I?m deep in translating ?Cadáveres", a long poem by Nestor Perlongher. And I was thinking about all the things I read and hear that are in translation or aren?t. And I think it?s important to look at all levels of culture in another language, whichever language you choose, to make an effort not to be monolingual & an effort that goes beyond language classes or tourism.
How not to be a tourist? How to translate, and bridge between cultures/languages, without exploiting or ? er? engaging in cultural appropriation, a long mouthful of jargon for ?not being an asshole?. Translators lately talk a lot about this, about two-way translation, not expecting everything to be in English, about particpating in the culture you?re translating from, about being aware of your own subjectivity or subject position.
This weekend at , an anarchic nerdfest, I talked all morning with Peter Kaminski of Socialtext - about collaboration, wikis, science fiction, and translation? He believes strongly in reading newspapers in other languages that aren?t your first language; that you are jolted out of your perspective (and you learn the language too.) You can also try listening to the radio? try the Pocho Hour of Power, at Pocho.com.
I spend a bit of time puzzling out people?s blogs in Spanish. It?s harder than newspapers or books, and more like trying to eavesdrop on the slangy, intimate conversations of strangers who know each other well. Slash fanfic in Spanish is vastly entertaining, and you can warm up if your spanish is rusty with the Spanglish translation of Don Quixote by Ilan Stavans.
In my translations of Perlongher, a great poet who is foulmouthed in Spanish, Portugues, Portuńol, and French, I?ve had to look at a lot of tranny porn, or actually, travestí porn; in Latin America, LGBT organizations are LGBTT, because transexual and travestí are fairly well-defined different identities with specific political histories and problems.
Mmm, internet porn. It?s got so many serious literary and political uses! And you should read it in its original down and dirty International Espanglish. The Swearsaurus Global Swearing Archive at Insultmonger is a good starting point to understanding the dirty slang of particular countries, but going right to the porno source teaches you much faster. I?m being flip about it, but the dynamics of the international porn trade are complicated and important. Porn and sex work continue to become globalized, like most other industries.
Anyway, listen to Perlongher?s amazing poem Cadáveres and read along if you dare.
