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2022-11-26

3 minute read

a giant beetle in bed, looking at an iPhone. Modified illustration of Kafka's The Metamorphoses

Got word that I was a close contact last night, sore throat crept in around midnight, as I was going to bed. It's looking grim, covid again after 4 months. It was from the VCA grad show, that's what I get for enjoying art.

I get sick so often, I feel like the boy who cried wolf, and I absolutely hate calling off things I've organised because I'm sick too.

No point sulking, I'll feel bad enough if the symptoms get worse.

I finally recorded G's birthday podcast, I'm a little scared to re-listen in case I get voice embarassment but I do think it came out fairly well. The taboo-style word restriction was funny, albeit frustrating and flow impeding at times.

the pizza must go on

I've got the pizza doughs coming out of their second proof in the fridge, and I'm feeling confident about them. The starter was well and truly active when I mixed it in. I'll still get some pizza, I trust L enough to bring me some as I hole up in my room.

Empapado de azahares

I started reading the Selected Poems of Federico García Lorca, a nice penguin paperpack with spanish on one side and english on the other. I was surprised at one stanza where the english version had drastically moved the position of one of the lines (indicated with arrows)

  Viento del Sur.
Moreno, ardiente,
llegas sobres mi carne,
trayéndome semilla
de brillantes
miradas, empapado            <--
de azahares.                 <--

  South wind.
Dark and burning,
soaked with orange blossoms, <--
you come over my flesh,
bringing me seed
of brilliant gazes

It might be a flaw in my spanish comprehension, I find empapado de azahares / soaked with orange blossoms to be ambiguous as to whether it's the semilla de brillantes miradas / seed of brilliant gazes that's soaked or the Viento del Sur / South Wind. Either way, it gives me a bit of courage to take a little more creative license with my dormant translation of Borges' Asterion (one of the Quince Monedas stanzas)

I'm not sure if I've already written about this, but I looked more into poetry markup and found a good idea with custom tags, something like:

<poem>
    <ll>
        <l>   South wind.</l>
        <l>Dark and burning,</l>
        <l>soaked with orange blossoms,</l>
        <l>you come over my flesh,</l>
        <l>bringing me seed</l>
        <l>of brilliant gazes</l>
    </ll>
</poem>

With <l> representing <line> and <ll> representing <stanza> or <verse>. found in this dense article: www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/PoeticSemantics

I'm also interested in the idea proposed in redubllc.com/how-to-mark-up-poetry/ about using <ol>, the ordered list tag. (styling modified to suit how I want it)

    <style>
        ol.poem li { list-style-type: none; white-space: pre;}
        ol.poem li:hover { list-style-type: auto;}
    </style>


    <ol class="poem">
        <li">   South wind.</li>
        <li">Dark and burning,</li>
        <li">soaked with orange blossoms,</li>
        <li">you come over my flesh,</li>
        <li">bringing me seed</li>
        <li">of brilliant gazes</li>
    </ol>

which renders with nice on-hover line numbers

  1. South wind.
  2. Dark and burning,
  3. soaked with orange blossoms,
  4. you come over my flesh,
  5. bringing me seed
  6. of brilliant gazes

listening to

Eternal Happiness (20/11/22) - CBR

Questions