,030 feet of elevation, the air is just thin enough to let the sun fry you to a crisp if you let it. Since the average humidity is just under 30% on any given day in summer, the shade is a nice refuge from the sun–you feel warm, but you aren’t going to pass out from heat stroke either. You can even feel the breeze when you walk in the shade. The problem is, however, there isn’t enough shade to go around, and frequently the geometry between the angle of the sun and the orientation of the buildings is wrong, leaving you out in the sun. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no vampire, I can handle a little sun, but this is not the time of year to find out how much. Funny thing is that when you want a little heating from the sun–mid-January, let’s say–you can’t get it because of the low angle of the sun all day. The shade is the last refuge of the air-conditionally challenged. Sitting in the shade and drinking a nice, cold glass of lemonade is a fine thing do on a hot July day, but installing new sidewalk in the middle of the burning sunshine holds absolutely no interest for me. I saw lots of people working out in the sun this morning even before it was really hot, and none of them looked as if they were enjoying any of it. Things slow down in July precisely because there is not a enough shade to go around and everyone must share. The shade is lit by indirect light which means the bright whiteness of the day won’t hurt your eyes–colors are muted, shadows are deeper, a million shades of gray play off the multiple urban surfaces of the city. To sit in the shade on a hot summer day and do nothing but relax is a pleasure which must be experienced rather than narrated. When you have already been sweating, your mouth is dry, your head is hurting, you feel hot, and the shade is nowhere to be seen, summer seems incredibly cruel. I’ve been through cold, ice, and snow, biting winds, and bitter cold temperatures, but I’ve never felt worse than when I’ve had to work in the blazing sun with no respite in sight, sweat streaming down my face, running everywhere. There is something about the bright light, the heat, that hurts my soul, that makes me feel bad, that makes me want to stay inside, to forget my daily constitutional. Yet, walking outside is such an important part of good health, both mental and physical, that I must face my worst enemy and venture out into the sun, the light, the heat. Yes, I wear a hat, sunscreen, and that helps alleviate the heat, but it doesn’t make it go away. Only the earth, tilted on its axis, moving blindly around the sun, changing the angle of the sun, gives me any relief, but in the meantime, I will continue to walk in the shade.

On cleaning

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Though I am not the neatest person that ever lived–I file by the top-down pile method–I certainly appreciate a clean kitchen, a clean bathroom, clean floors, empty waste baskets, and an empty garbage can. Having a dirty, smelly, full garbage can is not only nasty, it attracts bugs, which is something I just cannot abide. Paradoxically, I am dead lazy when it comes to mopping or dusting, but I am good at doing the dishes, emptying waste baskets, and throwing away unwanted papers and junk mail. I can throw things away, but I have to focus to do it. I can’t stand to see some unidentified black speck on the bathroom floor, but I don’t get up in the morning vowing to mop every last floor in the house. And I hate to vacuum, which makes lots of noise and makes me sneeze, both of which are activities I can do without. I profoundly admire those who have the cleaning bug because immaculate floors are one of life’s great pleasures. I tend to leave piles of stuff all over the place, but with a little bit of a nudge (okay, by hitting me with a two-by-four) I can be convinced to go through a pile and throw most of it away. Books are problematic. First, old books smell a bit and they attract dirt, which are two big negatives for clean freaks who see books as one of their big enemies. New books are not as bad as old books. My oldest book was published in 1798. Dirt is both smart and ubiquitous. Regardless of how hard you try to keep it out, it creeps in everywhere–the garage, the entryway, the bathroom, the living-room. You track things in with your shoes, which are always very dirty, and you bring things in from the outside–food, papers, whatever–which will bring dirt with them. Cleaning is one of the monumental non-stop propositions that must be forever on-going or you will lose, miserably. Clothing is a great example of the perpetual nature of cleaning. In just one day a family of four will generate a load of wash, but it’s not just a load a day–the trajectory of dirty clothing is geometric over time, not arithmetic, so dirty clothing multiplies faster than just a load a day, especially in a hot climate like Texas or Florida where sweating is a national pastime. Soap, cleansers, and detergents are our only hope of ever turning the tide on uncleanliness, and in the end, we must look the other way anyway because real cleanliness is a mirage, is unattainable. Yes, we can make things look clean and picked up, but this is a veneer. Don’t look too close because you may find dust on the staircase or a cobweb in a distant corner, not to mention the stray dust-bunny that may roll up at the most inopportune time to spoil your immaculate “better homes and hovels” effect that you have set out for visiting relatives who think you are great housekeeper and a neat freak. All you can do resist the rising tide of dirt, but you will never defeat it. The mere passage of time is enough to bring tons of dust and dirt to your front door even if you aren’t there to dirty things up. Dirt is malicious. By practicing the age-old art of cleaning on a daily basis, perhaps even hourly, we can hold back, just for awhile, the inevitable influx of dirt and grime.

On cleaning

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Though I am not the neatest person that ever lived–I file by the top-down pile method–I certainly appreciate a clean kitchen, a clean bathroom, clean floors, empty waste baskets, and an empty garbage can. Having a dirty, smelly, full garbage can is not only nasty, it attracts bugs, which is something I just cannot abide. Paradoxically, I am dead lazy when it comes to mopping or dusting, but I am good at doing the dishes, emptying waste baskets, and throwing away unwanted papers and junk mail. I can throw things away, but I have to focus to do it. I can’t stand to see some unidentified black speck on the bathroom floor, but I don’t get up in the morning vowing to mop every last floor in the house. And I hate to vacuum, which makes lots of noise and makes me sneeze, both of which are activities I can do without. I profoundly admire those who have the cleaning bug because immaculate floors are one of life’s great pleasures. I tend to leave piles of stuff all over the place, but with a little bit of a nudge (okay, by hitting me with a two-by-four) I can be convinced to go through a pile and throw most of it away. Books are problematic. First, old books smell a bit and they attract dirt, which are two big negatives for clean freaks who see books as one of their big enemies. New books are not as bad as old books. My oldest book was published in 1798. Dirt is both smart and ubiquitous. Regardless of how hard you try to keep it out, it creeps in everywhere–the garage, the entryway, the bathroom, the living-room. You track things in with your shoes, which are always very dirty, and you bring things in from the outside–food, papers, whatever–which will bring dirt with them. Cleaning is one of the monumental non-stop propositions that must be forever on-going or you will lose, miserably. Clothing is a great example of the perpetual nature of cleaning. In just one day a family of four will generate a load of wash, but it’s not just a load a day–the trajectory of dirty clothing is geometric over time, not arithmetic, so dirty clothing multiplies faster than just a load a day, especially in a hot climate like Texas or Florida where sweating is a national pastime. Soap, cleansers, and detergents are our only hope of ever turning the tide on uncleanliness, and in the end, we must look the other way anyway because real cleanliness is a mirage, is unattainable. Yes, we can make things look clean and picked up, but this is a veneer. Don’t look too close because you may find dust on the staircase or a cobweb in a distant corner, not to mention the stray dust-bunny that may roll up at the most inopportune time to spoil your immaculate “better homes and hovels” effect that you have set out for visiting relatives who think you are great housekeeper and a neat freak. All you can do resist the rising tide of dirt, but you will never defeat it. The mere passage of time is enough to bring tons of dust and dirt to your front door even if you aren’t there to dirty things up. Dirt is malicious. By practicing the age-old art of cleaning on a daily basis, perhaps even hourly, we can hold back, just for awhile, the inevitable influx of dirt and grime.