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First I'd like to say that tomorrow I'll be making calls for MoveOn and the rest of the world, to do what I can to help avoid the predicted results of next month's mid-term election.
Then I have to add that I also read literary columns in the New York Times even at times like this. They raise my adrenalin level. I'd say that about 60 percent of Times op ed columns of every hue set me off enough to respond either in the comments section or, when this is closed, with a letter to the editor.
Few get published, but this week, October 7, one did. The subject that really grouted my tiles was the claim that the buck (book) stops once its path from author idea to book to reader is completed.
So in my letter I asked what of all of the reviews and how far they reach even those readers who stop at the review without reading the book? One can learn so much from the reviews themselves.
And what of book groups and intelligent readers like my mother who go out to lunch with friends and recommend the book to them? Some of the friends may read the book. I may be at the next table and decide to write a blog entry on an idea mentioned and/or discussed. The professor a few tables over supposedly absorbed in some form of reading matter may listen and then turn his wheels over the ideas, realizing that he hasn't published recently and needs to before his office chair is whisked out from under him.
He consults the book, reading the top line of each paragraph, and writes his paper, having also dipped into the bibliography to add a few quotations and relate them to the right theoreticals.
No offense to any of the links in the chain from author idea to others, except that its path is far longer and, to me, endless. Others in academe will draw inspiration, because most such publications are incomprehensible beyond it. Then they might have conversations in restaurants and so forth.
My letter only hinted at all of this. Of course, the word count precludes too much more. I could have left out the first part about translation. Every time any of us questions what anyone meant by something said or some gesture, a form of translation is involved. What did she mean by wearing that red shirt yesterday? Is she angry? Is she horny? Does she like the color red and look good in it because she is a brunette? Or do these conjectures represent a process of interpretation more than translation?
Maybe she was in a hurry and grabbed the first shirt she found.
In audiences of white people, I've observed that most wear neutral colors or very subdued shades of other hues. "People of color" (I think some may find that expression offensive) and younger adults of all age groups opt for bright colors more often, as do mothers buying clothing for their children. Please be aware that I'm expressing my own impressions only, which may be off the mark.
I'm also referring to my experiences in this country rather than places that require passports, and certainly sartorial tastes vary throughout the world.
So that's what I meant when I claimed that the translation process occurs constantly as humans react to each other in all sorts of ways. Put two people in a room together and you have politics, I once told a classmate. Lots of other events also, beyond "translation."
Here I am passing along the basic point of my letter to the editor farther. An idea refuting an idea is also infinitely chain-reactive.
And what if another reader decides to dispute my reaction? I will first be intimidated, then get my hackles up, then write a response, and then . . . probably publish it as a blog entry, if that. I've put my name out there enough . . . for now.
Most people love to read letters to the editor--the most frequently visited area of newspapers, I've read, but don't have the time or energy to do more. The author himself is probably too busy to care, expecting reactions from high-strung people like me, or won't respond unless I'm a big name.
That's fine with me. I've said more than once that people with big names who are assigned op eds or submit them to newspapers may sometimes dash them off, thinking it's about time to put their name out there again or else, if the writing has been assigned, remember it the night before because they're so busy. They come home from a cocktail party half-drunk at 3 a.m. and, wanting more than anything else to pass out, throw up later, sleep it off, and then relax over the Sunday Times once they've had their coffee or bloody Mary--dash something off, pat themselves on the back (remember--they're drunk), email it off, and then collapse.
The next week, someone like me will refute them. They might swear, laugh as they dress for the next cocktail party or, worst-case scenario, get slapped and respond by submitting better work and redeeming themselves, vowing to be more careful the next time around and skip the cocktail party scheduled in favor of writing a better column.
That's only my projection--the view from here. I took off time from freelancing to write this and took too long. No cocktail party tonight, even if I had one scheduled, which I don't.
