Month: July 2016

“I’m not afraid of anything.”

/ Sasha A. Palmer

“I’m not afraid of anything. To be afraid a person has either to be a coward or very great and big. I am neither.

— Zelda Fitzgerald’s letters to her husband.

 

Image via The Paris Review.

 

 

“yet none knows well…”

/ Sasha A. Palmer

Sonnet #129

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

A Different Species

/ Sasha A. Palmer

“Want to guess what percentage of the CEOs I spoke with talked in
plain, everyday English?

One hundred percent. Every one of them. Without exception.

So you know how many used high falutin talk or more refined
prose: zero percent.

The lesson: The idea that when you are writing to C-level or
other senior executives you have to use “professional,” formal,
or stuffy language — and not plain talk — has no basis in fact,
at least as proven out by my research with its admittedly small
sampling. …

To assume that CEOs are a different species speaking a different
language is in most cases largely an error.”

— Bob Bly

“From here on earth…”

/ Sasha A. Palmer

A 1955 oil painting by Dr. Seuss. Photo: The Art of Dr Seuss and Liss Gallery, via the Guardian

From here on earth, from my small place,  
I ask of You way out in space:
Please tell all men in every land
what You and I both understand.
Please tell all men that peace is good.
That’s all that need be understood
in every world in Your great sky.
We understand. Both You and I.

Dr. Seuss

 

“One must always trust…”

/ Sasha A. Palmer

Zhivago footnotes

“Some people love footnotes. They view them as the subtext of the story, an underlying narrative of facts to enrich the plot. To me, they are an enormous distraction. They pull me out of the flow of reading, and when I choose to skip them I feel guilty, as if I’ve just cut a corner. Unless they are funny, or artistic in some way, I’d rather not include them in the first place, or include them as minimally as I feel is possible.

…foregoing footnotes always involves a leap of faith, but so does the act of writing, and so does choosing a career as a translator. One must always trust that people care enough to read, to inquire, to research, and to understand.”

— Yardenne Greenspan

Duly Noted: on Footnotes and their Place in Translation