Requisite Translation

So I just finished translating what our Greek professor declared “the most difficult assignment of the semester” and I feel GREAT! I was jumping around my dining room, leaping into the kitchen, the pantry, back again, high fiving the ghosts of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, the whole gang. I felt so good that I was dancing without music. I wanted to call everybody—everybody I’ve ever loved—and tell them how good it felt. I was shocked. Pure exhilaration. I wanted to call somebody, anybody. I even tried calling a friend of mine, a fellow student and nerd, who had called earlier to ask about going to get coffee. No, swamped with work, no time for coffee, but listen to how incredible this translation was. Who knew?
If you are reading this, you’re probably thinking what I would have thought myself three months ago—which is good and normal, go with that. But from where I’m sitting, I’m no less bewildered than you: how could translating a few sentences of Aristotle be anything but drudgery? I’m telling you, if I had room in this shoebox apartment, I’d have done cartwheels, handstands, everything. This thing had been completely baffling to me and after squinting, scratching my head, scoffing, thumbing through the lexicon, the paradigms, and cursing, my eyes slowly adjusted and then I saw. I’m not saying that the translation is any good—we’ll see about that in class tonight—but I understand what the man wrote. I get it. It makes sense. I suppose it’s even beautiful, poetic, etc. And if you knew the state of my soul over the past two years, you’d even call it quite fitting, yes, even salubrious. But that wasn’t what had me jumping about like a half-drunken football fan. And that wasn’t what prompted me to write about it, either.
Without explicitly saying what, or why, I’ll tell you that I thought of calling my friend Peter, because I thought he might get a vicarious kick out of this whole thing. Also because I wanted to call him last night, but didn’t get around to it. His brother died two days ago. Brian. Diagnosed in March. Never smoked a ciggie in his life. Never mined coal. Never worked in a textile factory. Yep. Lung cancer. The most aggressive kind. No good news for seven months. Dead before he hit 35. Two young children orphaned. Wife widowed. And this isn’t the first brother Peter has lost, either. When I got the news, my heart sank and I started to cry. What the hell kind of world is this? Not to Peter. Not again. What the hell is this?
So I thought of calling him, thinking that maybe my exultation at translating four crummy Aristotelian sentences might be a bit of a consolation. I stood in the pantry, watching the red, golden green sequin leaves blown twinkling in the late autumn rays outside the window and I thought, that’s absurd. Brian is dead. This is your homework. Nobody gets it until they get it. No wonder I never liked Aristotle; I was always reading translations. But today I got it. So I’m still standing there and I stopped dead in my dance, the shivers coursing down my scalp to the neck and beyond. This is understanding. This is only a taste. Imagine the day when my questions about Peter’s brothers, the last two years, and everything meet understanding. Shivers.

Here’s the translation, which is admittedly amateurish:

In the voice, there are the signs of the sufferings in the soul, indeed [whose markings] are written in the voice. And just as not all markings are the same, neither is every voice the same. Yet [those] whose markings are primarily the same, the same are their entire sufferings of the soul. And [those] whose likeness is the same, by this time the same [also] are their deeds. (Aristotle, Περι ερμενειας (On Interpretation), 1)

The team that happy-hours together...

Yesterday my intramural squad got our first victory in soccer. Our team is called the guardians and we pretty much stink. You can tell it's us playing from a mile away because our shirts are yellow. We played the Hustlers, who wear red, which I imagine refers to the red-light-district frequented by Hustlers and pimps. I don't know why there's a team here called the Hustlers. I could understand if Larry Flynt were an alum, but I can't imagine that he's read a book, much less the Great Books. The important thing is we stomped 'em and although not a goalie, I got my first shut-out in goal. My knees are still shot from the marathon last week, so I could hardly play in the field. It was goalie or go home. After the game, during the huddle, just before we all put our hands in and shout "Go Gold!" I told everybody we should have Miller-time. I quoted the captain of the last hockey team I played on, "The team that happy-hours together scores together." I meant it too.

