Cutouts on Street Corners in Tucson, Arizona

Activists in Tucson, Arizona have been placing life-sized cutouts of Maricopa County’s insidiously regressive anti-immigrant law enforcement officials around town on street corners and at intersections, including one of the chief of armed despicability himself, America’s self-described “toughest sheriff” Joe Arpaio, and another of a Border Patrol agent, presumed to depict Nicholas Corbett, who just recently faced a hung trial for the second time after being charged with the murder of Mexican immigrant Francisco Dominguez in January of 2007.

Text and image from Subtopia.

Notes for the Future, Obama and the Northamericans

I just got back from a presentation at the Book Fair in Tampico, Tamaulipas, México.  I gave a talk in a tent in the main square on translation and also set up a desk in the square and did free translations for passers-by: letters for kids to their English teachers, love letters y más.  At the end of my talk, I passed out cards to the audience and asked them to write their hopes, dreams, recommendations, suggestions for the new Unitedstatesian president and for the Unitedstatesian people.  I told them I would translate what they wrote and post it on this blog so that my readers would have a look into what people in one small port city at one hopeful moment had to say about los Yunaites.  Here are their notes translated into inglés:

Obama: I want a better world I want peace on Earth I just want love I think that's what everyone wants. Race or whatever color you are doesn't matter it doesn't matter if you're from here or if you are someone from somewhere else.  Now I want the best for the world that the war stops that the dawn breaks once again that the land provides fruit again but you what do you want...  - José A. Pérez Mtz 

Open your eyes.  Watch out for the Right.  Hope isn't everything.

I hope for more human relationships between you Northamericans and us Mexicans, I wish you a lot of prosperity.  - Adriana

Well what I think is that Obama is going to be the change because he is between two races his mom and his materal grandparents his dad of color so there isn't any mistrust of him on my part and I do hope that he gets papers for all the Mexicans that are over there and don't have family here and already have their roots there that he helps everybody over there all the Mexicans. - Rosalba Gómez Hdz - his American mom his dad of color

That the hope entrusted in the President elect of the U.S. is reflected in real change and that it doesn't happen to them like it happened with us Mexicans, the change promised by Fox never happened.

That he eradicates racism hopefully it happens since he's of color he could be the perfect person to do that.  - María Olivia Ibarra Hernández

My hope for the whole world especially those who govern the nations is to work, work and work to find solutions to worldwide poverty.  - Joel Guerrero Morante

(i am a grandmother) i was pleased that Obama won since it represents a change that was needed for a long time  - Maria Jesus Ramirez

That he can follow through on his campaign proposals and fulfills the hopes invested in him. 

Obama: Never forget the common man Never forget to respect equality of opportunity, justice for everyone equally Never kill anyone with your power.  - Martha Izaguirre

Remi sans famille

As I've discovered over the last few months, Remi is universally known to all Mexican young adults of a certain age.  Unaltered Remi image here.  No, Remi is not normally dressed up in leather and standing on Corazón Alegre his pet monkey.  So sad.  Remi is always very sad.   Did anyone in Gringolandia watch this when they were little?

La imagen es de Manuel Meza.  Hay más de sus ilustraciones aquí y más de un colectivo de ilustradores chilangos aquí.   Check them out!

Un vocabulario shihuahuense

acá - Y mi mamá, todo acá, diciendo no salgas a esta hora.  Musho sholo ahorita.
aguaje - Vamos al aguaje ya, esta pinshe ciudad no tiene de otra.
reborujado - Pinshe narco, la ciudad está bien reborujado.
reborujo - Puro reborujo esta ciudad.
repunoso - Cuidate con ese mushasho m'ija, está repunoso el tipo.

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Y quiero saber cómo le llamas o qué palabra usas cuando el hotel donde te estás quedando en Shihuahua llegue a ser la base de operaciones para la Policia Federal.  Frente a mí, una alberca de hotel, al otro lado más de dos cientos policias federales uniformados y con ametralladoras.  Más vale que me fuera de aquí ya, opino yo.  Si no fuera por las dos mujeres vestidas de monjas a mi lado, tendría más miedo aún.  Uf.

