Bye, bye, unconscious

Lo! 'Tis done! My last assignment has been handed in and I am free to dip my aching fingertips in some warm, salty water. Seriously, they're getting all funny looking from all the typing I've been doing. Or maybe I'm just getting old. Which I am, really. Next week, in fact, I'll be a whole year older. Yay me.

But for now, I am still last year's me and I have handed in my assignment and I feel good. I don't know how I managed to turn that damn short story into a play, but I did and I justified it too. Seriously though, no more Freudian-Jungian-anythingian analysis for me any more. It's exhausting and ultimately just pisses me off, but I shall wax indignant on that at a later date. Right now I need to sleep.

The realist interviewed

Oh this is exciting. Dawn interviewed my baby brother author Ilhan Niaz for its weekly 'Books and Authors'  supplement. Read the interview here.


Ilhan's description of the book:


“The first chapters of the book deal with the subcontinent and describe the major empires that ruled the region. I started with the Harappan civilisation, moving on to the Guptas, Mauryas and Mughal period; this is what we call ‘macro history’. The following chapters go on to explain India and Pakistan and their common culture of power that has evolved in the 60 years of independence. The culture of the ruling elite is essentially the same — subsequently any consequent inadequacies in both states are also basically the same.�


When the interviewer suggests that it might be the heat that predisposes the people of the subcontinent to emotion and egotism (the comparison being, as always, with the 'cool' British), Ilhan responds:


“We can observe that since 1066 AD, there has been no invasion of England, whereas the region we are now sitting in has endured 70 major invasions between 1000 AD and 1800 AD. It could be this atmosphere of heightened insecurity and instability that contributes in making a nation more spiritually and emotionally charged.�


And of course this post wouldn't be complete without a plug for An Inquiry into the Culture of Power of the Subcontinent. I'm more than halfway through it and have put it on hold only because I have deadlines I can't extend. It's a great read.

Because I have other things to do

I'm going to voluteer to be tagged by Penni. So answers to the follwing questions:

1. Four of my favourite jobs
2. Four of my favourite local places
3. Four of my favourite foods
4. Four of my favourite international places
5. Four names of people I am tagging

Favourite jobs

  • Teaching/tutoring, particularly the creative writing tutoring I got to do this semester. I love that moment when you see the light flick on in a student's eyes. 

  • Editing - I spent five years as a technical editor at an energy and environment consultancy firm and can't say I didn't enjoy it. It helped that people were willing to let me resort to violence on occasion. I also learnt how easy it is to collapse into hysterical giggles when you're five hours from an 8am deadline.

  • Content writing, when you're working with sensible people who actually give you the information you need to do your job. The opposite has also happened and that can turn it into a nightmare.

  • Cat sitting. Getting paid to take care of a cuddly, purry cat? Yes please. Poop-scooping is not fun though and is probably why I remain very firmly a dog person, but it was nice to get to know a cat properly.


Favourite local places

  • It's pretty big, but Sydney Road pretty much from Brunswick Road to Bell Street. I don't know how many times I've walked from Coburg to Parkville and back, but it serves up something new each time.  

  • Coburg Lake Reserve for picnics or for days when you want to lie out in the sun and read a book next to a lake.

  • The CBD for me. Although it doesn't have nearly as much of a vibe as other cities, it combines some of their speed with a sense of safety I find almost odd at times. Great for when you want to dance your ass off too.

  • Ashi and Nuz's apartment. It's the comfiest, coziest, homiest place I know in Melbourne.


Favourite food

  • Croissants and baguettes fresh out of the oven. Also bagels. Also fresh naan. I am an Atkins aficionado's worst nightmare.

  • Chop suey, which I used to hate until a few years ago.

  • Pakistani food of pretty much any description. It is quite possibly the most delicious kind of food on the planet. And no, it is not the same as what you get in Indian restaurants. The spices are different, as are the cuts and kinds of meat. So there.

  • The burgers at Munchies' in Islamabad.


 Favourite international places

  • Kathmandu, Nepal. The approach is one of the most spectacular in the world (if you can still look out the window once you realize what you're looking at is rock, not cloud). The place is small but extremely friendly and, with the right company, is full simply fantastic.

  • Still in Nepal, the Annapurna Circuit. I only did part of it, which meant ten days of trekking and camping including a stopover in the village of Ghorepani and a dip in the Tatopani hot springs, as well as dodging rock falls and goats and one very nasty mountain buffalo.