To this effect, I ran home and threw together a miscellaneous assortment of beers, a can of olives, some toasted soy nuts, a coupla cokes, a flask of Bourbon and a bottle of so-called "hard lemonade" that I found in the refrigerator in the apartment where I live. When I got back to the field not ten minutes later, the only guys left were Mr. Irons, Lee Goldberg, and an Armenian kid called Ara who is on medication of an unspecified nature which prevents the consumption of fermented beverage. More for the rest of the team--such as were left.

I had hoped to write about the ebb of the windy Sunday afternoon, sitting on the sidelines, soaking up the autumn sun, watching the game after ours (the Green Waves stomped the Druids--don't axe me where they come up with these names. This school is older than the U.S. and I reckon they consider themselves entitled to their eccentricities) sipping various drinks and above all, savouring the the glory of victory--what Homer might have called kleos if he'd been a soccer fan. But I can't write about all that. I've got to get on the road to meet up with Mr. Patton for tonight's gig. Kleos or no, Bono waits for no man.

It was a sparse, but good happy hour while it lasted. Wednesday is the intramural football championship game and I'm already thinking of investing in a 12-pack of cheap domestic swill. Go Gold!

Agamemnon -vs- U2

So I'm sitting in this auxiliary seminar on American short stories tonight, discussing Billy Budd and my cell phone rings--vibrates, really. It's Mr. Patton, a friend from my Math/Sci tutorial and seminar this summer. I'm curious. He's a cool guy, but he lives in Baltimore and it's not like we were in the habit of hanging out much over the summer. Why's he calling me on a Sunday night?

Hang Billy Budd. I get out of there and although the voicemail is a bit garbled, I make out the sounds -ou too -iladelphia -orrow night -stra ticket. I like the sound of those.

I call him up and yes. It's all true. He has an extra ticket for the U2 concert tomorrow night in Philadelphia! Ah crap! I have class tomorrow night. Two poems by George Herbert in tutorial and Aeschylus's Agamemnon in Seminar. I set to thinking and before I even furrow my brow, the answer: Agamemnon can kiss my ass. Clytemnestra too. Now, I don't want that to be taken as an equivocation in my views on mariticide, but when the choice is between U2 and plotting housewives...

I'm not only against mariticide, either. I equally denounce regicide, fratricide, sororicide, patricide, suicide, matricide, theatricalaside--pretty much any kind of cide. Except applicide. Apple juice doesn't compare. That reminds me of another kind of cide... euthanazing small animalsicide. I'm not categorically opposed to that one either.

In fact...

I'm tempted to detail my own foray into this last cide, pacifically cause one a my reading public requested it on this very blog. But I think that'll be for another day when I got no other material to work with. U2 and Agamemnon will suffice for tonight.

I've got to get a few more listens on "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb." I don't want to show up tomorrow night without doing my homework.

Resurrection

I was recently asked a simple yes-or-no question: "Do you have a blog?"

I intended to begin the answer with the usual qualifications, stipulations, & gesticulations, but instead I hemmed. Then I hawed. Next, I stammered, muttered, cleared my throat, and when I finally opened my mouth, the word "yes" came out of its own accord. Even a bad blog is a blog. "I do."

Thank God I wasn't axed why I have a blog or questioned about the kind of tripe that passes for a post.

The resurrection post is here at last. It could barely be called a claim of ownership-more of a failed denial, really-as if someone entered the room demanding, "who farted?" and casting about in a panic I saw no one else there, not even a dog. Yep. I have ay uh, ahem, a blog.

Now that everybody knows, I may as well post something.

Three days ago I ran in a marathon. I completed the Chicago marathon. I even got a finisher's medal, along with 33,XXX others. I wore it the entire day on Monday: partly out of pride, partly so as not to be thought drunk since I staggered all over the place. This was my second marathon in the past 11 months. Marathoning hurts. It's a very satisfactory species of pain, however, as it is inextricably wed to a sense of accomplishment.

