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For The Critic

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For The Critic

— The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, May 9 1907
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At 45% of the population, white Christians are a shrinking demographic in America.

Hermal eggings are so leek.

No sensitive person would choose to be the historian of the Irish asylums in the first part of the last century.

Spinoza fucks Hegel up the arse.

Carol Drinkwater has just enjoyed a nice glass of Rioja.

WG Grace achieved 83 ducks in his first-class career. One man alone – Shaw (A.) – clean bowled him 20 times, and six times Grace hit his own wickets.

Smak is full of natural goodness.

Poet Laureate Robert Southey was once elected to parliament without his knowledge, while on holiday.

During the Russian Revolution, some people named their daughters ‘Terrora’.

Satire and humour are more common among royalists.

A trifle can do you a lot of harm.

Goldfish pheromones were discovered by accident.

Only in the English language is there the phrase ‘too clever by half’.

— The Nelson Evening Mail, September 28 1906
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‘Facetious’ is the shortest word in the English language including all the vowels in alphabetical order.

The English theatre loves the joker.

Samuel Beckett notched up 35 runs in first-class cricket.

UK funeral directors are fuming because people found something out.

The Republic lives with its face uncovered.

Men working in the fields sing pentatonic tunes.

American biscuits are in fact scones.

A boatman has taken 99 mackerel in three hours by whiffling.

2.8 million viewers tuned in to find out who shot JR Ewing.

Torture in Uzbekistan is institutionalised, systematic and rampant.

Ross Brown is now active.

Californium 252 costs $30,000,000 a gram.

Storm’s a-coming.
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For The Oldie

— The Nelson Evening Mail, March 21 1907

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When you register your child at birth, it immediately becomes the legal property of the state.

In WW2 German physicists were able to discern the weather conditions in London from the tolling of Big Ben broadcast on the BBC.

Male kangaroos flex their biceps to impress their females.

Sir Nicholas Gimcrack died from a fever brought on by chasing a butterfly.

A man in Thailand believes a 10-foot cobra is the reincarnation of his deceased girlfriend. They go to the gym together.

Former England rugby hooker Brian Moore is a qualified nail manicurist.

In February 1643, Dutch colonists massacred members of the Lenape tribe at Bowling Green.

When Samuel Beckett’s eyesight faded he played his favourite golf courses from memory.

They have the Queen’s English in Inverness.

Award-winning children’s author Anthony McGowan once lost two children while drunk in charge of a creche.

‘post-truth’ is now included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Every one percent unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die.

All people who like musical theatre are divs.

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* from a synthetic translation exercise by John McWhorter

Ja, Darling!

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* a (reverse) translation of Jonathan Williams’ ‘A Subtle Mississippian Riposte (for L.Z.)’ in Louis Zukofsky, or whoever someone else thought he was: a collection of responses to the work of Louis Zukofsky, ed. Harry Gilonis

(* Bear with me, please, while I endeavour to explain what is going on here.)

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Twelve years ago, I wrote, with considerable emotional anguish, a long novel about a war against the languages. It took place in an alternate universe, in a wordless desert, where language-soldiers had outlawed any elaborate vocabulary, and where underground forces were busy planning their counteroffensive. Interpreters sat in grammar shelters, cutting up explosive adjectives; professors of rhetoric sharpened their arguments for battle; bands of editors roamed about, smuggling subversive nouns into children’s books.

I pitched it as a ‘linguistic sci-fi thriller’ in my covering letter to the publishing houses, and, convinced that the book would mark the outbreak of my literary career, was awash with expectations for publishers’ phone calls, sizeable advances, international sales, book festivals, and weeks spent in anticipation of the day when the Secretary of the Swedish Academy would emerge from behind closed doors, blinking blearily against all the flashing cameras, and saying: ‘It is no ordinary occurrence that we should give the Nobel Prize for Literature to a first-time novelist. But this year we have made an exception!’

