Author: tuckova

Interests: Alfons Mucha, Archibald Leach, big words, Bob Hicok, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Charles Bukowski, Charlotte Masaryk, cheese, clarity, dark chocolate, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Adams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Frank O'Hara, Fred Rogers, garlic, Gaudi, Gertrude Stein, ginger, Gustav Klimt, Iva Pekarkova, Jane Austen, Jaromir Nohavica, Jeanette Winterson, Josef Skvorecky, Joseph Campbell, Joss Whedon, Just a Minute, Kate Bush, Kurt Vonnegut, laughing until it hurts, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, little kids singing, Lloyd Alexander, mandarin oranges, making lists, Margaret Atwood, Miss Manners, New Yorker, Paul Simon, performance, P.G. Wodehouse, poetry, Rebecca Solnit, Rob Brezsny, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Creeley, salt, Salvador Dali, secrets, silence, Star Trek, Stephen Dunn, Talking Heads, Terry Gilliam, things that stain, This American Life, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, vegetable juice, veiled cultural references, vinegar, water, wine, W.H. Auden

sail along the silver sky

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I remember sitting on the edge of her bed. Her old boyfriend's picture
in a drawer somewhere now, and her new boyfriend out of town for the
weekend, which is why we were visiting. Me and Dave, who was really
sub-league for me except at the time I was not really capable of
interacting with my actual peers and he played guitar so he became
attractive to me. This was the fall after the summer when I gave
everything up. Most of my thinking at the time had to do with how
excellent and frightening it felt to float away, rid of ballast, no
ties. I cut off all my hair because it seemed a terrible encumbrance,
and then balanced this with heavy bracelets, silver rings. I was not
unconflicted. Deep down I knew that giving up what you want is not the
same as giving up wanting. Anyway sitting on the edge of her bed, and
he's brushing her hair, and then she's brushing his. Hers short and
blond, his long waves of golden chestnut, something for a girl to envy,
and I watched the brush going through her hair, going through his, the
two of them giggling together. I felt like I was watching monkeys
grooming, ridiculous. And I felt so absurdly jealous I wanted to cry. I
sat on the edge of the bed and watched another connection I had
imagined sever itself. Another rope cut.

I don't feel anything particular about that story now. It's a thing
that happened. I remember it so that I don't repeat it, so that I never
again find myself sitting on the edge of a bed close to tears for being
who I am or for wanting something for a moment, wanting anything, even
less than I deserve. It wasn't a good moment, but I got through it, I
got through worse, and I wouldn't trade the memory for the absence of
the pain it caused. Even if the scars are ugly, it beats the
alternative, which is for all the fire in my heart to burn out while I
stay in one place, tethered to a ground I know is uninhabitable.

last time

tuckova3 Comments

"As you can see, the fin de siècle…"
Eventually I slip away from
the tour group
and wander out into the castle courtyard.
The grounds have not been tended
for years –
Ninety minus forty-five years, exactly.

I take
out a cigarette, because I am learning
to be European. A plume of
smoke says,
"I have never been so lonely,"
but in fact I was much
lonelier, once,
on the tenth floor and I did not jump then.

My
heart is harder now; burned to brittle.
I have a great deal less to
lose.
From the balcony above me a girl is crying
and her mother's
clenched voice scolds,
"Stop this instant or I'll give you something
to cry about."

The Editor’s Dilemma

tuckova5 Comments

IN THE HIDDEN CHAMBER OF OUR
INTIMACY ALL PROS AND CONS MINGLE.

A writer writes something. Next, an
editor edits it, eliminating grammatical and factual errors and usually
tightening the style if needed. The text then goes to a translator,
whose job is to translate the text. A final editor (me!) then makes sure
that the text is as natural sounding as possible in the target
language.

THE FAMOUS TIGHTROPE WALKER
HOUDINI WOULD SPREAD HIS ARMS.

The translator’s dilemma is the
challenge that a translator faces when needing to relay something from
one language that does not translate exactly or even smoothly. A joke is
lost; do you “make up for it” later? How can you convey a stylistic
flourish? Do cultural activities get explanations?

