Translation

Last night, I watched a movie by Zizek called a The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, and of course I don't agree with him all the time, but the way that he reads things fascinates me to no end. He draws the wildest conclusions, makes such far fetched claims, and stretches things beyond their limits to prove his points. Maybe what I like most about him is exactly this. Critics see it as his weakness, that he wastes too much space by stretching things too far to draw what become fragile conclusions. This, to me, is when his theories are most attractive, the way that he can reinterpret films so wildly and unconventionally.

He sees something something as more than it is. Why should this be his weak point?

It got me to thinking about reading. How people read things.
Or maybe more specifically, translation, how people translate objects into their own language. Zizek translates films into his language, thats his art. I've always been very fond of covers, my favorite covers are ones like Siouxie and the Banshee's Dear Prudence, originally by the Beatles. My all time favorite cover by the Beatles is Norwegian Wood by Murakami. Murakami is possibly my favorite cover artist, for this book and South of the Border, West of the Sun. There is something special that he does in these two novels that will have me rereading them for the rest of my life most likely. In these two novels, like Siouxie Sue, he brings a melancholia, a noir, to the world of the 60s and 70s that is a perfect balance between intensity and serenity.

In some essay I read somewhere by Lyotard, I remember him writing about translations and readings. Writing is reading. We read as we write, and translate into words our thoughts each time we write. It goes on more, but its been so long since I've read it, and don't quite remember all of it. But this thought stuck with me. Of course I read it in english, translated.

People who have an interesting way of reading things fascinate me too. My friend Enrique has a view of pop culture that is totally not ironic. I think his sincerity for popular music and culture, while at the same time being very well educated, is something so refreshing. My friend Steve in Toronto has an interesting taste, but the lens that he reads everything makes them that much richer, possibly the exact opposite from Enrique, things aren't quite as much ironic as much as they are absurd. Even if I'd already read a book, after talking to Steve about it, I'd reread or remember certain parts and see authors through his lens and appreciate them for wholly different reasons. Steve is also a fucking great writer, his writing is his lens, the way he sees things, the way he reads things. He writes how he translates the world. It works.

I don't know where this is going...

Anyways.

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Mp3s:
Nouvelle Vague - Making Plans for Nigel

Joy Division's Love Will Tear us Apart has its own mythology, and everyone see's it differently, I couldn't think of a song with more covers.
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
Calexico - Love Will Tear Us Apart
New Order - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Live at Tower Ballroom in Birmingham, May 9th, 1983)
Nouvelle Vague - Love Will Tear Us Apart