  • New York City. It is the most amazing, electric, alive place I have ever been. Living 28 stories above the East River didn't hurt either. I still squeal when I see 'my' building in shots of NYC in movies. (Look left of the UN building. That building that looks like a stack of cigars? That's it.)

  • Hunza in Pakistan, nestled in the Karakorams. Where the Himalayas give the impression of softness, the Karakorams are naked rock. Terrifying and beautiful. In fact, here are some pictures of our trip there in 2006.


Four people I'm tagging

Let me take a leaf from Penni's book here and say, consider yourselves tagged.

Connecting

The Australian Association for Literary Translation had its second public lecture at Monash University's Caulfield Campus yesterday. It's just as well I checked the newsletter one last time before leaving or I would have ended up in Clayton which is a good deal farther away. I'm glad I got to the right place and in time though, because it was just so good to talk to people about the work I'm doing, the work they're doing, about language acquisition, linguistic shifts, choosing languages, who 'owns' language, writing in another language, picking up other languages through the languages one already knows, translation, interpretation, regional variants in language, accents, the linguistic/cultural dominance of English-English vs US-English...and all this is before the actual lecture. *swoon*

Dr Jean Anderson teaches at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and "fell into" translation. She translates into French and her lecture was primarily about issues of cultural difference when translating literature from the Pacific island nations - a group of which she contends New Zealand is a part. Her particular problem had to do with translating work that, while written, comes from a highly developed oral tradition into French, which has fairly rigid conventions. Repetition, she said, was one example. Where a Mao'hi writer could repeat words, 'good' French writing demands that a particular word not be repeated until several paragraphs after its first appearance. Such conventions, be they in whatever language, throw up interesting quandaries for translators and quite often one has to make a decision based on what will ultimately be most acceptable to readers.

That raises the question of domesticating a text: risking the elimination of the original voice of the text by absorbing it too deeply into the target language (and culture).  And that in turn raises the question of why a translation shouldn't 'look' like a translation. Why shouldn't it look foreign if that's what it is? All of which constitutes a fairly long-standing debate in the field of translation.

 I don't know if translation studies is where I want to go necessarily; it represents to me a fairly black-and-white approach to language that I don't think I'm entirely comfortable with. I prefer a more nebulous approach to language and that may well have to do with having grown up speaking three languages. I never had to 'learn' any of them formally although I've had lessons in all three at one time or another. Actually, when you think about it, it's odd that this should come as a 'surprise' to translators because I'm hardly alone. The majority of the world's population does grow up multilingual - there's usually a national language as well as a regional language or dialect at the very least, as well as English and any other languages that may be relevant. It's people in English-speaking countries who have to make an active effort to learn a new language, and those who do constitute a fairly small minority of language learners. And yet our theories of language acquisition center on the latter approach to language learning. ...I have to go read me some more Venuti, I think.

Comics

I love web comics. My latest discovery is 7 Shades of Black by James Treagus. It begins with Violet being so goth that Death turns up thinking she's dead. Violet, naturaly, seems to develop an...erm...attachment to Death and proceeds to woo him. Oh and then there's Poe, Violet's cat, providing social commentary and a general reason. They're all still getting to know each other at the moment, but I hope this strip sticks around. It's funny in the way only death and cats can be.

Another discovery, although it's been around for years is Questionable Content. I started at the beginning as I tend to do and so far the whole indie/emo thing is quite funny. I don't know how it's developed over the years, but the drawing's certainly improved between #27 and #891.

One down…

I handed in my final assignment for my research course yesterday. Yes, it's silly to have to write a research proposal for a thesis that's due in a few weeks, but that should actually make it easier to write. I took it as a good sign that I got it done without bursting into tears - that means I actually do have some idea what I'm doing. Yaay.

The creative component was fun though, specially since I've opted to not include a creative component in my thesis and I wanted to see what I might have come up with if I had.  I thought of doing an 'imitiation' of Faiz in English, but discarded that idea pretty fast since I'd need my examiner to be able to read the original for it to make sense. What I did take from Faiz was the images and sentiment he uses in "Aaj Bazaar Mein Pabajaulan Chalo" which translates roughly as "Come to the marketplace in shackles today".

