Yiddish folk song "Mayn Rue Platz"

Today in my Internet wanderings, I came across this hauntingly beautiful Yiddish folk song, "Mayn Rue Platz" or "My Resting Place." The text is a poem by Morris Rosenfeld, who wrote about the working conditions of Eastern European textile workers in New York. The Arty Semite blog explains, 

“Mayn Rue-Platz” contrasts natural beauty and pleasure with the realities found in American industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Each step begins with the hoped for American experience but ends with the inevitable and oppressive realities of the industrialized world.

• Mixed English/Yiddish with score -- including score for penny whistle and dulcimer!
• Yiddish text in Hebrew characters
• Yiddish text transliterated
• English translation:

Don’t look for me where myrtles are green.
You will not find me there, my beloved.
Where lives wither at the machines,
There is my resting place.

Don’t look for me where birds sing.
You will not find me there, my beloved.
I am a slave where chains ring,
There is my resting place.

Don’t look for me where fountains spray.
You will not find me there, my beloved.
Where tears flow and teeth gnash,
There is my resting place.

And if you love me with true love,
So come to me, my good beloved,
And cheer my gloomy heart
And make sweet my resting place.

I heard a recitation of this poem and one version of the song as part of the most recent episode of PRI's The World in Words, a favorite podcast. The episode was about a trip some Jewish students took to Europe to the homes of Yiddish poets & novelists -- a trip that was designed as a celebration of Jewish life and culture, instead of as a wake mourning the destruction of Jewish culture like many pilgrimages to Europe are wont to be; visits to historic sites of the Holocaust cast long, cold shadows. 

With that horrible shadow on me, I was particularly struck by lines like "Where lives wither at the machines" -- so much so that I was almost relieved to learn that "Mayn Rue Platz" was written about American factory conditions and not concentration camps. It feels strange to admit that I can weigh some horrors against others, but my mind's misstep is evidence of the difficulty and importance of remembering and extolling Jewish/Yiddish histories (and the histories of other cultures). How unfair that Jewish culture is seen as victimized, minimized and simplified. This weakened conceptualization of a rich, ancient culture is a lasting legacy of the Holocaust. 

I'm no historian, but from what I know, many would tell me that this version of Jewish culture had been crafted long before the Holocaust. 

Anyway, it's a lovely poem and song.

Linkfest [3]

A collection of language-related things that caught my attention last week:

• I’m proud to say I’m fairly good at reading Dotsies (@dotsiesfont) now!!  The new website has a really amazingly simple and profound way of easing you into it. I didn’t even try that hard; it just took some time. I’ve reread the page three days in a row, and I’m going to continue to do that until I'm really comfortable, then start using the bookmarklet. If you want to feel a sense of accomplishment for something that will bring you joy -- but only you -- try learning Dotsies.
• I love love loved this monologue, “I’M COMIC SANS, ASSHOLE” – from Jayme (@aunicorninspace).
• Ugh, Greta Sans (@typotheque) is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen. Its conceiver Peter Bil’ak wrote about developing the type system. ALSO, they converted the typeface to music. They created a video showing the different weights and widths of the typeface then had a composer match music to the video.

The two basic parameters of the type family were interpreted by musical devices. Dynamics were used to translate the weight of the letter, so the music gets louder as it the letters get bolder. The width is expressed through the use of modulation, using the 4th and 7th degrees of the C major scale, playing the same musical motive.

• I’ve been quite enjoying The Truth podcast, “movies for your ears.” I particularly liked “Tape Delay,” the episode about recutting a conversation so it’s how it should have been... and beyond. I wish I could do this.

One more thing that's not really "wordy" -- but it's fun: Here's a video of me and the hubz singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for our friend Moobs.

Localizing acronyms

The third in my series on specific localization items in translation has gone up on KJInternational.com.

• Localization item: Acronyms

I also want to give a big Thank You to internet acquaintance Roman Mars (@romanmars) of 99% Invisible for sending people this way after I wrote a little about his show. It was a boost to my very modest readership and much appreciated, even though I really only wrote it so that he would read about how much I love his podcast. (There's only so much fangirly squee-ing you can fit into 140 characters.)

On having the curtain pulled back: Two perspectives

Developing a Creative Process, part 5

This is part of a series of posts on the nature of art, why I'm not as good at it as I'd like to be, and how I'm trying to be better. For the rest, see the tag Developing a Creative Process.

There is a Fender Rhodes in my living room, and last week, I asked Bella Ruse if I could see the inside of it. It was not what I expected it to be; it was better! Tines, hammers, damper, tone bars – I poked and pressed and marveled at the simple mechanics that create those smooth, clear bell tones. I really, really love seeing how something works, especially when there is someone there to walk me through it and point out what I wouldn’t see on my own. 