I'm taking ancient Greek this term and in what we have translated to date, one of the recurring themes is "what is beautiful(noble/good) is difficult" or "the good path is not easy." You get the idea.

Thirty-three thousand people turned out to run 26.2 miles. Some smaller number of people made the attempt, but failed. The largest number of people lined the streets and cheered, held up signs, looked individuals in the eye and said, "You're looking great! You can make it! Go for it!" I saw signs that said, "We love you, Chip!" or "We're SO proud of you Amy!" and of course, "You are ALL Kenyans!" I was on the verge of tears because some stranger looked me in the eye and said, "Keep running! Only three more turns and you're there!" I would consider it a favour not to get bumped in the shoulder if I encountered the same person walking down the sidewalk. So why does he care? Who am I that she is cheering for ME? What is it about this run that gets thousands of people on their feet, screaming and clapping, hoping a runner will reach out and give a high-five?

If marathoning is hard, the rest of life seems impossible. In the days of blog-stagnation, I visited my sister and brother-in-law in South Carolina. My sister is a mother. 26.2 miles of a Sunday morning is a cake-walk. Mothering is 24/7. I can barely take care of my self and she's looking after three others--two of whom crap their pants on a daily basis! There's nobody giving her Gatorade along the way, either.

What if we all gave each other marathoner's encouragement? To the bagger at the check-out: C'mon! Only a loaf of bread and a bag of tortilla chips left! You got it in the bag! (high five)

Just one more paragraph to go! You're gonna get this post done! (crowd roars)

Emboldened by the cheers, I surmise that it is possible that there is some link here, some connection between limping my way across the Chicago finish line and resurrecting an erstwhile defunct blog.

You're gonna make it! (high five)

Glaring again

The sunglasses that I've been using since May 2004 finally broke today. This is noteworthy for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that they do not, in fact, belong to me. It is somewhat deflating to consider that my personal record for keeping a pair of sunglasses was achieved with someone else's. Someone named Jim. At least, I remember calling him Jim, whether that was his name or not.

The manner in which the sunglasses came to be in my possession for such a long and fruitful period of time is perhaps not the most riveting tale, but one of interest all the same. It begins not with the broken pair of sunglasses, but with another pair which I bought in Ludlow, Vermont that February. Joel, a close personal friend, international marketing director of Fish window cleaning, and sunglass aficionado convinced me of the superiority of polarized glasses. Waxing poetic, he persuaded me of the sensibility of buying one pair of good sunglasses rather than repeatedly buying cheapies at the gas station. We were in Vermont to go skiing, and what with the depleted ozone layer, global warming, the sun's malicious UV rays careening every which way off the snow, the higher incidence of eye cancer in blue eyed people of no colour, it seemed like it was either polarized now or a white cane and seeing eye dog later.

I'm no fool, so when May came along and it was time to go backpacking in the Grand Canyon, I made sure to wear my polarized sunglasses when I left for the airport with Nat, one of my chums from medical school. In Phoenix, another member of our party, the aforementioned Jim, picked us up at the airport and drove us to the South Rim where we had a room in a hotel at which the rest of our party was staying. Although we didn't arrive before 2am, I couldn't even think about going to sleep without lone wolfing out to the precipice for a glimpse of the canyon filled up with moonshadows. After howling like a lunatic at the full moon, I didn't get to bed until almost 4am. No regrets whatsoever.

The other people in our party, however, having completed a day of inactivity on the rim, wanted to start the descent at 6am. Clearly absurd. They, however, were oldsters of various ages over 55, which is admirable, undertaking such a trip in and of itself, but Nat, Jim, and I didn't share their concerns about the heat, etc. Fine. We'll catch you up presently, I muttered as I rolled over. Sometime around 9am, I had hoisted my pack and was posing for a photograph at the trailhead, squinting into the light.

Fool that I was! Somehow I had forgotten my polarized sunglasses. The plane? The airport? The hotel? The car! Well, Jim tells me as the shadows are receding under the cliffs, I almost didn't bring this extra pair of polarized sunglasses, but it's a good thing I did!

