variously, mostly translation

  • A collection of Surrealist poetry translated by David Gascoyne.
  • Ekaterina Likhtik’s translation of “La prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France”. Not sure what I think of it; certainly it seems naked without Sonia Delaunay’s illustrations & the original typography.
  • David Mendel comments on translations of and by Primo Levi. He complains (as do many British reviewers) of grating Americanisms in the existing translations; why do American reviewers never complain of Britishisms?
  • various new(ish) things at ubuweb

  • Three radio broadcasts by Glenn Gould
  • Yves Klein’s Selected Writing 1928–1962
  • Performances of Gertrude Stein’s Geography and Plays
  • films by Stefan & Franciszka Themerson
  • Agnès Varda’s film Black Panthers – Huey!
  • A rendition by Ethel Waters of “The Da Da Strain”, an old jazz standard.
  • Primary Texts of American and British Conceptual Art (1965–1971)
  • and many more things I haven’t had time to sift through.

    menu 3

    “A luncheon which may be difficult, unless you can prevent two of the mail guests revealing to each other that one considers himself a reincarnation of Proust, and another that, though he knows no French, Proust wrote solely for him. It rests with you to steer the conversation away from dangerous subjects, such as cattleyas, light railways, Jews, duchesses and madeleines.

    CROQUES MONSIEUR
    OR
    ALGERIAN RISOTTO

    *

    PRESSED BEEF OR RÔTI DE VEAU

    *

    MUSHROOMS AND CELERY

    *

    PURÉE À LA JANE OR RASPBERRY ICE
    WITH CHERRY SAUCE

    (from Ruth Lowinsky, More Lovely Food, 1935, The Nonesuch Press, London, pp. 13–14. This particular menu is llustrated with a drawing of “an accumulator jar holding water, goldfish, and a miniature ruined temple, made of wood, painted white” by Thomas Lowinsky.)