But sometimes... Sometimes you’re cleaning the house so you put in Twilight and decide to turn on the commentary, and then your carefully crafted self-deception that Robert Pattinson is a hot, smart guy with a British accent which you’ve worked so hard to protect by not reading anything about him ever is shattered by his constant sad, self-deprecating comments about his eyebrows and his gelled bouffant. Ugh, why couldn’t he have just stayed Cedric?

I’ve been in this weird middle ground of trying to analyze others’ creative processes – but I realized that I’m pretty uncomfortable with it. I want creativity to only be a bolt of lightning that strikes you, like god has chosen you, like the starstuff of the universe is coming out of your fingers and your mouth in a moment of divine inspiration. So to see the undercarriage of hard work is a little sad for me. 

HOW ILLUMINATING!, or

WHY, HELLO, MR WIZARD. LOVELY TO MEET YOU

One of my favorite podcasts is 99% Invisible, “a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture.” It’s short but almost every episode has a satisfying depth, and it’s aurally pleasing thanks to Roman Mars’ (@romanmars) quiet but earnest, affable voice. It’s like he’s sharing a secret with you, and in a lot of ways he is since the show is about paying attention to the things no one else does: the shape of your toothbrush, the sound of the crowd in a televised basketball game, the bathtubs in the basement of a city hall building. 

The days that I’ve got 99% Invisible in my brain, I am more aware of the architecture around me and the soundscape that surrounds me. Because I’ve been thinking a lot about crafting music, my favorite episodes have been the ones about sound. (Go to YouAreListening.To/Minneapolis (or a different city) then listen to the podcast (23) about it and the amazingness that is RadioNet.) 

The funny thing is how much I’ve gleaned listening not just to the content of the podcast but the podcast itself. If I could capture the aural aesthetic of the podcast in some of my music, I would: calm but energized, candid, good-natured, multilayered with poignant juxtaposition... modest but broadcasting because it’s worth being heard.

99% Invisible has made my ears happy while listening and helped me remember to keep my ears and eyes open when I’m away from it. I’ve seen the strings, so now I can recognize the puppets from afar -- and that only makes me appreciate the Geppetto’s skill all the more.

BACK IN THE CRATE!, or

UGH, I REALLY WISH I'D NEVER SEEN THAT

Lightning list of my favorite (fiction) authors no regrets no takebacks go: Card, Wilde, Vonnegut, Dahl, Steinbeck, LeGuin, Lewis, Rothfuss, Poe, Pullman, Salinger, Kundera, Rice, Hobb – wow, that’s a pretty nerdy list. 

Even though these aren’t actually in order, I knew Card would be first. Heaven bless you, Karen LeSeur, for handing me a copy of Ender’s Game in ninth grade. Even though we’re not friends anymore, you hold a very special place in my heart because 1. You asked me to sit with you for lunch on my first day of school in a new state and 2. You gave me Orson Scott Card.

<3 : Also, you should read
the graphic novels.

I haven’t read all of Card – he’s quite prolific – but the Enderverse and Hatrack are places I know well. So, yeah, I bought Shadows in Flight the day it came out, and, yeah, I follow Asa Butterfield on Twitter (@asabfb) because he’s playing Ender in the 2013 movie, and, yeah, I want this framed and hanging in my home. And, yeah, this is how I define myself:

I choose to be a maker, because I love the making.

Card is a great writer. He crafts likeable but flawed characters in totally believable worlds – even though there are aliens and spaceships and magic and Jesus allegories out yer hoohah. When I start something new, I am instantly committed.

But here’s the thing: I don’t really like Mr. Card when he’s speaking in his own voice. I mean, I’ve never met him, but anytime he writes as himself, I’m turned off by his politics, his Mormonism, or his ehh conceit – even though I LOVE HIM as an author and think that he totally has earned the right to be conceited. 

I’m almost done with Keeper of Dreams, a collection of short stories by Card. Every story in it has resonated with me emotionally or given me a really cool idea to chew on for a while -- but I kind of hate it because at the end of every story, there are two or three pages of Card explaining when or why or how he wrote the story. The last few I’ve skimmed over because I realized something about myself: I hate seeing the curtain pulled aside. Card captures something really true and good and real when he writes, and I want to think that that happens magically. 

The reality of it is that he’s really good at crafting stories because he works really hard at it. He’s written books about writing. And that drives me bonkers! I want to go on imagining that he is just a mirror of a writer, capturing little moments of reality when they so fleetingly flit by him... like maybe he’s a hunter, stalking through the world with a laptop under his arm just waiting for something beautiful to happen, something so true it just burns itself into the pages. But, alas, he works at it. It’s his job. 

So I’m torn. This whole investigation I’ve been conducting is about peeling back the layers to see what’s in the middle, but I really prefer the outside. If I can end up hating my favorite author a little, will I end up hating my own work after messing and fussing and teasing it during the crafting process?