April 2023
Doom is in the details
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Floods, hailstorms, plague, fire, children lost on a mountain or trapped for years in a ruined villa. On the stories of Adalbert Stifter.
« droid » ➞ « druid »
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The translator had probably not been familiar with Star Wars.〖 Found in translation 〗
An axe to grind should make you sharper
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Forensic Architecture charts state-organized crimes, genocide and other disasters in three dimensions. « Flat maps can’t convey the politics of water and shit. »
« Bidoon » ➞ « Bedouin »
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A violent mistranslation I still find amusing was with a poem titled 1965.〖 Found in translation 〗
Perhentian Sunrise
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A story about romance. « The eve of a suitor’s arrival, bigger than Christmas or birthday, I tell you. »
The pulverization of memory
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Write your memoir in a hostile tongue. On Marina Jarre, from Latvia to Italy and back.
Tragedy & farce in climate commentary
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« We are fucked » vs. « It’s not too late ». The Club of Rome’s Earth for All offers a burst of stubborn optimism. But when does stubborn optimism become cruel optimism?
An archeology of the air
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On Havelok the Dane, medieval air & the world’s largest wind farm
The invention of austerity
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Dramatic economic inflations have punctuated twentieth-century political history. Is austerity a class strategy?
No man’s land
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On Edda Mussolini & fashionable fascism. Can a woman be dangerous yet powerless?
The inborn germ
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Why death? Who or what dies? Philosophers tend not to explain, but to justify. When do such questions become biological questions? Does it help?