 

TIME SEEMS TO STAND STILL TILL MY
HISTORY COMES ALIVE.

The particular translator's dilemma that I’ve been thinking
about this week is the one that happens when for some reason the source
language editor has not done their job. This is sometimes not because
the editor did a bad job, but because the writer did not feel the need
for an editor at all.

 

I WOULD ASSEMBLE IT THE WAY FIRST ANTHROPOLOGISTS WOULD
ASSEMBLE SKELETON OF MESOZOIC SAURIANS.

The dilemma is this: What if the writer is a
poor writer; what if the text is error-ridden
in the extreme? Is the translator's job to make sure the writer's work
is reproduced as faithfully as possible?  to
make text sound as good as it can? to make the text easier for the reader? Is the translator's duty to the
writer, or to the text, or to the reader?

 

SHE IMPERSONATES THE HEAVENLY AND
HELLISH BEAUTY.

The language editor's dilemma is the same song at a
different pitch. It IS an editor's job to fix factual, grammatical, and
stylistic errors. The problem is, when the text gets to the translator,
it should already have been cleared of error in the source text, and the
language editor should really only be worrying about such stylistic
changes as are necessary to make the text sound natural in the target
language. Should.

 

IT TESTS TRESPASSING INTRUDERS IN AN INNOCUOUS FOREPLAY.

But. I just got done editing a book that had so many errors it was almost funny. I decided to
go at it as the first editor should have done, which meant a lot of
research. It turns out that I enjoyed it (the research part) a lot more
than I’d expected. I turned in a text that was reasonably accurate,
grammatically correct, and stylistically still a reasonable reflection
of the writer. I feel a little morally conflicted, because the English
version doesn’t align with the original as it should, which is beyond
the call, but I felt I had to do it that way. I’m not even sure if I was
appropriately loyal to the readers, who have now been robbed of some
pretty funny stuff. However, since it was too good to throw it all away,
I have given you a little taste of the meal.

 

HEROD WASHED HIS HANDS.

facts are simple and facts are straight

tuckovaLeave a comment

Hi! Hi! What's up with you? What's up with me is that I have TOO MUCH
TIME and everything takes on this super-saturated intensity, and I
forget that the world is in fact going on as usual and it's just I'm
looking at it a bit funny. But anyway I thought maybe I should just say
what's facts and not so much feelings.

Facts are that we've been going to the cottage a lot. Pulling nails
out of old boards, lots of chainsawing, watching various flowers
(planted and otherwise) pop up. The current focus is on the front porch,
which was caving in because the previous owners built it on sand. I am
not making this up. So the whole thing came down and now we will figure
how to put it back up, this time not on sand. Lots of time spent in
pubs, on the train, and at the dining room table with graph paper trying
to figure out what to do. Graph paper and booze is a winning
combination.

Facts are that I've been sick for almost two weeks. I'm so much
better now, but I still can't walk about without a box of tissues in
hand. This is somewhat complicated when there are abrupt pressure
changes, which render me entirely useless on the best of days. On
Saturday I spent most of the day in bed, drifting between sleep and a
pile of New Yorkers, jumping up with a periodic flood of motivation only
to sink back down as everything went black and starry. Sunday was
better, but still not great: the one thing I nearly managed to
accomplish (picking up a glass from the floor) was thwarted when I
smashed my face into a nail. Good times.

Facts are that freelancing is going pretty well, actually better
than I would have thought. I am able to put food on my family! That
said, it turns out that marketingspeak is my chalkboard fingernails, and
that I am also not terribly happy with art critiques, of which I
currently have a book's worth to do. I love the translator and it's not
hard work, it's just irritating. Last week I did a medical paper on
yawning, which was fine text-wise, but lead to more napping than was
probably strictly necessary. Coming up this week: a travelogue. You
guys, if I don't get a simple "stereotactically-inserted
somethingsomething in the cortex" soon, I'm going to scream. Yes: "It's
not brain surgery" for me means something else: it means it's actually
hard work.