People dancing on top of cars chanting OBAMA! OBAMA!

yo: yeeeeeaaaaaahhhh¡
sara: yesyewsyesyeyseyseyeasa!!
yo: so awesome
sara: we did it!
yo: yeah¡
new day
sara: morning in america
yo: new amazingness
hhahahha
but this time for real
where r u?
sara: brooklyn
it's crazy
i walked home
yo: r people in the us freaking out???
sara: it's insane
yo: hahah
sara: people just gathering on street corners, cheering
yo: thats awesome
sara: hugging strangers
chanting
cars honking
police cars running their sirens for fun
yo: awwow
sara: then i got up to bedford ave
and folks were jamming the street
it was a total street party
yo: wow
sara: an entire city block just jam packed
yo: amazing
sara: people dancing on top of cars
yo: oh my god
sara: chanting OBAMA! OBAMA!
yo: life changing

Piensa en Obama y endereza la columna

Yo: ganò mi obamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Gaby: sahuevo!
Yo: estoy sùper feliz
Gaby: ya sé ya sé, me imagino
Yo: :)
Gaby: de neta, qué chido, esto representa un cambio súper fuerte
felicidades!
Yo: siiiiiiiiiiii
Gaby: y pues lógico que el cambio nos conviene a todos en el mundo
Yo: me voy a las 2am a chihuas
Gaby: estás en hermo, verdad?
Yo: sip
Yo: ya me voy a las 2am
15 horas en camión
q hueva
pero feliz feliz pensando en obama
Gaby: ay, claro
piensa en un personaje que va en un camión mexicano, recorriendo parte del norte de México mientras piensa que Obama acaba de ganar, novela histórica
el mundo se regocijaba y tomaba su verdadero curso mientras yo viajaba en un autobús desde Hermosillo hasta Chihuahua
qué chido qué chido
piensa en obama y endereza la columna
y duerme, piensa, cuéntate un cuento
Yo: aw q linda
gracias
Gaby: yes we can

Estás son las imágenes que no sé traducir a tu idioma.  Cuando mi dices que hablo bien me pongo a pensar en las obviedades que todavía se me escapan.  Igual y soy demasiado ingenuo.  Estas trampas que tienden me son extraños.  Imposibles de saber cuando se aproximan.  De repente, estoy atrapado y no me puedo escapar.  Son explicaciones que uno repite hasta el cansancio y que terminan confundiéndole a uno más que resolviéndole las dudas.  Toda explicación tiene hoyos.  Un colador de sueños.

(This is a reprint from the Catalogue of Feeling.)

AdBusters goes after the worldwide hipster clique:

An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it. The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution. 

But the writer seems to end up sounding like one of what founder of Vice Gavin McInnes calls those "chubby bloggers who aren’t getting laid anymore and are bored, and they’re just so mad at these young kids for going out and getting wasted and having fun and being fashionable.” 

All That Beauty

Colm Tóibín writes about Obama and James Baldwin in the New York Review of Books. Specifically he talks about

the great difference between Baldwin's sensibility and that of Obama. Whereas Baldwin sought to make distinctions, Obama always wants to make connections; his urge is to close circles even when they don't need to be closed or the closure is too neat to be fully trusted. Whereas Baldwin longed to disturb the peace, create untidy truths, Obama was slowly becoming a politician.

Still, Tóibín write a tidy essay in the end, drawing out the similarities in the paths and the autobiographies of the two, finally bringing them both together with Baldwin's question about the future of America as represented by its children: "What will happen to all that beauty?"

Take a look here.

On Overtranslation

Decadent translation? Joy translation? Baroque translation? Spicy translation? Spurrilous translation? Debauched translation? Indulgent translation? Overtranslation? 
Overtranslation sounds like something bad, which I guess is part of the appeal of calling it overtranslation. I think that's part of why Ryan is reclaiming the term. But I think in the non-literary, non-experimental world, overtranslation is defined as something bad. Say at Proz.com, a site for professional translators where the term is defined as "unnecessary translation, translation giving information that is not in the original or using words in broader meaning." One immediately thinks something is wrong, something was done badly. The translator was dishonest or playing around too much, not taking his "craft" seriously enough. Or the classic cliché of translation disaster: something was lost. The translation missed something because it wasn't "literal" enough. In any case, I think the commercial trade translators of Proz.com use different criteria, say the criteria of money-making and a certain sort of professionalized, permanently impossible, unattainable "literal" translation.