[Digression] 

I've tried translating that one line over and over and simply cannot come up with any kind of phrasing in English that manages to convey the right combination of grief or determination or resignation or any of the other emotions that one line carries. 'Aaj' means today. 'Bazaar' is not just a marketplace, it's the town centre or square where the business of living, not just trade, is carried out. 'Mein' is 'in'. 'Pabajaulan' means 'with shackled feet. 'Chalo' means 'walk' but it can also mean come or go. But that doesn't really help because we don't know who the line is addressed to. It could mean: 

  • come with me to the marketplace in shackels

  • let us go to the marketplace in shackles today

  • I must walk in shackles through the marketplace today

  • walk in shackles in the marketplace today

  • We have come to a time when we must walk in shackles in the marketplace


So which is it? The problem is, it's all of them. The poet himself actually did have to pass through the marketplace in chains one day because he needed to see a doctor and one couldn't come to him in prison that day(Faiz was jailed because the government didn't like his political opinions). The idea of having to walk chained in his own country for the crime of actually caring about its people stayed with him. It is also a comment on subjugation and the idea that, visible or not, everyone living under an oppressive regime is in shackles in public. It is also not only touches on (and the poem later discusses it explicitly) the humiliation faced by those with the will to fight but suggests that the brave come out in shackles willingly and take whatever other punishment the 'oppressors' wish to heap on them. Yes this is still the one line.

[/Digression]

 Since I've been reading Ilhan's book at the same time and given my own interest in the ancient history of the land, I also picked up the image of the Dancing Girl of Mohenjodaro and again used Faiz's idea of her 'birth' as the moment when time began (until we figure out what the real myths of the time were, I suppose we'll just have to make up our own). Combine that with the Indus River (because I can) and you have a narrator all set to tell the story of a land in political turmoil. It was also easier to use the dancing girl as the speaker than myself because I feel my own emotional connection to the land is quite tenuous, despite my anger at the current situation there. (But that division is a whole other post.)

Overall, I'm not unhappy with the stuff I turned in. I'm avoiding reading it because I know I'll find something I could have put better or should have left out or something. Plus I have my Writing the Unconscious assignment due next and have to go look up stuff on Jung. A jungian short story. What the hell was I thinking?!

A brief history of Pakistan’s leaders

In his May 20 column, Cowasjee lists all the leaders Pakistan has had. The list begins with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, naturally, but it's frightening how quickly the downward spiral starts after Jinnah's death. Cowasjee has comments and a few insights to offer, which is only natural given that he is of the generation that was born under the Raj and was present when Pakistan's history began. Come to think of it, once our grandparents are gone, there won't be too many people left in the world who can claim to have seen a country being born.

Update

Lawyers across the country are on strike.

Islamists are (rightly) accusing Musharraf of clinging to his uniform despite it being time to give it up, plus there's the violation of the constitution thing. Although the poor constitution's been contravened so many times already that its abuse is almost part of the ruler's job description. Musharraf is also past retirement, never mind that he's been blocking the Chief of Army Staff seat for far longer than his appointment allowed.

The combined opposition walked out of Senate Monday morning, forcing its adjournment. The opposition blames the MQM, which controls Karachi and is an 'ally' of the government, for the violence that happened over the weekend.

The Supreme Court's additional registrar was shot in his home in Islamabad  in what appears to be a targeted killing. It would be very odd if his killing weren't related to the shit that's currently flying, specially when you consider that there were about 100 policemen stationed right outside his home.

And now for some context: Ayaz Amir's weekend (pre-bloodbath) article on the Chief Justice's trips around the country, in which he discusses what is likely to happen on the CJ's Karachi trip.

What the fuck is going on?

40 people dead and 140 injured so far and I still don't understand what's happened. The Chief Justice of Pakistan was to address a lawyers' convention in Karachi on Saturday, but the political party that runs the show there apparently didn't approve of the welcome rally that groups interested in the 'restoration' of democracy were planning and so held a rally of their own protesting the 'politicising' of the CJ's visit. Still with me? Ok, so then, given that two opposing groups wanted to hold rallies in essentially the same space, police were deployed, ostensibly to keep things under control. Only said police apparently vanished into thin air and the two groups started shooting at each other. So maybe my reaction to the fact that they were shooting is naive: this is Karachi after all--the big, bad, dangerous, violent city that us northerners look at with a mixture of dread and envy--but I can't help seeing shooting another creature, human or otherwise, as a fundamentally, hideously cowardly act. Oh. Wait. I think it's just begun to make sense.