Facts are that I've thrown the last two books I've read, which is
not good. I'm thinking of a New Campaign, reading Pulitzer winners
(exceptions: Do not have to read the egregious Kavalier and Clay again).
This started as an idea to read all the Man Bookers, but then I
realized I've hated more than half of the ones I read, echh. So: Pullet
Surprises it is. If I take off the ones I've read already, I've still
got some 70 books to read, so this becomes part of the five-year plan,
clearly, because I am not one of those book-a-week geniuses.

Facts are that I feel sometimes as though I'm making no progress as a
person, and then I remember how much I was crying this time last year,
and I feel ready to launch my own self-help channel. Now: your turn.

AT-510A

tuckovaLeave a comment

I open the door and you’re there which is surprising and not. There’s an
awkward moment and I step back to let you in but you reach forward,
your thumb along my jaw and it fits like it always did and my head tilts
into your warm fingers like it always did; our open palms and eager mouths
and matching eyes are mirrors, and here we are. You say, I realized I love you. Then I
realize something for myself, which is: this is not real. My real life
is not a story, because stories aren’t real.

Nothing
against stories but the thing that is missing for me is the part where
they break from the existing narrative. The thing that is missing for
me is when somebody says: I don’t want to be a story. The thing I don’t
get is when he says he’s prince charming, when she says she’s actually a
princess; when they shed the toadskin and the ragged dress and instead
of stepping into something new they step into the promises that were
made to them by people who were frankly untrustworthy. I’m not saying
we have to go all fourth wall on everything; I’m wondering why people
keep building the same walls.

I mean, listen: I’m biased.
If I step into the story and stay, we know perfectly well what happens. I
chop off my heels to try to be what he wants and when he finds out he
doesn’t say, oh the sacrifices you made for me. When he finds
out he says, hey actually I think I love your your sister; let’s
turn the carriage around and get her. So I have maybe less than the
usual desire to participate. I’m acknowledging that. If you think I
didn’t want him; if you think I didn’t burn for the prince same as
everyone it’s because I lied about it, because I knew how it would go
and where it would end.

So yes I am predisposed to hating
the walls, hating the story, hating all of that; out of
self-preservation if nothing else. I see that. I used all my power of
myth and wore out my dancing shoes, sewed nettles with my bleeding
hands, and then ran and escaped across the bridge of one hair instead. I
never expected a white horse or your prodigal love. And I took myself
out of the story long ago.

manic pixie dream girl grows up

tuckova1 Comment

He comes home from work to find her playing with the kids, and they sit
on the carpet together and draw pictures and he feels the day melt from
his shoulders.
If they don't have kids maybe he comes home from work
and she's made interesting cocktails and they have inventive and playful
sex.
One day they smash all the dishes so they can dress up in their wedding
clothes and go shopping for more.
Over dinner he tells her about his
day and she listens and they dress in costumes to act out the stupid
people until he doesn't feel the pain anymore.
They sneak homemade popcorn into the local multiplex and make fun of the
movies they're better than.
In the morning his ironed clothes are
laid out in witty positions and he goes to work again, smiling at his
luck.
During the day she works somewhere collecting stories for his amusement.
Or maybe she stays home and cleans the windows drawing secret messages
in her breath for him.
Weekends an adventurous trip or maybe a
dutiful one made fun by creative sidelines and thrilling insights.
They don't talk about ideas much, but they push boundaries and explore
inner worlds. He thinks about writing it down or painting, which will
please her because she loves how artistic he is.
I should never have
given them kids. Okay: the kids magically fade when children are no
longer fun to play with.
And then they grow old together and he reads her all the love letters he
ever meant to write her and she likes that a lot and forgets the rest.
They
die entwined and everybody sighs with completion.

