Cumnock Pool

My paternal grandfather worked as an ostler in a coalmine. Or was it my great-grandfather? He cut grass for the horses on the way to work. He was kicked by one of the horses and eventually died of complications from the wound. My maternal grandfather also worked with horses at one time, carrying bricks for the building of Cumnock swimming pool.
My mother lived in Kier Hardie Hill, within earshot of the pool, and when they needed her they used to play “In the mood” over the tannoy. They laid a wooden dance floor on the tennis courts just next to the pool, and used the pool’s loudspeakers system for the music. At that time, my granny used to sing in Alex Cairn’s skiffle band at Cumnock dance. My mother told me she stopped smoking two weeks ahead of each gig.

There were Free French soldiers stationed at Pennylands camp between Auchinleck and Cumnock. Some of them were very young, they lied about their age to fight with De Gaulle, and my grandparents used to invite them home. Two of them were called Max. One of the Maxes jumped off the balcony at Cumnock town hall dance in tribute to my granny’s singing – well, they were parachutists.
Anyway, in a round-about way, I believe that’s how I ended up in France, because there was a deep love of things French in my family… among other things, they taught each other songs. "J'attendrai le jour et la nuit..."

Hostelry. Revelry. Ribald (gosh, more sex! Who would have thought... (written after jostle)). “He’s a rastler” was always spoken with contempt, so it probably meant someone who was not quite réglo but I can’t find it in the dictionary. Connotations of rascal, leading to “rogue”. I had a problem with “rogue” and "foliage” at primary school. When I came across the word “rogue” for the first time – probably in Enid Blyton – I pronounced it “rogue-you” (like argue and Montesquieu). Then I heard a teacher use the word and realised I had been pronouncing it wrong. It took me a long time to accept the new pronunciation, correct or not. The other word was “foliage”. I don’t know what went wrong but I had it stitched as “foilage” and I was loath to change to the proper pronunciation.

There is seemingly no connection to ostentation:

Originated 1425–75 from late Middle English ostentacioun, from Middle French ostentation, from Latin ostentātiōn (singular of ostentātiō), equivalent to ostentātus (past participle of ostentāre, to display or exhibit), frequentative of ostendere (to present, display) + -iōn.

Or to Jostle:

1. A rough shove or push.
2. The condition of being crowded together.

[Middle English justilen, to have sexual relations with, frequentative of justen, to joust, from Old French juster; see joust.]

jostler n.

Many a true word is spoken in _____.

I then tried to find out what “craven image” means – and I can’t. I can find Craven (adj. Characterized by abject fear; cowardly.) [Middle English cravant, perhaps from Old French crevant, present participle of crever, to burst, from Latin crepāre, to break.] cravenly cra'ven·ly adv. cravenness cra'ven·ness n.

But I don't see how that could apply to images. You cowardly picture, you!

I like the word vicarious (adjective) - taking the place of another; felt, received or done in place of another; indirect.

The Pool was a big part of my own childhood. I learnt to swim there and spent many a long summer's day oblivious to the crinkling of my toes and thumbs. My mother’s experience of the pool and my experience of the pool were both absolutely magical; the sparkly blue water (when the sun was shining), the latest records played while you swim, the pool attendants in their white shirts and plimsolls – Sammy Blackwood, David Garven, etc., – they all looked like Greek Gods to my prepubescent heart - so I feel kind of sad for the local children today that they don’t have that kind of excitement in their lives. It's the mixture of fresh air and people and music...
I know that the memory embroiders on the past and makes it seem more interesting than it actually was, but the present really does look awfully dull…

Ars Longa

When I chose the title of this blog, I thought “Vita Brevis Ars Longa” meant life is short and art is long – i.e. takes a long time and lasts a long time. The whole motto is:

VITABREVISARSLONGA

OCCASIOCELERISEXPE

RIMENTUMPERICOLOS

UMJUDICIUMDIFFICILE

Life is short, Professionalism takes long, Occasion arises unexpectedly, Trusting experience is perilous, Good judgement remains difficult. (The famous Latin version of the first lines of the book on medicine by the Greek physician Hippocrates, 460 - 377 B.C.)