Back to the plot. Apparently the sainted government had warned our naughty little CJ that things would get out of hand if he went to Karachi. I hope they're enjoying their 'I told you so' moment. Now Dawn says that Reuters says that paramilitary forces have been issued orders/permission to shoot anybody involved in "serious violence". As opposed to what? Funny violence? (Incidentally, how appalling is it that you can, at reuters.com, select world crises by region from a handy drop-down list?) That is supposed to be a response to the loss of "precious lives"?

Apparently (because nobody ever really  knows for sure, it seems--not even the people directly involved) this could be a reemergence of the ethnic violence that Karachi was famous for two decades ago, or it could be a clash between the government's supporters and anti-government activists and have nothing to do with the earlier violence, it could be sponsored by the government itself, or it might be something else altogether.

 Venial Sin, who happens to be from Karachi--and who I wish I'd found under happier circumstances--records his reaction to the madness as well as more details in his blog. Given that the post includes pictures of dead people, do consider your tender sensibilities before you click. And really, looking at pictures of the violence and reading about it on as many news sources as possible is the only thing we can do at the moment. At least until it begins to make some kind of non-simplistic, non-propagandist, non-asinine sense.

Workshopping

Workshopping is probably one of the most valuable things you get from a course in creative writing. Most writers will eventually show their work to someone before they set off on the tortuous path to publication, and some will get genuinely good feedback from readers, but there's nothing quite like having a room full of writers examine, assess, and critique your work. It can be a bit nerve-wracking having people you respect look at your work though because of course if they hate it it's not just because the work is the worst thing ever written but that you are a pathetic excuse for a writer and human being and deserve nothing but scorn. Or something like that.

It's interesting too to see what everyone brings to the mix. Clearly, everyone speaks from a particular point of view - we have fiction writers, YA fiction writers, poets, playwrights, and editors among others - as well as from personal preferences, so what they have to say can vary quite a bit. So, as Miriam pointed out yesterday, it's probably best for the person being critiqued to pay more attention to what everyone agrees about, or to comments that come up again and again, and less to comments that have to do with personal preferences.  Unless they happen to agree with them, I suppose. Ultimately, the writer is still the writer and has to decide what to take on board and what to discard. At least that's what you're told and what you have to keep repeating to yourself when redrafting. Because the problem is, when you workshop writing , is that you have it taken into as many different directions as there as writers and their attendant imaginations, and most of those directions are really quite good.

It's especially frustrating when your own idea is still fairly raw. Or entirely raw, actually, as mine was yesterday. Not being able to write when it's your turn to be workshopped is not fun. Still, when presented with my half-baked ideas, the class didn't skimp on advice, ideas, and suggestions. I have a few particularly exciting ones to work on, but my excuse for not developing them forthwith and writing this instead is that they still need to sink in. And I have a headache.

Stuck

I dislike middles intensely. I have an idea, I have images, I have symbols, I have a story and I have research to back them all up. I also have a beginning and an ending. All I'm missing is about, oh, 135 lines of middle.

Which really isn't that much to come up with when you think about it, specially when it's just the middle that needs to be placed neatly between a tidy beginning and a strong ending. But this one's different. This one's surly. I've written and re-written and cut and tightened and squeezed and stretched, but it's still all flabby and jiggly and even saggy in bits and I'm beginning to suspect it ducks out to gorge on candy bars when I'm not looking. Tsk. No discipline.

Taglines

Since taglines are oh-so-important and so utterly pithy and positively oozing with meaning, I thought it appropriate to spend a bit of time thinking about mine. Because, you know, with a name like 'mixed nuts' a blog can so easily be confused with, say, a laundry list and it's so very important that you explain that it isn't.

So our search for clever little taglines for our blogs threw up the following for mine:

  1. Smarter than the average nut

  2. More nuts than you can shake a stick at

  3. Because you're worth it

  4. My imagination is more than a match for your reality

  5. Nuts eat dementors for breakfast

  6. The premium choice for sophisticated hunter-gatherers

  7. Evisceration is best done on a cool day

  8. Mixed nuts are happy nuts


I'm quite partial to number 3 simply because it's so beautifully inane. 4 and 7 come from my journals. They're true, too. Don't ask. 1,2, and 5 are similar to 'mixed nuts are happy nuts' (which Ameel came up with and I quite like) and don't really say much at all, which is good. As for number 6, the more I look at it, the less I like it. Hmm. Since so much hangs in the balance, I think I'll simply avoid a decision and cycle through the lot. Hey it gives me something to do while I try to write something worth writing.