I think Ryan's talking about something else, a kind of poetic creativity while dealing with creative texts. Since all writing is a translation of something, whether the original is literary or cinematic or experiential or something else, I think a kind of decadent translation is an important move. A translator who refuses to be tamed or to take translation as a simple parlaying of word and meaning from one language to another. A translator who insists on appearing, who declines to dissappear innocently (and impossibly) into the background, a simple carrier pigeon for the all-powerful author and reader.

As a friend asked me a few days ago (a friend who doesn't really think about this stuff at all), do you have any books? And I said yes, the books I've translated. And he said, yeah but I mean your own work, not someone else's work. I insisted that no, these translation were also my work. And he said, no but it's like if you're a construction worker and you build a house, the house isn't yours, it's for the person who's going to own the place.

And last night I dreamed about construction workers, except the construction workers had taken over the house as the built it. The owner was away. Bricklayers putting origami creatures inside the walls. Painters dappling the walls in patterns and psychedelic spirals just barely visible in a certain light. Stucco slappers adding texture and a certain spackling on the walls and the ceilings that would be easy to miss unless the viewer stopped and felt the surfaces. Carpenters nailing and gluing fantastical doorways and windows that opened like explosions or flowers instead of sliding up and down, but no one would ever know unless they tried to open the windows. Indulgences then. Decadent turns. Overwrought.

I woke up and started translating again.

A Minor Clarification

I thought what I do was pretty obvious already, but here's a minor clarification just to remove all doubt:

