Comments for FeelingElephants's Weblog

Comment on You know you’re in the South when… by Shihan Rob

Shihan Rob — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 03:21:26 +0000

“Glistening like a pig” Hahahahah. Good one Jessie!

Comment on Almost Published! by Jessica Bennett

Jessica Bennett — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:11:18 +0000

hey jessica! i just wanted to say that you were a HUGE help in research for this article, which took a turn of focus very late in the game. (we had you prominent in the original draft!) anyway, thanks again for your help. this is definitely a topic i plan on coming back to. cheers, jessica

Comment on A blogger/singer’s quandry (reviews of Saltnote Stageworks 2008) by jens-erik

jens-erik — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:11:08 +0000

Bad reviews can only comment on the festival but they cannot determine the experience of the festival, I hope.

Your numerous quotes by Mark Twain are indeed inspiring (although I do not consent to all of them), and I like you quoting from German classics (it was Schiller some days ago, and it is Goethe now), but the English translation of this quote here is, in my opinion, weak and inadequate.
“For the whole” is merely the opposite of the original “zum Dasein des Einzelnen”; Goethe does not mean to simply lack something but to abandon it; and “quirks” does not belong to the kind of English that Goethe would have used.

Thus a better translation could be: “Certain flaws are necessary for the existence of the individual. It would be displeasing for us if old friends abandoned certain peculiarities.” –Elective Affinities, from Ottilie’s Diary, 1809

The German original is: “Gewisse Mängel sind notwendig zum Dasein des Einzelnen. Es würde uns unangenehm sein, wenn alte Freunde gewisse Eigenheiten ablegten.”
–Die Wahlverwandtschaften, Aus Ottiliens Tagebuche, 1809

Comment on Feeling Elephants: the title explained by Eleanor Dickinson

Eleanor Dickinson — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:37:44 +0000

Your site is hard to find - for me anyway. I typed in “feelingelephants” OK and got to wordpress - but it was downhill after that. They (who?) kept trying to convince me that I wanted “flying elephants” instead. Then I got entangled in various peoples’ diaries/websites and was feeling very confused, wondering if somewhere I should find your name so as to feel that I was on the right track. I haven’t found it yet but the writing feels right so I assume I’m in the right place. The problem is, if I quit now - as I’m sleepy - how will I ever get back to here - where? In the meantime I have found my other website which is “netfirms” but there isn’t anything there. I think the first thing to put up is a sign “under-construction” or “come back later” after my name so it may attract some links? ne’scque pas?(or something). I gather that you are now in an opera playing 3 or 4 parts, varying daily: which seems very odd. What did you do to the other singers to eliminate them? Love, Baba

Comment on Things to Bring to Indian Head by Donna Gallagher

Donna Gallagher — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 02:49:54 +0000

Yes, the bug spray is also particularly handy if a giant monster happens to jump out of a trapdoor at you - always better to keep it to hand!

Comment on New Roles (written 2008/06/09) by jens-erik

jens-erik — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:27:52 +0000

Whilst you are singing the Carmina Burana in medieval Latin and in Middle High German, and whilst you are so brave and self-depreciating to comment on your maloperation of a computer programme with a quote from German classic literature (”Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens”, Friedrich Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orléans), here is some solace from Schiller’s inevitable friend Johann Wolfgang Goethe: “Irrtum verläßt uns nie; doch ziehet ein höher Bedürfnis immer den strebenden Geist leise zur Wahrheit hinan.” (from the poem Vier Jahreszeiten, Herbst)

I wish you ongoing fun and success with your performances on the festival.

Comment on Shows I will be in (as of now) by jens-erik

jens-erik — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:55:50 +0000

Thank you for the reference to your quotes on libraries, Jessica. I wasn’t aware that in your quote from the book by Matthew Battles there is a mention of both the siege of Sarajevo and of the burning of books in Sarajevo albeit it is not the burning of books in the library of Sarajevo caused by Serbian gunfire.

The quote by Jorge Luis Borges (a librarian, of course) “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” is also one of my favourite quotes.
Concerning the quote by Heinrich Heine: I assume you mean “will burn”, not “while burn”; “soon after” is too little accurate for “am Ende” — it’s more like “eventually” or “ultimately”.
And yes, I do enjoy your blog.

Comment on Shows I will be in (as of now) by feelingelephants

feelingelephants — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:57:28 +0000

Hi jens-erik, thanks for posting again! In fact one of my favorite quotes on libraries has to do with the burning of books (found originally in my post entitled “Because Librarians rule the world”:

http://feelingelephants.wordpress.com/2007/09/28/because-librarians-rule-the-world/

Over coffee one afternoon in the summer of 2001, Andras [a librarian and historian whose family fled the communist takeover in Hungary and who now works at Harvard] reminded me [Matthew Battles] of another way to burn books, explained to him by a colleague who survived the siege of Sarajevo. In the winter, the scholar and his wife ran out of firewood, and so began to turn to their books for heat and cooking. ‘This forces one to think critically,’ Andras remembered his friend saying. “One must prioritize. First, you burn old college textbooks, which you haven’t read in thirty years. Then there are the duplicates. But eventually, you’re forces to make tougher choices. Who burns today: Dostoevsky or Proust?’ I asked Andras if his friend had any books left when the war was over. ‘Oh yes’ he replied, his face lit by a flickering smile. ‘He still had many books. Sometimes, he told me, you look at the books and just choose to go hungry.’ ~ (Battles, Matthew. Library: an unquiet History“. WW Norton & Company. NY: 2003. 190-1)

It is from a wonderful book on the history of libraries called _Library: an unquiet History_, written the head librarian (if I remember correctly) of one of Harvard’s libraries.

If my translation is correct, you’re Heinrich Heine quote is very roughly–”those who burn books while burn people soon after”. (Google said: “That was only a prelude, where books burn, burn you at the end people.” Heinrich Heine, “Almansor”, 1820). Thank you for the original German I hope you are enjoying my blog!

Comment on Shows I will be in (as of now) by jens-erik

jens-erik — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:44:38 +0000

Regarding the quote by Mark Twain:
I would be glad if he were right but he is regrettably totally wrong, at least if you consider warfare in the 20th and 21st century.
Only three of many terrible examples that come to my mind:
The destruction of Warsaw National Library by Germans in October 1944; the destruction of Sarajevo National Library by Serbian nationalists in August 1992; the destruction of Baghdad National Library under the eyes of US and other western forces in April 2003.
Information about destruction of libraries can be found in an article by the Argentinian scholar E. Civallero: “When memory is turned into ashes - Memoricide during XX century” (http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00011576/01/when_memory.pdf).

– “Das war ein Vorspiel nur, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.” Heinrich Heine, “Almansor”, 1820

Comment on Pachebel’s Rant (by Rob Paravonian) dissected by Gems Come From Research « FeelingElephants’s Weblog

Gems Come From Research « FeelingElephants’s Weblog — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:17:07 +0000

[...] I really enjoy finding pieces like this and this one (”Graduation” by Vitamin C) which I picked for my post of Pachebell’s Rant: [...]