Very much my experience. A bit like being a method actor.
By odd coincidence, I have a copy of the original sheet music for "Yes, We
Have No Bananas," It was still current in my childhood. Teh artwork on the
sheet music reflects a lot of ethnic confusion. The song's main character
is identified as Greek, but the guy pictured is in archaic Turkish costume.
Here are the lyrics.
Folk Song written By: Frank Silver and Irving Cohn (1923)
There's a fruit store on our street
It's run by a Greek.
And he keeps good things to eat
But you should hear him speak!
When you ask him anything, he never answers "no".
He just "yes"es you to death,
And as he takes your dough, he tells you...
"Yes! We have no bananas
We have no bananas today!!
We have string beans and onions, cabBAges and scallions
And all kinds of fruit and say
We have an old fashioned toMAHto
A Long Island poTAHto, but
Yes! We have no bananas
We have no bananas today!"
Business got so good for him that he wrote home today,
"Send me Pete and Nick and Jim; I need help right away."
When he got them in the store, there was fun, you bet.
Someone asked for "sparrow grass"
and then the whole quartet
All answered:
"Yes, we have no bananas
We have-a no bananas today.
Just try those coconuts
Those wall-nuts and doughnuts
There ain't many nuts like they.
We'll sell you two kinds of red herring,
Dark brown, and ball-bearing.
But yes, we have no bananas
We have no bananas today."
At 01:13 AM 1/17/2005, you wrote:
>Hi Alison,
>
>No, no offence, that 'never' 'never' was just goofing.
>
>But in thinking about this later, I think the difference between reader's
>head and
>translator's head is the plasticity of the text. In other words, in
>reading, the text
>is given; however much suspension or circumvention of expectation there may
>be, and I don't significantly disagree with your description of the
>activity of
>reading, the text is there. As a reader, I anyway give myself to it. But in
>'translator's head' the text itself has alternatives, the very present
>alternatives of
>the other translations also there, and the body of the original which may
>or may
>not be known or known in partial degrees, and which may exist no more than as
>a shimmering phantom which arises from the gaps between various given texts.
>So the activity in "translator's head" is akin to being reader and writer
>simultaneously but without being settled in either, the text has a sort of
>plasticity. I don't know, but for me, it was most instructive to have to
>translate
>for hire works that I ordinarily might not have. In other words, generally
>as a
>poet who translates, I've translated works that I've been drawn to, caught
>in the
>forcefield of, wanted to spend a lot of time with. But it's much different
>to be
>given a text and asked to translate it, particularly if the work might not be
>congenial or might not attract one's own sensibilities and so there's a much
>greater sense of becoming a void. You asked how one communicates with a
>void, but I'd guess the real answer is that the communication is the resulting
>translation. Not sure if that makes any sense. And on the other hand, I
>have the
>temptation to start singing (fortunately the web is inaudible for the most
>part)
>that song, probably about 68, and surely given the knowledge existant among
>listmembers someone will know whoever sang it, "yes, we have no bananas,"
>
>best,
>
>Rebecca
>
>
>Hi Rebecca
>
>Cool bananas. No offence taken, and none meant.
>
>Best
>
>A
>
>
>Alison Croggon
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