As chance, whatever that is, would have it, after being silenced by yesterday afternoon’s zoom-bombing just as I was about to speak on translating Paul Celan for Princeton, my publisher, FSG, as part of their 75th birthday celebration, just now published a little video (recorded 6 weeks ago by Nicole Peyrafitte) of me reading my translation of Celan’s poem “Speak You Too,” something — speak, neither you nor I … Read more Paul Celan: Speak, You Too
Press release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 02/25/2021 Never before in over 1000 years the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as Gulf Stream System, has been as weak as in the last decades. This is the result of a new study by scientists from Ireland, Britain and Germany. The researchers compiled so-called proxy data – taken mainly from natural archives like ocean sediments … Read more Gulf Stream System at its weakest in over a millennium
With thanks to the ever excellent & useful ArabLit for this compilation: On February 14, poet and memoirist Mourid Barghouti died in Amman, Jordan, having spent most of his life in various exiles: Below, a selection from his work available in translation, online. PROSE Excerpt from I Saw Ramallah, with an introduction by Edward W. Said, translated by Ahdaf Soueif It is very hot on the bridge. A drop … Read more Remembering Mourid: 10 in Translation, Online
Light at the end of the tunnel? Time to maybe turn from the temporary distractions of the 4-year T-virus (but never forget how insecure this democratic essay is) to the way more massively lethal potential (a potential recognized and endorsed with sadistic jouissance by the T-virus) of what homo stupidus stupidus has done to the planet. Interestingly enough that other, biological, virus we are dealing with right now, may … Read more Coal and COVID-19
… the great Tunisian poet, writer, essayist & translator who would have turned 75 today. A good friend for several decades, I learned much from him about the literature & culture of the Maghreb and the wider Arab world. (See my essay on Abdelwahab & his work in my Arabia (Not So) Deserta. And wondering why his book The Malady of Islam, which I co-translated & published back in … Read more Thinking of Abdelwahab Meddeb…
60 years ago today Paul Celan wrote the poem “Psalm,” in Paris most likely. Below my translation, the original & the commentary by Barbara Wiedemann & myself (from Memory Rose into Threshold Speech). PSALM NoOne kneads us again of earth and clay, noOne conjures our dust. Noone. Praised be thou, NoOne. For your sake we want to flower. Toward you. A Nothing we were, we are, we will … Read more Paul Celan — “Psalm”
Today Jerome Rothenberg, poet, translator, anthologist extraordinaire turns 89! Many, many Happy Returns, my friend! & here, as we come to the end of this year of desolation, a few quotes from your book The Mystery of False Attachments: Eager to break thru language & touch life I crack my head against a mirror * In the way words rhyme or fail to I found my truth * The … Read more Happy Birthday Jerry!
Her hand giant shadow — mit Bleistift on ceiling with night reading light pillowed between us — graphites an unseen page, on which I’ll write, standing up in the kitchen, the good, no the best thing about night is it is always a pre- dawn. It goes way … Read more A Poem or something, a gift, a song, for Paul Celan at 100
Press Release from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 10/14/2020 Biggest CO2 drop: Real-time data show Covid-19’s massive impact on global emissions While the ongoing Corona pandemic continues to threaten millions of lives around the world, the first half of 2020 saw an unprecedented decline in CO2 emissions – larger than during the financial crisis of 2008, the oil crisis of the 1979, or even World War … Read more CO2 & Covid-19
Climate Change triggers migration – particularly in middle-income and agricultural countries Weather-related displacements from 2008 to 2015 totaled 172.3 million people. More than 14 million people were displaced by weather in 2015, with a record of 38.3 million set in 2010, an El Nino year. The annual average was 21.5 million people displaced by weather-related events. Chart courtesy of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (iDMC) and the Norwegian … Read more Climate Change triggers Migration