Jim, if you weren't old, male, and a rabid, dogmatic leftist , I could kiss you, I say as I accept.

As it turns out, the others in our party had underestimated their strength and overestimated their needs, so Nat and I, young bucks that we are, served as sherpas for much of the trip. The last day, Jim had to hoof it out of the canyon extra early as he had to be back in Tucson the following morning. In all that sweat and exhaustion, the borrowed sunglasses had been overlooked and I never got the chance to rummage in his car for my polarized sunglasses from Vermont.

Tit for tat, I told myself whenever I thought about mailing the sunglasses to Jim. He can use the ones (I think) I left in his car. Saying this to myself, those sunglasses were the only things standing between me and squinty-eyed cancer in places as far away as Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas. They spent an entire summer with me at L'Abri in Minnesota, and a ski season in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. They even went with me to New Orleans and Covington, Louisiana to pay my respects at Walker Percy's grave--twice! Now I don't know how I'll keep from sailing into other boats and bridge pillars in Annapolis...

I had actually been hoping to use the sunglasses to leverage my way into a crew position this summer on Jim's sailboat in Nantucket, but I guess now would be as good a time as any to mail them back and see if he won't do the same with mine...

I beg your pardon?

Who sits around imagining the scenario where the ex-girlfriend calls you up and wants you to know she's sorry? I mean the ex-girlfriend who cut your heart out and fed it to the hyenas, laughing while she did it, then reproaches you for not chuckling along, for being a poor sport. I'm talking about months after pulling the plug, stating in no uncertain terms that she neither loves you, nor wants to talk to you again. Who thinks through that scene, imagining how it would be?

Well, yesterday, she called.

I like to think of myself as being, at least in some sense, like the Father of the prodigal son when someone comes to me admitting wrong-doing and asking for forgiveness. I know that the road back from the distant land is no easy one to walk. I know it so well because I too am a sinner. A sinner, yes, but one who has had his own black-hearted sins forgiven and really wants to go and do likewise. I don't mean "is willing" to go and do likewise, but really, really, really wants to. Yet in my best attempts, I find falsity in myself. I find myself guilty of no less than one of two errors.
The first one is the one wherein I just forgive, no problem, no big deal, let it go at that. But letting it go is another thing. One thinks one has let go, and perhaps one has, but then the petition to be forgiven throws it back up in one's face: the humiliation, the injury, the grief, the wound feels like it was fresh again! But, you've hurt me once, I remember, I won't let on like it's a big deal, won't give you the satisfaction of knowing it even matters. I hide the pain, the humiliation, the weakness, all that I am ashamed to never find in any other heart besides my own. In short, I hold my chin up, chest out and put on a good face: you're forgiven.

The other error is the one that follows when I tell myself: intimacy demands an honest emotional response, not a benumbed, stoic one. I must let my guard down and really come clean with my own weakness, my own lack of love. I have to let the other person know that it isn't easy and it did matter deeply, oh God knows how it hurt!

I don't know how God does it. I really don't. I sometimes tell myself that at least he's the Father, he gets to discipline us without impugning his own gracious forgiveness. "Yes, my child, I forgive you. The moral guilt I take from you, but these consequences are nonetheless yours and here is where your sanctification will happen, right there in that mess you've made." That kind of gracious justice seems like it would be satisfying to be able to extend myself to all parties, make the humble pie go down a bit smoother.

But am I God? What about when brother forgives sister? That's a tall order. I don't know how it is supposed to go. I honestly don't. I know that forgiveness has happened in my life before. In spite of everything, I know I've forgiven people for certain things. In fact, I don't hold anything against anybody when I'm sitting in the peace of my own inner sanctum. Then somebody goes and cuts me again, or prods an old, ginger scar and where is my graciousness then?