According to Phrase finder.

"This can be rendered into English as 'life is short, the art (craft/skill) long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult'.

That would lead us to interpret the meaning as 'it takes a long time to acquire and perfect one's expertise (in, say, medicine) and one has but a short time in which to do it'."

How did the phrase get turned round, which is the “true” version, Vita Brevis Ars Longa or Ars Longa Vita Brevis? We know it originally comes from Greek, but it is known to us in Latin. Did the original translator switch the order? What else did they switch?

So much of what we are adamantly certain about is in fact steeped in à peu près,

approximation: an inexact result adequate for a given purpose.

To be able to translate you have to make split second choices about what a source text means and how it would best be rendered in the target language. Working slowly does not always improve quality because on a leisurely stroll through the garden you can stumble onto forking paths that will open up avenues but take you too far from the case in point. To make a living, speed is an important parameter. In a rough draft I often accept a translation I am not happy with, or even transpose the French literally, to be able to make progress, but when I re-read the final version I find it is not so bad... the trap is that the mind is influenced by the written word. As a translator, I have to like what I write, or I wouldn't be able to do the job, but I also have to be willing to improve, to evolve along with the language which is living.

I know that how I feel about my translation is not always a true reflection of its value, just as, on a wider level, my force of conviction is not always a true reflection of my state of enlightenment. Sometimes I am so convinced of something I succeed in convincing other people, to everyone’s detriment when it turns out I was wrong all along… Ubending intent somehow got configured into my survival strategy. The trick would be to make it more flexible!

Translation is certainly grist for my mill. The following quotation reminded me how great it is to have role models and people we can admire:

“Handel is the only person I would wish to see before I die, and the only person I would wish to be were I not Bach.”

Johann Sebastian Bach

In the same text, I found “Ad libitum” Latin ad libitum (freely, as desired). I noticed a French “À volonté” floating around which unfortunately is linked in my mind to a Bistro Romain restaurant chain I once went to with work colleagues in Paris which offers unlimited amounts of salmon carpaccio and/or chocolate mousse.

As I read it, I was aware that the “freely, as desired” doesn’t mean fay ce que voudras.

Musical improvisation is not arbitrary, absolute freedom, but relative freedom of one parameter in relation to others that must be obeyed - but what of John Cage's silence?

Libitum takes me via liberty to libido and Lacan’s “ne pas céder sur son désir” - “do not give up on your desire”. Unbending desire.

Talking about libido, I was struck by this nice description of jouissance from Zizek:

"Although jouissance can be translated as "enjoyment," translators of Lacan often leave it in French in order to render palpable its excessive, properly traumatic character: we are not dealing with simple pleasures, but with a violent intrusion that brings more pain than pleasure. This is how we usually perceive the Freudian superego, the cruel and sadistic ethical agency which bombards us with impossible demands and then gleefully observes our failure to meet them. No wonder, then, that Lacan posited an equation between jouissance and superego: to enjoy is not a matter of following one's spontaneous tendencies; it is rather something we do as a kind of weird and twisted ethical duty."

Like playing the fiddle as the Titanic sinks. Quoted by Laura Gonzalez :
“Analysis is like the Titanic and all the analyst can do is arrange deck chairs to get a better view of the iceberg. A beautiful twist on a deja-vu metaphor.”

I enjoyed Laura’s latest post on the gaze, and had never heard of Cranach the Elder before.

And from deck chairs to peer reviews via Pier culture

Crocodile tears

This is a very busy time of the year for me work-wise and I'm spending a lot of time in front of my screen. I bought eyedrops to reduce irritation and they're called "larmes artificielles". Speaks for itself. I don’t really have time to post (duh? as if any of us ever have time to do the things we want to do) so I’ll stop beating about the bush and just jot down the things that have been sifting themselves into the blog cubicles of my mind.

