יום שני, 28 בנובמבר 2011

eating a muffin

The final stages of projects can be really dull. Pareto's rule, the law of the vital few, can be a good explanation. After all, most of the job has already been done, and now we come near the finishing touches. As exciting as they may be, in long term projects, most of the excitement has already been used, and it is hard to regain that "here comes the end!" feeling for the hundredth time.

This intro probably explains how I found myself, while verifying a punctuation rule regarding English commas,  enchanted by the way some grammatical examples could also shed a light on literary techniques.
The objective - depict a father eating a muffin.
The possibilities (to be shortly demonstrated, quoted with slight variations from Wikipedia) are endless:
  • Once upon a time, my father ate a muffin.
  • My father ate the muffin, damn!
  • My father, if you don’t mind me telling you this, ate the muffin.
  • Sad and bitter, my father ate the muffin.
  • My father, his eyes flashing with rage, ate the muffin.
  • Chewing with bridled fury, my father ate the muffin.
  • My father ate the muffin, a muffin which no man had yet chewed.
  • "It is topless !", cried my father as he ate the remains of the muffin. 
  • My father ate the muffin, a feat which no man had attempted.
  • "I'll help you with your muffin top!", suggested my father as he snatched my muffin and ate it. 
You can find many more meaningful combinations of fathers and muffins surfing the net

And before I finish, just in case you happen to be one of those who disregard punctuation: did you know that "James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher" can be punctuated in a way that will make it a sound English sentence ? 

2 Hints, so you will not feel cheated: 

  1. This sentence refers to two students, James and John, who are required by an English test to describe a man who, in the past, had suffered from a cold. John writes "The man had a cold" which the teacher marks as being incorrect, while James writes the correct "The man had had a cold." Since James' answer was right, it had had a better effect on the teacher.
  2. The following punctuation marks (in the following line, marked in bold) should be used:
 , " " , " " ; " "  . 
The solution ? if you feel desperate, mark the following text (currently in white):
James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.


יום ראשון, 27 בנובמבר 2011

a song of bereavement

a song of bereavement 
The "bereavement family" is a phrase used (in some parts of the world), in regards to the loving relatives of persons who have lost their lives in combat, during military service or as a result of a terror attack, and as a description of those relatives existential state of mourning. Poems written by a bereaved father, dealing with the present absence of his dead son in his daily routine and in his night dreams, insinuating the parent's deeply-restrained feelings, were the cause for this poem, in relation to that father, a member in my "extended family". This is a rather awkward translation of a poem published previously in Hebrew on this blog, but I suspect that similarly to the famous limitations of translating humor, there are limitations regarding the translation of grief. 

Sometimes,
in various relations,
one hears that hated phrase
that of the "bereavement family".

Bereavement,
as we all know,
does not create families. Far from it. Actually -
quite the opposite.

But when I read some of the bereaved father's poems,
I felt,
after the sensation of the blow of his bereavement,
and after the backlash,
that of my own ongoing repression of my own bereavement,
I felt,
that not less than he is, his dead Son's Father, he is my Brother.

What is heart feels -
I know.  

יום שלישי, 22 בנובמבר 2011

אמר החזאי


אמר החזאי
אמר החזאי
והותירני מודאג.
לא התרכזתי אז
כשדיבר,
ועכשיו אינני בטוח
במה להיזכר.
לא שכחתי. לא הקשבתי. כבר איני בטוח עוד. רק אדע -
מחר יהיה גשום אך שטוף שמש, יירדו זלעפות, יטפטף, גם  תזרח החמה, יהיה מעונן ובהיר, ואולי  חם, ממש כמו בגיהינום, או שאולי דווקא נקפא כולנו, כמו אותו המקום, אי-אז בעתיד שעבר.
מחר יהיה טוב, יהיה רע, יהיה גם בערך. אולי לא כך ולא כך, אלא דווקא אחרת. מחר יהיה, אמר החזאי.
והותירני 
לבד. 

יום שלישי, 15 בנובמבר 2011

חוזים וצוואות


עידן לנדו ציטט את ברכט בהקשרים של איומי ההתקפה על הגרעין האיראני.  למרות שההקשר, לטעמי, הופך הציטוט למיותר, הציטוט לכשעצמו תמיד מוצדק:
"הממשלות
כותבות חוזי אי-התקפה.
אדם קטן
כתוב את צוואתך."
(ברטולד ברכט, "מטעם" 27, תירגמה: ליאורה בינג-היידקר)

יום ראשון, 13 בנובמבר 2011

להיות במסע חשוב לא פחות מאשר לסיים אותו

במקרה נתקלתי בציטוט ישן של יצחק שמיר (ראש-הממשלה לשעבר, ומי שכתב אוטוביוגרפיה לאחר מכן) על החוויה של כתיבת ספר. ציטוט שנראה מתאים לכל יוצר, בכל זמן:
"אני כתבתי את הספר ואני מאד רוצה שיקראו אותו, אך עיקר החשיבות אני רואה בכך שכתבתי אותו. מבחינתי לצאת למסע, להיות בו, להאמין בחשיבותו לא פחות חשוב מלהגיע לסיומו. אם יקנו את הספר - זה טוב, וגם אם לא יגיעו אנשים – זה טוב. אני מבטיח לך כי אצא מכאן באותו מצב רוח בדיוק".

pen name or real name ?

