stupid questions

[fflo]

i'm only now setting up one of my credit cards to pay online, cuz it's due today (yes, i'm on a break). they have pesky security questions. you have to pick & answer three. get a load of these:

• What is your most unique characteristic?

• Who was your arch rival when you were growing up?

• What is the last name of the funniest friend you know?

• Which foreign country would you like to visit?

hard to say which is the stupidest question. then there are the usual impossible ones, like your favorite movie or favorite fictional character, or favorite "person from history."

Comments

[homovegetarian.livejournal.com]

they are gross? i pick different questions, but always give the same answer:

what is your mother's maiden name: plaid78
what street were you born on: plaid78
what is your dog's name: plaid78
what does your ass smell like: plaid78

[fflo.livejournal.com]

what does your ass smell like

*guffaw*

i'm totally stealing your technique, you know. beats trying to remember later, if i need to, that my answer was "what a stupid question" vs. "damned stupid question" or w/e.

my user names for credit cards both refer to debt sucking. and include "sucks". small consolation, this bit of grousing upon login, but it's all i've got.

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

you must change your life, as our favorite poet once said! these questions make that truth abundantly clear.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

i didn't know that poem. nice! i'm still absorbing the ending, that last bit you mention. i'm slow! the gut likes it, though. i trust the gut, the heart. the head will follow.

here's the poem auf D, followed by three translations---the one you cited & then (what i think is) a lousy one, relatively (at least to my ear in my place & time here), & then one that takes the most liberty, certainly, but that has something of its own here & there, and (so) about which in the end i think i can't complain.

Archaïscher Torso Apollos

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,

sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.

Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle

und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.


Translated by Stephen Mitchell, 1995:

Archaic Torso of Apollo

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.


Translated by C. F. MacIntyre, 1957:

Torso of an Archaic Apollo

Never will we know his fabulous head
where the eyes' apples slowly ripened. Yet
his torso glows: a candelabrum set
before his gaze which is pushed back and hid,

restrained and shining. Else the curving breast
could not thus blind you, nor through the soft turn
of the loins could this smile easily have passed
into the bright groins where the genitals burned.

Else stood this stone a fragment and defaced,
with lucent body from the shoulders falling,
too short, not gleaming like a lion's fell;

nor would this star have shaken the shackles off,
bursting with light, until there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.


Translated by Winslow Shea, 1980:

ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO

We did not know the incredible head
in which his ripened eyeballs blazed. Yet here
his torso glows, an ancient chandelier
in which his gaze, set lower but not dead,

still holds and gleams. Or else the chest curve could
not blind you, neither in the slight bend
of the loins could a smile descend
to center where regeneration stood.

This stone would then stand stunted and deformed
under shoulders of translucent grace,
not shining like some predatory pelt at night

nor breaking all its bounds with light
like some bright star: for nowhere is a place
that does not stare at you and say: Reform!

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

i think i don't like the "reform" part---too "social" and "political."

i think the imperative and the modal MUST stay (no pun intended:). and you and your and all that. i like all that. because it starts from the third person, the piece of art (the grecian urn, the ripe eyes of apollo and such), and then it just turns to "you" and what you must do (as if the poem speaks through the bust, or makes it evident beyond all doubt--sees you from all sides:).

i like that he was thinking this while being bankrolled by italian countesses.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

:)

"sees you from all sides" -- yes

"reform" as "re-" + "form" is good, but, yeah, maybe not enough to overcome the general feel of the whole word as we take it.

but his lines in english do good things in english, and as lines. say i. sense i. stuff works within the poem that results, sometimes pretty nicely. though it's a bit of a departure, fer sure.

and there's a (sort of structural) emphasis the reworking of the ending has going for it. conveying the imperative, you might say, if not grammatically, per se.

anyway, as long as i'm here:

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

ha. nice bust. intentional ruin?

[fflo.livejournal.com]

it's from the site from which i snagged that last translation:
http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/794694

there's also discussion there of that statue, and what the poet mighta meant by the archaic thing, and his relationship with rodin. scroll to the bottom for a link, if you're interested.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

of course!

i'm gonna guess a field mouse would like the sack of rice. vs., like, a person who dies after falling into a grain elevator. (happens a lot more than you might think, if you don't think it'd happen much.)

you can also, of course, chime in any time you feel it. ;)