First I have to look up “beat about the bush” (which sounds like ‘Peter Piper Picked’ when spoken in a disincarnated, distant voice) because it came out automatically and I am not 100% sure where it comes from (actually have no idea). (quick google search) Ah, it comes from hunting and now means to avoid getting to the point of an issue. I am not 100% happy with this – is anyone ever 100% happy with anything? The meaning of the expression has deviated from the original situation – in hunting, it was necessary to beat around the bush for the bird to come out in order to capture (or kill) it.

“You may say we’ll never get there if we examine every paving stone on the way, that it’s impossible to pay attention to every single comma, every sous-entendu in Art”, he chokes.

Not the sort of food you can bolt down with your eyes still stuck to the screen. (Must look up ‘manger sur le pouce’ – to eat on your thumb – intensely annoying expression. Damn the French). The supermarket has been full of them recently, three for €1.20 (artichauts, not French people, they are more expensive :)). I bought some straight away, and was alarmed to find that they don’t keep. So I threw away the rotten ones and bought more and cooked them as soon as I got home from the supermarket.

Eating them is a leisurely zen ritual that reminds me of seafood platter evenings in Parisian brasseries (don’t go there – semantically, I mean. The starched white table linen, dry white wine in ice bucket, the yellow “robe” shining in clear, sparkling, stalked glasses, dark brown bread, butter kept cool in water, shallot vinaigrette, the waiters in their uniforms toing and froing in the huge mirrors with the art deco applique lamps, the brass handles on the evolving doors and the wood, the instant iodine fix of the oyster – what bits of the crab are we supposed to leave?).

· Artichokes are the opposite of fastfood. They take time and patience. Dedication. You rip off a leaf, which is actually a petal, gently dunk the end of it into a small pool of your favourite vinaigrette préalablement poured onto your plate, stick it in your mouth and scrape it along your teeth to extract the soft substance from the end, leaving beautiful rabbit marks – I wonder if any crimes have ever been solved by discarded artichoke leaves. Leaf after leaf you peel and devour the little bit of edibleness on the end of the petal, and the closer you get to the heart the more you worry about getting bits of the beard in your mouth. This is, after all, a thistle. You can always buy the hearts in tins.

The French expression avoir un coeur d’artichaut means to fall in love very easily…
When you steam them, the water turns a very bright, deep green.

About to switch to a new subject that has nothing to do with art or chokes, the French expression du coq à l’âne comes to mind because it means just this. Imagine my surprise to find that the “âne” = donkey is actually a female duck. It’s all water off a duck’s back!!!!

So here is Apocalyptic Dream’s latest track – they haven’t given it a name yet – I don’t know how they remember the different "morceaux" without naming them. A little sample of the unadulterated energy of 15 year –olds. I find it very exciting, but I'm hardly objective!

Sarky et huche

Speaking from the agricultural show, Sarky announced that he is going to apply for the whole of French gastronomy to be given Unesco world heritage status.

What will we eat?

He really is becoming ridiculous, hence the title. I wondered about "Hutch" and discovered it comes from the French for chest, so Huchette, a mnemonic device for St Michel on a Saturday night in Paris, would be "little chest".

Yesterday a friend told me that Paul Ricoeur decided to keep writing till he died, to observe how his mind changed. Fascinated by this, I started reading about him and found:

"The word is my kingdom and I am not ashamed of it." and `The understanding that psychoanalysis offers to modern man is difficult and painful because of the narcissistic humiliation it inflicts.' This partially explains why it is so difficult to talk about “it”.

Recently I found myself wanting to state the obvious, in case my analyst had sort of forgotten what we were supposed to be doing and thought that what I was saying was what I actually felt/meant/believed, and I found this great quote from a nice article:

“It would be as incongruent for an analysand, in the midst of a transference experience, to announce that she knows that all she is demonstrating at that moment is transference as it would be for Olivier to announce in the middle of the soliloquy that he is not really Hamlet, he is just acting him.”