Or one day he
comes home and the words she is saying are actually important and they
aren't about him but he has to pay attention. It's so demanding. She
wants to go back to school and maybe she blames him for pulling her out
of what she said was a waste of time. One day he comes home and there's
no dinner and she's crying and she throws a dish at his head, several
dishes and they don't go shopping afterwards. One day he comes home and
she says I have a life too, you know. But he didn't know, because she
never told him, because he never wanted to know. And he says let's go
scream at the trains? Let's capture a leopard, let's tap dance, let's
listen to the Shins? And she says Oh you assholes. This stuff works for
you because you are simple; I need more than that. And then what sucks
is that she doesn't evaporate, because she was real. Now they have that
pain to deal with, and no amount of soundtrack can make it better.

for clarity: Manic Pixie Dream Girls

three by three

tuckova2 Comments

Things that annoy:
people who use air quotes to convey their
superiority
errors on government websites
my brain when
insufficiently stimulated

Things that confound:
people who
dance to a different rhythm than the one playing
taking the time to wonder instead of taking the time to find out
where
the last hour went

Things that delight:
the mash-up of "It
Wasn't Me" and "Let It Be"
20 minute naps
when you throw your head back to laugh

because

tuckova5 Comments

I moved away and you didn't write. I wrote and you didn't write back.
You wrote a letter criticizing me for being stupid, and you were right
but I couldn't think how to apologize. You thought "contemplating your
navel" meant picking your nose, literally. I grew
up faster than you. One day I realized I hated the way you walked. You
got obsessed with movie actors. You started dating my boyfriend. You
went on a diet and I watched you peeling lettuce leaves off in strips
and saw we were fundamentally different. You told stories about me and
embellished them to make them more interesting, which is also known as
lying. You told me I was ruining my life but didn't seem to have any
suggestions about how to stop. You gave my friend an STD and denied it
to him and confessed it to me. You grew up faster than I did. You didn't
invite me to your party. You told me it wasn't possible to love me. 
You said it was too far for you to come and visit me, and I should visit
you instead. I chose the person who didn't ask me to choose. You said I
should forget you. You hung up on me. I wasn't your ideal. You had
children with a man you professed to hate. I had a six hour layover in
your airport and you had a date and didn't show. You said once I was
gone you probably wouldn't even miss me. You rubbed my forearm and
called me baby names. Once I wasn't there and you didn't even notice. I couldn't let it go, so I let you go instead.

five

tuckova3 Comments

1. I had to go to the doctor last week as a result of the work at the
Prestigious Hospital, who wants to be sure that its employees are fit.
I attempted to argue against it, since I really don't see what my blood
pressure has to do with my ability to edit (I see what editing does to
my blood pressure, but that's different), and also because I
particularly dislike putting on clothes for the purpose of going out and
then taking off my clothes in front of clothed people. This is why I
never pursued a career as an artist's model. Fears and bumbling aside,
the visit to the doctor turned out to be the most low-maintenance visit
I've ever had: for example, he determined my height and weight by asking
me what they were. Neat-o. He said I could come back and take off my
clothes some other time, but a form is a form and let's get this thing
done. So that guy is totally going to be my regular doctor now.

2. I've been thinking about what makes people fall out of like. When
I meet somebody, I either instantly like or dislike them, or I forget
their names. Of the people I remember, I revise my opinion only rarely.
So if I stop liking somebody, there's generally a reason, I mean a thing
I can say, "It is at this point that I stopped liking you/being
interested in you." But I guess for some people they just lose interest
gradually? Or is there always some event, some one thing, however dimly
acknowledged, that causes a break?

3. Inspired by our friends who got Squire to paint a trailer by
paying him, I decided to try that approach at the cottage, and offered
to pay him a really ridiculous amount per nail for pulling nails out of
previously-used wood, so that it could then be safely chainsawed and
used for
firewood. Five crowns a nail, you guys. So he was all excitedly plotting
what he
would do with the money, what he would buy, how many nails he might pull
in an hour, etc. I was like, "Hey, all he needed was some motivation!"
He made it for about 30 minutes, 10 nails. Then he got bored and stomped
around the place for a few hours talking about how he had so much angry
energy he didn't know what to do with himself, oh the horrible
hor-moans! and then he lay on the bed and listened to Percy Jackson and
the Predictables. I pulled out the rest of the nails, though I gave up
counting out loud after 100. Then I stomped around the cottage wondering
who was going to pay ME five crowns a nail, because 500 Kc buys a quite
fine bottle of somethingsomething, which I felt I deserved.