J. Pluecker writes poetry and prose, and also translates and interprets Spanish<>English.

These are the things that I do. Thank you for reading this minor clarification.

~~~

Pensaba que lo qué hago ya era bastante obvio, pero aquí les tengo una pequeña aclaración para quitar cualquier duda que exista:

J. Pluecker escribe poesía y prosa, y también traduce e interpreta español<>inglés.

Esas son las cosas que hago. Gracias por haber leído esta pequeña aclaración.

Top Five Reasons We Can't Rest Easy

1. The polls may be wrong. This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they do in the voting booth. And the polls are narrowing anyway. In the last few days, John McCain has gained ground in most national polls, as his campaign has gone even more negative.

2. Dirty tricks. Republicans are already illegally purging voters from the rolls in some states. They're whipping up hysteria over ACORN to justify more challenges to new voters. Misleading flyers about the voting process have started appearing in black neighborhoods. And of course, many counties still use unsecure voting machines.

3. October surprise. In politics, 15 days is a long time. The next McCain smear could dominate the news for a week. There could be a crisis with Iran, or Bin Laden could release another tape, or worse.

4. Those who forget history... In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote after trailing by seven points in the final days of the race. In 1980, Reagan was eight points down in the polls in late October and came back to win. Races can shift—fast!

5. Landslide. Even with Barack Obama in the White House, passing universal health care and a new clean-energy policy is going to be hard. Insurance, drug and oil companies will fight us every step of the way. We need the kind of landslide that will give Barack a huge mandate.

(Taken from the Blog for Obama movement at MoveOn.org)

En el mingitorio descansaban dos pedazos de chicle bubble gum, mordiditos miles de veces y oliendo a una fuerte mezcla química y maloliente de fresa y maracuyá.  Olían más fuerte que la orina en la que estaban remojando.

Salí y fui a comprar una nieve oaxaqueña, sabor "Encanto Zapoteco" una mezcla de fresa, guayaba y nuez de un vendedor frente al trabajo.

Me la comí con una cuchara pequeñísima sentado en el andén del Cintermex, viendo pasar las nubes.  Me invadió un deseo fuerte, quería estar soñando en ese momento.  Sentí una tristeza profunda y agobiante por no poder salir al borde del andén y levantarme los brazos y salir volando, como miles de veces he hecho en los sueños cuando ya quería escaparme.

Tenía mil ganas de salir volando arriba del lote de estacionamiento, arriba del muro, y mirar la ciudad abajo, los carros, edificios, casa, gente.  Volar hasta Chipinque o la Huasteca o Cuatro Ciénagas y por fin ver otra cosa, algo vivo y verde, y no esta maldita pantalla.


Foto tomada del sitio de Ripo.  Hay que retomar estas frases.  Es una frase que se empezó a usarse en Nueva York después de nueve once.  Como pidiéndole a la gente que reportaran los terroristas.  Pero pintado así, se convierte en una llamada al arte, a la escritura, al decir algo frente a los poderes burocráticos.  Más imágenes aquí: Ripo Visuals.

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A picture from Ripo.  Gotta take back these sentences.  These 9/11 sentences that ask us to turn in the terrorists: If you see something, say something.  But painted like this, the sentence is converted is a call to make art, to write, to say something in the faces of bureaucratic powers-that-be.  More images here: Ripo Visuals.

Nunca sé lo que le puedo decir a un taxista.  No quiero ser una persona que le de flojera, que no le hable, que parezca prepotente o arrogante.  Un chofer me acaba de contar que había conducido carros varias veces para la Julieta Venegas y que como persona Julieta Venegas le daba mucha flojera, que no hablaba, que no salía en la noche después de sus conciertos, que no era nada divertida.  Y no sé si creerlo o no, pero igual y para mí me recordó otra vez de eso de saber hablar, platicar, shoot the shit, cómo quién dice, sin pedos en la lengua (ya sé que es sin pelos pero suena mejor con el neologismo.)

Bueno entonces como es la Feria Internacional del Libro ahora y como estoy trabajando y como me dieron vales de taxi (por lo menos ayer), entonces anoche me movilicé en taxi, igual como hoy en la mañana.  Y en los dos casos, platiqué con el taxista.  Me parece que el pasajero normalmente tiene que iniciar la conversación, a veces empiezan a hablar ellos primero, pero los buenos taxistas esperan para ver si vas a decir algo.  Entonces anoche entablamos una conversación del dinero, de cómo salir adelante, de cómo ganar lo que uno necesita frente a las múltiples crisis economicos del mundo en este momento.  Y me explicó todas las muchas diferencias entre eso del precio del viaje con o sin facturas, recibos y comprobantes.  Pues me sentía bien, platicábamos sin broncas, sentía como si habláramos de confianza y estuvo bien.  Además aprendí algo de los precios de los taxis.  Me gusta aprender algo nuevo pues.

Hoy en la mañana otra vez surgió la plática del dinero, me preguntó qué estaba haciendo y en qué estaba trabajando y le expliqué.   Me dijo que él se jubiló del Tec hace unos años y que se distraía en la casa, que su mujer le hizo muchos pedos, tenía que limpiar frijoles y cosas así y me dice yo no soy para limpiar frijoles entonces compró su taxi y así anda.  Después de como quince minutos salió que su hija vive en Ft. Worth y después de un accidente hace un mes, fue allá y pasó un rato con ella y sus nietos.  Dice allá todo el tiempo se la pasan jalando, da hueva dijo.  Le dije, yo soy de Tejas también y me dice, o ¿sí? Y ya vi la pregunta rodando allí en su cerebro y le dije, soy gringo.  Y me dice, ah bueno.  Es que no sabía me dice.  Después me contó de uno de sus nietos que tiene quince años, nacido en Tejas que ahora quiere venir acá a Monterrey a trabajar.  Y el taxista-abuelo le dijo a su nieto que estudiara allá y que después podría buscar chambita Tec con su alto nivel de inglés.  Le pregunté si hablaba el nieto en español y me dijo pues sí, más o menos, pero no creas que sea del 100%.

Y ahora pienso, pues ¿quién de nosotros aquí en estas tierras entre Monterrey y Ft.Worth hable el inglés 100% y quien haiga dominado el español 100%?  Somos muchos y ninguno hablando one hundred percent bien.  Pero eso sí igual hacemos el intento pa' entretenerse y platicar un rato y pasarla bien.  Por qué al final de cuentas nadie quiere darle flojera al otro.  Sobra flojera en el mundo.  Sobra mucho.