It is all grist for the mill. Translating about flour, I looked up “mouture” and found “grist”, which is annoyingly the word for the grain taken to the mill both before it is ground and after it is ground. Language is so unsatisfactory, (too strong, because it does sometimes work and we don’t have a good substitute) approximate, etc.

I hope you get the gist -yet another slip twixt French and English

Back in dixit land, I regaled myself with Red herring and White elephant

As I was finishing off a job, the automatic spell checker corrected the word “undergarment”. In that spilt second my uneasiness about the situation made me realise that “the word doesn’t belong to me”. It is common, was already in the dictionary of this software…
The fact that I found that strange indicates that some part of me must have felt that some words do belong to me, are my property, as if nobody else … or, on the contrary, as if everybody else… there are public and private words, and I was washing my linen in pubic…
Oops, a Lapsus clavi. Who would have thought there was a Latin term for typo?

Music is what feelings sound like...

I thought Danny Boy was a traditional Irish lament. I discover that the words were written by an English lawyer who never set foot in Ireland. The melody, Londonderry Air, is apparently authentically Irish. The air is also used as a hymn, and for the inspirational song “You raise me up”. In any case, it was much sung in Scotland when I was growing up, mainly by very drunk people. It came to be associated in my mind with the thick, unmelodious emotion of drink, that seems to make people think they can sing and at the same time make them want to sing as loud as possible. I left Scotland geographically but probably never left it emotionally and for years I sang too loud. Everybody told me I sang too loud; I kept telling myself to sing quieter, and inevitably I would start out singing quieter and then get carried away with the music like the bear in the Jungle Book and end up screaming.
I seemed to be trying to communicate, in written or sung words, to some mysterious almost unattainable entity. I also assumed this was because I had spent my first night on earth stuck in a linen cupboard.

When I moved to Samatan, there was a jazz pianist wandering about the town in dressing gown and slippers. He was coming to the end of his life, and died shortly after I arrived. The local café owner played me a CD of his music. A jazz instrumental version of Danny Boy.
At secondary school I went out with a boy called Danny and he wanted to have sex with me and I was a virgin. He asked me if I wanted to wait till I was married and I said no, not necessarily, just till it “feels” right. He went out with somebody else. I think of him occasionally.
I used to sing with my alter ego in primary school. Dressed as robots one Halloween we sang Sonny and Cher’s “you’re the ladeeeeee” – I was Sonny and she was Cher. Anyway, she has had more than her share of tragedy, and recently her son joined the Scots Guards and went to Afghanistan. Thankfully he has just completed his tour of duty. His name is Danny.
I started to get fed up with the piano exercises my prof was giving me, looked on the internet for beginner level sheet music and found Danny Boy. My maternal grandmother was a weekend singer in a skiffle group. During the war she worked in a munitions factory, and later became a nurse. When she died, at roughly the age I am now, she had just started taking piano lessons.
So when I set about deciphering the notes of the song on the keyboard each one was so charged with emotion I almost broke down and cried the first time, especially when the melody goes up into the high notes. I found myself trying to hit them as hard as I possibly could, as if there was a correlation between emotional charge and physical force. Is that why Jimmy Hendrix set fire to his guitar?
Why am I doing this to myself I wondered. It was a kind of torture. It reminded me of my mother breaking down in the middle of a song her mother used to sing and saying she just couldn’t do it. I kept on playing it, once a day. The melody began to fall into place and I stopped crying. I spoke to Françoise, who reminded me that singing the blues means singing the blues away. The idea is that music lifts your mood. If you stick with it long enough.

These trees were decorated by Denis Martinez, an Algerian artist who lives in Marseilles. I saw a wonderful video of him drawing on the sand in the desert, with the wind erasing his work almost as soon as he had done it.