4. Noting typos on the US Census web site is a) an occupational
hazard; b)a sign of too much free time; c) other.

5. I think one
reason I am good at remembering so many facts in general is that I
absolutely cannot store numbers. It has been noted that if some Czech
version of the INS ever came for me, or child services for that matter, I
might be lost. How much did Squire weigh when he was born? I have no
idea. Or Friar's year of birth. Or my current phone number. I do not
remember how old your kids are, and I have on more than one occasion
forgotten how many kids you have, and had to remember by reciting their
names, which I remember. I don't remember your birthday unless I have a
clever mnemonic, though I remember to write it down, so props for me. I
also have trouble performing simple functions, like you don't even want
to know what DST does to my poor tender brain. But anyway: numbers.
Numb-er and numb-er. Is this normal? It goes without saying that I can
tell you phone numbers from my childhood, including radio stations, my
aunt's house, my next-door-neighbor's, but I can't keep new numbers in
my head for beans. I blame trying to switch to metric as an adult. What
do you think?

sweetheart, bitter heart

tuckova1 Comment

We had some Drama and Hurt Feelings this weekend. Apparently his
friends' visit on Friday was not all that and a bag of chips. They were
to come over and play cards and look at his photos from vacation, of
which there were maybe a hundred, plus video footage. And the friends
were not very interested. They were talking about other stuff while they
were looking and sometimes they weren't looking at all.  I mean, I have
to say: more than 20 photographs and you have to really love the
photographer. On the other hand, your two best friends? On the first
hand, the photos aren't all that good, since for example he views the
whole "Don't photograph against a window using flash" as nothing more
than superstition. But back to the other hand: who are they, art
critics? It takes like 20 minutes to look at the pictures and be
interested in them, or pretend to be interested because you care about
the person who took them.

So
we had this talk, with his long legs draped across my lap because he is
too old to sit in my lap unless it's really, really bad. This talk that
involved prolonged staring at the ceiling because he is too old to cry
about just hurt feelings. This talk where I explained that being an only
child means that you're used to having people who care about you pay
full focused attention to you, and you're even used to paying full
focused attention to the people you care about, but that other kids may
not see this kind of attention as a kind of caring. Even some adults
don't see it that way. That because you were brought up by adults who
were pretty interested in your stories, that may give you the idea that
the stories are interesting, and some of them are, but some of them are
only interesting to the people who can make time for them. Which two
adults who only have one child can make time for a whole host of
stories, particularly when they think that the one child is going to be
paying attention to their stories, but some adults don't act that way,
and a 13-year-old peer might not feel that way. That it can happen
through the course of your life that no matter how interesting your
stories are, no matter how interesting you are, some people will never
be able to pay full attention to you. And I think one of the important
things about you is that because you know how important it feels to be
heard, you are a very good listener. And this is a blessing and a curse,
to be able to fully listen to people and hear their stories and
the stories behind them, and to remember them, but there is nothing but sadness if you expect
other people to have this gift, or even think of it as a good thing,
because many people don't.

I said it may for example happen that you are in the middle of what
you perceive as a pretty awful time, and you will be asked to pay
attention to someone else's story about how one time somebody was maybe
looking at them funny in line. And you will feel both like you need to
hear this story because you are vitally interested in other people and
obliged to listen to them besides, and you will feel hurt because they
haven't asked about you. I said it may happen that somebody gives you
eighty percent of their attention, ninety percent, and you won't feel
happy because you wanted a hundred. A hundred and ten. You could live
like this until you're forty. Purely hypothetically I'm saying.

But what you need to know is that most people don't think of things
this way. Most people are thinking of themselves, and they seem to live
in the doors of trams, in the grocery store lines. But many people,
people who are worth knowing, devote the amount of attention that they
can. So you can choose to be angry because people don't pay what you consider to be enough attention,
and go through life lonely; or you can hold out this measuring cup and
be hurt when you find it empty or only half full; or you can focus on
finding people who are worth your attention, and hope that they will pay
attention to you in their own way, even if it's different. In any case:
I'm not kidding about photographing against the glass. Seriously, that
has to stop.