愚痴をこぼすのは少なくとも苦労している最中にそれを云々する事ですが、取り越し苦労は，苦労かどうか解らないうちから苦労を荷なうという事で，本当にご苦労さんですね。「こいつぁー英訳，容易に出来んで。」
Google Translate yielded the following (courtesy Bruce Weinstein): "The thing to complain about work ... but it has a hard time during at least the needless fear, pain in the shoulder from those things that if you understand pain, I really cheers for hard work. "A guy ー English, and that can not be easy."
The text contains a lot of idiomatic expressions that defy translation. But here is my effort. "Kvetching is at least complaining about hardship in the midst of it, but worrying is dwelling on an event in anticipation without any certainty about its hardship -- well, thanks for nothing, I say. Tell ya, 'tain’t easy to say this in English.”
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Choreographies
George Balanchine choreographed himself a dance for which his dancers were in his service. Jerome Robbins choreographed a dance to serve his dancers as singular individuals. Merce Cunningham choreographed a cosmic design of which his dancers were ethereal constituents. Mark Morris choreographs a dance for the sheer joy of his dancers and himself.
Rivals Are Not Enemies
Rivals are not enemies. They compete against each other. They compete to test and whet their strength, skill, and speed, whether the contest is physical or mental, toward an endeavor to do better.
So, the ancient Greeks instituted athletic competitions as games at Olympia in 776 BCE. From the beginning contests took two distinct forms. There was one in which the contestants moved or stood facing the same direction, as in footrace, long jump, and discus and javelin throwing, and there was another in which they charge face to face and dash in opposite directions to crash into each other, as in boxing and wrestling, and, later in history, jousting. In the latter form, rivals were therefore opponents, and as opponents they could easily get combative; boxing, in fact, could get brutal, and a boxing match is still called a fight. There is no doubt that athletic exercises had their practical merit as a training for real life combat. But games were games. Wrestling and hand-to-hand combat, though similar in form, differ importantly in their objective; wrestlers test their might and endurance but combatants fight to harm each other, and kill, if necessary, not only in defense but for victory. A Greek boxer, if killed by his opponent, was automatically the victor. Rivals were not to be mistaken for enemies. The duel, incidentally, is a ritual which turns rivals into enemies by mutual agreement.
In team sports, the sense of opposition is magnified by the fact that the players are not competing as individuals but as members of a concerted group even though it may be one single player who dashes forward to put a ball into the goal or a basket, or hit it as far afield as possible. Participants and spectators alike know, of course, that opposing teams are playing a game, not fighting a battle. Parents tell their children trudging out of a defeated team that it’s only a game, and winning is not everything. But attending a game, in their overflowing enthusiasm, they often get much more serious themselves, cheering and jeering, stomping and raising their fists, quite contrary to their admonishing words. Tennis players, after an intense game, shake each other’s hands demonstrably that they are still amicable, even if only out of politeness. Rivals are not enemies even after shouting curses and breaking a racket.
Enthusiastic fans, in support of the team they side with, at times go wild and even abusive, even though, as spectators, they are not even struggling under pressure to win, like the players. They express winning, then, more in terms of the defeat of the opponent team; words like destroy, demolish, and decimate are freely thrown about, and the fans of one team insult those of the opponent team and sometimes get violent. Rough language may be metaphorical; but anger is an outburst of hostility.
In those games in which the contestants face the same direction, they are less likely to develop enmity. To take a stance of attack, one needs an adversary. In some athletic activities, participants work in isolation, as in the legendary long-distance runner. In an artistic and intellectual endeavor, for a contest or otherwise, one struggles to do better by competing with oneself. and so, too, in some athletic activities, like gymnastics, swimming, and high jump. The player challenges her or his own past achievements, not so much those of a rival.
So, perhaps it makes sense that violence is more evident in spectator sports than in solitary exercises. A football field simulates a battlefield. Opposing teams are seen as troupes charging on to attack their enemies.
Politicians who speak of politics in analogy with athletic games may be motivated by the idea sportsmanship, such as fairness, decency, and integrity. May the best man (or woman) win, they say. Yet, it is not uncommon nowadays for rival candidates in a political campaign to attack one another more as mortal enemies than righteous rivals. They challenge the opponents with vicious words and a battle cry to slaughter them. Then, wittingly or unwittingly, they make politics a battlefield that it should not be. This is a sad affair.
So, the ancient Greeks instituted athletic competitions as games at Olympia in 776 BCE. From the beginning contests took two distinct forms. There was one in which the contestants moved or stood facing the same direction, as in footrace, long jump, and discus and javelin throwing, and there was another in which they charge face to face and dash in opposite directions to crash into each other, as in boxing and wrestling, and, later in history, jousting. In the latter form, rivals were therefore opponents, and as opponents they could easily get combative; boxing, in fact, could get brutal, and a boxing match is still called a fight. There is no doubt that athletic exercises had their practical merit as a training for real life combat. But games were games. Wrestling and hand-to-hand combat, though similar in form, differ importantly in their objective; wrestlers test their might and endurance but combatants fight to harm each other, and kill, if necessary, not only in defense but for victory. A Greek boxer, if killed by his opponent, was automatically the victor. Rivals were not to be mistaken for enemies. The duel, incidentally, is a ritual which turns rivals into enemies by mutual agreement.
