Monday, January 08, 2007

Five Things More

Dr. O2 tagged me with the five things meme...and I told him I'd been tagged before. But, repetition isn't bad (we make songs of it, and poems, after all). So, here we go:

1. Obviously a great many people do not know I have two blogs. The second is "jarvenpa's notebooks" and is linked to the right of this --yes, look, over there. What's the difference? Well the notebooks are where I make strange lists and oddments that for some reason don't seem to fit over here. (Including my first round of answers to this meme, sent me by Marly)

2. In my mid-childhood years I used to make little dolls of twigs and tinfoil and oddments and ceremonially bury them. I thought of this as providing wonderful archeological finds for the future, little realizing that twig dolls return to earth all too soon.

3. I grew up in a household in which it was not uncommon for people associated with the FBI and CIA and such to come to dinner, my cultured, tender "uncles", who bestowed upon me the lifelong belief I can spot an agent across the room with ease.

4. I have been, three times, at the edge of death, by my own hand. I hope not to be there again, but the experience has been very helpful; if I speak to someone wandering towards that edge I am heard, and often trusted. This is a gift.

5. I have a hungry, ragbag sort of mind, and therefore have studied such things as Chinese and ancient Greek (in both cases because I needed to read poetry in its own language), astrology and homeopathy, Baltic and Slavic folklore (with the fascinating M. Gimbutas; I was fortunate), and just about anything that catches my magpie fancy. Keeps life very very interesting, and my heart delighted with it all.

Must think of who hasn't been yet tagged; when I do I'll fill in some names.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was going to say that you really do need a little blinking sign pointing to your other blog... (Why is that one "bloggers only," and not this one?)

And I like the dolls. That seems to fit. I think "4." does as well: you have taken empathy to its farthest point, I suspect.

5. is a fit, too. I just posted something about Chinese translations, but you certainly go beyond me! I think you very industrious to go and peer below the surface of calligraphy.

8:15 PM, January 08, 2007  
Blogger jarvenpa said...

I have no idea why that one was "bloggers only" and this one isn't; I do believe I have just now changed that, so you can post as you please, and so can anyone else.
Blog formatting and permissions and whatnot are very strange for me.
I saw your lovely post about Chinese translations, with the beautiful Tang horse and lady.
And I am not industrious really, only very very curious. The whole concept of poems in pictograph language interests me a lot; it is a different mind set, I think.

8:34 PM, January 08, 2007  
Blogger LiVEwiRe said...

Number five doesn't surprise me at all. In some ways, it seems to me that you mind would be a place for a variety of things to go. Forgotten lyrics to a childhood song, the authors of obscure books, directions to the county fair three counties over, a recipe you once overheard but never committed to paper, title of political officials in countries many people never heard of, plans to reestablish a bear-ravaged cottage, and hovering above all else, that intangible, wonderful connection you have. Yes, those are the things I'd expect to find up there.

9:56 PM, January 08, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

'Curious' definitely seems a word to describe you.

Yes, I'd like to have a grasp of how one reads a pictograph poem: the literal translation can't possibly give you all the "overtones" of the images contained in the pictograph. It seems an impossible problem in translation. One must make trades, but the trades in a pictograph translation must be more severe.

I'm glad you liked the Tang poems-post. Since no one has commented, I was wondering whether blogs are really the wrong form for that kind of thing (particularly because there were so many comments on the previous post, which had little to do with writing.) I made a resolution to write about lesser-known newish books, but I probably don't really fathom what's the best way to do that on the web. If you have some ideas as a bookseller and blogger, tell me.

I'm hoping people will comment on the Tang-poems book, as many of our better books are often published to a resounding silence--and I think that's particularly true of translated books and books of poems!

6:17 AM, January 09, 2007  
Blogger David said...

I have approached the cliff and looked over the edge a few times in my life, but not for many years. Depression is not a trifling matter! I hope you are never there again too!

From what I have seen, your mind is filled with fine silk scarves. :)

9:33 PM, January 09, 2007  
Blogger Kimia said...

Even as a child, you with your ideas proved that you are gonna be an outstanding woman.

Thanks for your sweet comment on my blog and I would like to let you know that I feel the same about you. :)

11:55 AM, January 13, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

p. s.
Jeanne surfaced with a Willow, Wine, Mirror, Moon reply for you...

7:44 PM, January 19, 2007  

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