As can be easily perceived, this blog is written using a pen name. As the question arises every now and then why I choose this form of publishing creations, this may be a good opportunity to give some reasons. The following link summarizes very nicely the pros and cons of pen-naming, and it is worth a read, in my mind, for every writer contemplating whether to publish under his real identity, or a fictitious one.
As I'm clearly in favor of anonymity, I'll summarize the reasons for using a pen name:

  • enables hiding personal traits, such as gender, age or other aspects like a funny name (gender mask worked excellently for legendary James Tiptree jr. when she tried to penetrate a mainly-male field of writing - science fiction);
  • eases shifting genres;
  • assists the immensely quick and wonderfully productive writers in being taken seriously by readers, without their scary output being considered against them;  
  • enables several writers to co-operate efficiently (currently not the case in this blog); 
  • enables who have another career or whose writing may cause them embarrassment (or worse) if publicly connected with their true identity; 
And my personal favorite (and admittedly, a variation of the last reason): using a pen name helps people who find the process of taking stuff out of their drawer and putting it into the public reaches an emotionally difficult one, as it gives a special protection from the harder possible impacts of criticism thanks to the protection of the veil of anonymity.

And of course, let us not forget that one is able to copyright one's work while using a pen name.





יום שבת, 5 בנובמבר 2011

חלום מושלם

חלום חלמה היא -
חלום מקסם,
חלום מושלם.

ואז אמרה היא לי -
היה שלי
ורק שלי!

ואז השיב הוא לה -
בשלילה.
בשלילה.

ואז זעקה היא -
(די!)
זעקה מרה,
זעקה קרה.

ואז הלך משם -
והשיר כך תם.


[הערת-פרשנות:
כשאדם מאמין שפרשנות היא משהו שאמור להיות בשליטת הקורא,
כפי שאני מאמין בכך,
הרי שנגזר מכך העקרון,
ככל הנראה,
שרצוי שאמנע מצירוף פרשנות לשירתי.

מצד שני,
לעתים,
הותרת שיר לפרשנות חופשית,
עלולה לסבך משורר תמים
בצרות עם סביבתו,
ובמקום לכתוב שירים,
יצטרך להסביר כוונתו.

אז כדי לחסוך מהעולם מררה,
הערה (קצרה)
על הנסיבות בהן השיר נהרה:

בעודי יושב בצהרי-היום,
במכוניתי הנאמנה והותיקה
המסרבת במפתיע,
להידלק ולהתניע,
(למרות שיצאה אך הבוקר מן המוסך,
 אחרי תיקון יקר מדי וממושך),
בעודי ממתין למוסכניק החביב-להפתיע,
שעשה דרכו בצהרי יום-שישי,
במקום לביתו, לביתי
לסייע במצוקתי,
הרהרתי באין-אונים ובעצב
"כן. הגיע הזמן להחליף את הרכב".

ועודי מהרהר ועל המכונית וחושב
החל בלבי דיאלוג להתעצב.
מה אפשר לעשות.
גם למכוניות יש לב. ] 

יום רביעי, 2 בנובמבר 2011

the ape and the grape

Once upon a time,
a smart looking grape,
wearing a cape,
was caught in the rape
of a lascivious ape.
The grape was held at dock,
was trialed despite her mock,
and to her greatest shock,
was briefly sent behind a lock.

The ape, stricken by the shame
taken by the dame
his honor she did maim
he chose to cast  away
his talent, beauty and his fame.

and thus, following a short internal strife
seeing shadows all around
so plenty and so rife
he found a sharpened knife
and took his own life.




All rights reserved to Cha Plan Sha 

feeling the trend

Halloween comes and soon it will go.
Did you know ? 
kardash is a village
in Azerbaijan!
But people are more interested in Kim -
Kardashian... 

Poetry is an emotion 
woven by words,
but looking at Google's trends
one feels as one blends - 
Trapped within reality, 
overwhelmed by crowds' mentality.

And still, I seek an escape from the media's cadence, 
 ignorance of the world's decadence, 
silence
in which to enjoy the seasons' dance 
and maybe even find a little solace.