In team sports, the sense of opposition is magnified by the fact that the players are not competing as individuals but as members of a concerted group even though it may be one single player who dashes forward to put a ball into the goal or a basket, or hit it as far afield as possible. Participants and spectators alike know, of course, that opposing teams are playing a game, not fighting a battle. Parents tell their children trudging out of a defeated team that it’s only a game, and winning is not everything. But attending a game, in their overflowing enthusiasm, they often get much more serious themselves, cheering and jeering, stomping and raising their fists, quite contrary to their admonishing words. Tennis players, after an intense game, shake each other’s hands demonstrably that they are still amicable, even if only out of politeness. Rivals are not enemies even after shouting curses and breaking a racket.
Enthusiastic fans, in support of the team they side with, at times go wild and even abusive, even though, as spectators, they are not even struggling under pressure to win, like the players. They express winning, then, more in terms of the defeat of the opponent team; words like destroy, demolish, and decimate are freely thrown about, and the fans of one team insult those of the opponent team and sometimes get violent. Rough language may be metaphorical; but anger is an outburst of hostility.
In those games in which the contestants face the same direction, they are less likely to develop enmity. To take a stance of attack, one needs an adversary. In some athletic activities, participants work in isolation, as in the legendary long-distance runner. In an artistic and intellectual endeavor, for a contest or otherwise, one struggles to do better by competing with oneself. and so, too, in some athletic activities, like gymnastics, swimming, and high jump. The player challenges her or his own past achievements, not so much those of a rival.
So, perhaps it makes sense that violence is more evident in spectator sports than in solitary exercises. A football field simulates a battlefield. Opposing teams are seen as troupes charging on to attack their enemies.
Politicians who speak of politics in analogy with athletic games may be motivated by the idea sportsmanship, such as fairness, decency, and integrity. May the best man (or woman) win, they say. Yet, it is not uncommon nowadays for rival candidates in a political campaign to attack one another more as mortal enemies than righteous rivals. They challenge the opponents with vicious words and a battle cry to slaughter them. Then, wittingly or unwittingly, they make politics a battlefield that it should not be. This is a sad affair.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Reading poetry
In the last ten years, my reading has largely been plays, since, living in New York in retirement, I spend much time going to theater. Before that, inevitably, my reading was predominantly scholarly books in the area of art and architecture as needed in my professional pursuit. Otherwise, I read more poetry than prose; I was slow in building my repertory of novels. This is a propensity that started when I came to study in the US at 19; while in Japan I read more novels. I like poetry; that is undeniable. But there was also a less than honorable reason. Having started to read in English, I quickly discovered that I could finish a book of poems more quickly than a novel, since each page had fewer words and more blank space. But the real reason is that my temperament runs for conciseness, concentration, and cadence, i.e., concern for pattern, rhythm, and design, in poetry and prose alike.
04/08/11
04/08/11
Clothes dissimulate
I lived most of my life as a professor. But, for some deep-rooted psychology that I never bothered to inquire into, I disliked being taken for a professor that I was and enjoyed being. Was it false modesty, pride in reverse, or a certain inclination to be level with my students? In any case, I took pleasure in proving that I could be a professor without looking like one, and did so successfully. At times I was facetious; on those occasions of college business, when faculty members sat in a circle with non-college visitors and went around introducing themselves, I would announce myself as “a college employee.” In everyday teaching, I used to take great care to avoid any indication in the way I dressed and behaved that would suggest I was a professor. I didn’t wear suits, with pants or skirts; I wore dresses. I preferred shifts to shirt-dresses, fluffy blouses to dress shirts. I wore skirts, maxi or mini rather than midi -- flared, pleated, gathered, or straight; and I was partial to miniskirts because they made me look less distinguished. I eschewed the hem below the knee because it gave me a look of a mature woman. Habit dies hard, and after retirement I still go around in a maxi or a mini. No one suspects I was a professor, and no one is quite convinced when I say I was one, and perversely I chuckle to myself. Clothes make the man, we say; they also dissemble the wearer. When I ride a crowded bus or subway, I am often offered a seat if I am wearing a maxi. If I am wearing a mini, no one ever offers me a seat. It is debatable which is better -- to be seen as a youngish- looking elderly or a wasted younger woman. I wear ankle lengths at the opera; but I prefer short skirts most of the time. The reason is simply practical. I don’t like the skirt hem brushing the floor, going up and down the subway stairs and getting on and off a bus, but, above all, getting it all over the place in public facilities. I can wear a midi on occasion, of course; but I don’t want to. Ultimately I don’t care much for clothing that constricts; I like it short, open, and light -- minimal. If maxi lengths became a fashion among the young, I'd never be offered a seat, I'm sure.
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