What does it mean to forgive? What does it mean to seek forgiveness? How do we know when we're forgiven or when we have forgiven. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." It seems absurd to pray this when I really am at a loss as to how it goes, how it works, how to do it in the clutch situations. But I pray it because I was taught to pray it by the forgiveness master himself, the one who could pull it off even when he was being nailed up naked to a timber. I want to pray it. I want it to be done on earth as it is in heaven. I really do.

La troisième Blog: Thieves, Panhandlers, & Peacemakers

As far as Wednesday goes... I probably wrote the ending too quickly. There was more. It rained cats and dogs and the bicycle that I sporadically ride was stolen. I don't say MY bike was stolen, which helps take the edge off the grief. In the grand scheme of things, however, it seems better to have a bike to ride than not. Apparently, the thief followed a similar line of reasoning.

Now I'm really through with Wednesday.

Friday is a whole different story... A story involving a trip into Washington, D.C. for happy hour... A happy hour of international students from a friend's, Puzio's, class at the International Language Institute combined with sign language interpreters from Puzio's sister's corps at Gallaudet University... An animated bunch, given to trailing off verbally as they communicate, which can make participation for an outsider cumbersome. It was either fake it in ASL (american sign language -I know the sign for turtle) or struggle with foreigners who were studying English in Puzio's class. I did some of both.

Odilon is a Korean student who is going to Antigua today. I don't know whether he was given this name or chose it for himself, but he explained to me that Odilon was the 4th Abbot of the monastery at Cluny in France: The emperors and popes made some fighting. Odilon he made some peace. In about 1 year, Odilon will be ordained in the Roman Catholic church as a priest in the order SVD, which is latin for something whose Koreanized pronunciation is unintelligible. I asked him to tell me the story of how he decided upon the priesthood, which I will try to quote from memory:

When I was young, I wanted to be powerful. I did everything to become powerful. In the university, I was president (of the student body) and I did some things for festival, good things. I worked very hard to do these things for making festival, for party and after, every student thanked me. They told me it was good and they were happy, but when festival was over and I walked in empty gymnasium, I did not feel satisfied. I worked very hard and it was successful, but I did not feel satisfaction. I thought, maybe I become president of company, maybe mayor or governor, maybe even Korean president, but maybe I do not feel satisfied. So I wanted to live religious life to do some meaningful things. To do some things, to help some people. Now I feel satisfied.(smile)

That's more or less the story he told me. When I asked him about being powerful, he began to tell me the paradoxes of life, that you become poor to be rich and weak to become powerful. He told me that now he is poor, but because he is poor, he is free of money. He doesn't think about it or worry about it and when he's free from money, he's rich. He said similar things about becoming powerful and about loneliness, singleness.

From there, I wound up walking through Georgetown, going to a number of different bars with my oldest friend, Neuner, who introduced me to his friends by shouting, "I met this guy in 1989!" His friends may in fact be an indifferent lot, but really, what do you say to that? Besides, we were in these sweaty, crowded bars being jostled by groups of people dancing and photographing themselves; posing en masse for the shots, then crowding around the digital camera's display for a glimpse of the images of themselves having fun.

Georgetown on a Friday night is something to see. Weaving through the crowded sidewalks, one passes men seated on milk crates holding out cups, asking for change. As we passed one guy, I overheard him say, You don't know me. I'm in the witness protection program. I had to become black and my life is ruined! At one point, we passed two such men fighting over a milk crate. One grabbed it out of the other's hand as he started to cross the street and threatened to swing it at him. People stopped to watch. As they yelled at each other and things escalated, yuppie-looking students and young men around me began yelling things like, Are you gonna let him take your milk crate like that! or That's my milk crate, bitch! or the more straightforward, Kick his ass! One punched or shoved the other and then they squared off to fight. The spectators were giddy with delight, squealing to the latecomers, They're fighting over a fucking milk-crate! Then a police officer lazily sauntered over and the sight of him immediately cooled the panhandlers' drama. Looking at all the disappointed students and professionals, people probably running the country, I couldn't help but think of what Odilon had told me about his name's sake. Blessed are the peacemakers indeed.