One AA ...

I

“Dreistigkeit”

Worauf kommt es überall an
Daß der Mensch gesundet?
Jeder höret gern den Schall an
Der zum Ton sich rundet.

Alles Weg, was deinen Lauf stört!
Nur kein düster Streben!
Eh er singt und eh er aufhört,
Muß der Dichter leben.

Und so mag des Lebens Erzklang
Durch die Seele dröhnen!
Fühlt der Dichter sich das Herz bang,
Wird sich selbst versöhnen.

—By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

II

A.
Thematically there is a link between today's poem and yesterday's, “Lied und Gebilde.” I'm less interested in what the poem says than in a comparison between the German and Whaley's translation, so I decided to gloss what I consider a few key terms. While Whaley's poem, as a whole, gets to the intent of Goethe's original, at most half of the poem can be considered “accurately” translated; for the rest “loose” is a generous term.

In the second verse gesundet comes from the rather archaic and little-used verb gesunden, to heal, get better, become hale/healthy. The expression “Es kommt darauf an ...” means “it depends on ...” or “that depends ...” But in the poem it's phrased as a question, and is more a matter of asking about how and why man heals, gets better. The next two verses, taken rather literally, state that everyone gladly hears the sound that “rounds itself to tone.” “Schall” is taken as just sound, unstructured. Whaley rephrases Goethe's German, keeping the semantic roots, we might say, but giving them over to different syntactic functions.

The next two verses of Whaley's translation are a loose but fairly accurate interpretation of the German, but I do not like the two that follow. They can be stated rather literally as “Before he sings and before he stops/ceases, the poet must live.” Whaley's version is considerably more flowery ... “sung himself to cinders”?

Erz refers to ore, and thus you can find the Erzgebirge or Erz Mountains in Germany. But it's also a word meaning “arch,” as in Erzherzog, or archduke. “Dröhnen” has a direct English cognate: drone. “Versöhnen” is to reconcile, which then takes us back to answering the opening question of the poem.

B.
This afternoon I sat at my office computer, bored. Tired of the repetitive tasks I must perform with braindead tools. Why do I have fifty book reviews that I merge one-by-one into a master document? Why must I format them individually and then “extract” the relevant information for 1) the Table of Contents and 2) the list of book reviewers, which is passed on to the press, so offprints can be sent along (though I suspect only a “digital offprint,” a PDF file, is sent)? Why aren't books in one table, people in another, authors (people) linked to books, tied to reviews, written by reviewers (also people)? Why don't I have any semantic markup, and why must I do this for every issue?

Complaining: off.

So I left work early, went shopping, got lunch, and went to ye olde coffay shoppe, where I met briefly with my brother, who was there doing his own work. I sat at a table writing. No drawing, sketching, doodling today.

The neighborhood linksys router had to do its weekly reboot-something-or-other; the neighbors downstairs evidently have a new access point. They named it, and since they're both chemistry graduate students, I suspect “chemnerd” ... yeah, that's them.

My hatred of Word and the other “tech” with which I work led me to instead think about the software-related tech I do like:

• Lisp: I like lists and parentheses. I've never gotten around to really learning it. I read a bit of The Little Schemer, a revised edition of The Little Lisper.
• The relational model: Tuples seem natural to me, though obviously the theory (which I love) is a bit different than the reality of current SQL and RDBMSs. I love normalization; it seems like an enjoyable relaxation activity.
• *nix: Everything is a file; I like piping things; and basic and ubiquitous tools (sed, awk, grep) are my friends.
• Python: I like indentation, clarity, and Monty Python references.
• LaTeX: BibTeX, Metafont, gorgeous output, and the only way to typeset math.

It's not as if I like everything about those items, or they're the only things I like. I have a soft spot for Logo, but it is an adaptation and dialect of Lisp. I left out Postscript, Smalltalk, HyperCard, Rexx, and more. This is all a bit language-heavy, and I don't “speak” most of these fluently.

And then I returned to channel to see Ada, Java, C, Cobol and more discussed. I didn't pay attention, though.

I figure having “favorites” is orthogonal to the fact that all languages, all operating systems ... it all sucks.

C.
Last night we joined my brother for a going-away-dinner. By we I mean myself, one of his exes, her husband, and their darling daughter, and another friend of his, who is evidently only a friend, since said friend apparently has a serious boyfriend, the architect. Not quite the Colonel Sanders Architect, though.

We went to the Great Dane, a brewpub in town—Madison is in Dane County—that now has two other outlets, one in Fitchburg, a residential suburb that doesn't even have its own school district and so mooches from its neighbors, and one at the renovated Hilldale Mall down the road a few miles. A curious development last winter when that third outlet opened was that they couldn't serve their own beer there; an antiquated Wisconsin law from the Prohibition era limited the amount and number of locations at which a brewer could serve their own product.

The Packers keep winning; I'm amazed.

Our dinner was dominated by the undeniable cuteness of The Baby. I'm not sure how old she is, but she warmed to me, so I found myself making all sorts of absurd faces to keep her entertained; I'm reminded of Elastigirl feeding Jack-Jack at dinner. Upon leaving we encountered a group composed of one tall woman and three balding guys in their late 20s or early 30s and one called out, “Hey, that's a beautiful baby.” He qualified his statement by noting that he finds most babies ugly, but this baby, well, she was adorable.

Fast-forward: tonight was Heroes, and my brother and I have a couple absurdly enjoyable theories about this season's bad-guys. We also enjoyed the very dark and rich baked beans I cooked the other day.

III

“Boldness”

What's the universal measure
For man's health propounded?
All men hear a sound with pleasure
When as tone it's rounded.

Clear away whatever hinders!
No more striving dully!
'Fore he's sung himself to cinders
Poet must live fully.

Let life resonate and thunder
Through the poet's soul!
Though he fear his heart may sunder
Soon again he's whole.

—Translated by John Whaley