The first rejection letter came after a few weeks. It was rather personal. ‘Hi. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to read your manuscript… afraid it seems a little overwrought… didactic rather than imaginative… bloodless… academic… Sadly we feel it’s not really right for us.’ Letter number two was both shorter and more critical. The third was a proforma: ‘thanks but no thanks.’ All the publishers responded, though. All of them except you.

Twelve years passed – and occasionally I thought of you. I wondered what could have happened. Why had I never heard from you? Of course, I assumed that my manuscript had ended up at the bottom of a pile; or lay unattended on a shelf somewhere; or had slipped into a packing crate and been spirited away into the bowels of a distant warehouse. But I consoled myself that sometime in the future, soon, any day now, in fact, one of your interns would almost certainly happen upon the dusty bundle and think: ‘Wow! A linguistic sci-fi thriller! This is precisely what our autumn catalogue has been missing!’

But that did not happen. The years went by, and I had to start taking on whatever work I could find, if only to pay off my student loan. Receptionist in a dental clinic; window-dresser in a new and shiny shopping mall. I stopped writing.

Then – this is seven years ago, now – a friend of mine reminded me that I owed him money, and told me about a translation agency that was on the lookout for new talent. That’s exactly how he put it, ‘new talent’, and I remember I was so bowled over by the fact that anyone could think of me as a ‘talent’ of any kind that I contacted them immediately.

After a short interview and a couple of assessed translations (duly approved), I got my first real commission: a tractor manual. The regulator can be controlled by one hand and by the foot-throttle. The hydraulic jack is operated by a lever mounted on the left side of the lifting platform, easily accessible from the driver’s seat. I loved it!

The second assignment was the instruction booklet for an orange squeezer. Cut the oranges into equal halves [sic] and place one half at a time onto the centre of the pressing tray. Check that the voltage indicated on the appliance corresponds to the voltage of the mains supply before connecting. NB The cut side of the orange should be facing down. It was so easy! Finally, I felt at home, and for the first time in years I found I actually enjoyed the writing. No strings attached. Well paid. OK, maybe not well paid. But paid, at least.

It soon became clear that I was pretty good at this. Better than good, actually. I was quick and efficient, I had both precision and feeling, I was careful and thorough. Customers began to ask for me specifically; but I never took on more work than I could deal with. Naturally, this meant I could also increase my rates, doing fewer but more-prestigious jobs. A sales catalogue for an exclusive wine importer; an awards committee’s commendation for a chemistry prize; publicity materials for a big American toy company. My most recent job was a promotional film for a large consulting firm: Join us on our worldwide journey as we enter the global world in which we as global businesses have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to influence the worldwide market. Globally.

The only time I’ve ever worked for nothing was when a relative of mine came out of the woodwork to tell me, re. his impending indictment, that he’d been let down by his lawyer, and that he didn’t trust the man’s interpreter. So I helped him out. I translated his appeal for him, pro bono. Or only for a nominal fee, anyway. At any rate, I didn’t charge any more than he afford. Your honour, I hope that in your assessment of my case it will be taken into account that my mother was old and sick when it happened, and neither she nor I were aware that those were real weapons. We thought the ski-masks were just part of some fancy-dress costume. And we never knew a thing about the dye-marked banknotes in the attic!

And then, one day last week, I did hear from you. And I must admit I thought you had finally discovered my novel, and now wanted to publish it!

Instead, you asked if, at extremely short notice, I was available to translate into Swedish some kind of ‘literary essay’. I explained that I do not usually undertake ‘literary’ projects, and also that I already had a jam-packed schedule. But you did not give up so easily. You insisted that it was an emergency: one of your writers needed help. He had accepted an invitation to take part in a ‘super-prestigious’ project (your word), but the tragic death of a friend had suddenly befallen him, and now it was ‘super-urgent’ (your word again). The deadline was only a few days off, and was there any chance that I would be able to assist with this? I had total editorial independence, you assured me. And the remuneration (I enquired)? Well, of course you only had a ‘very limited budget’.

Anyway, I said yes.

What I would like to say by way of introduction to my essays on the art of writing, by A.B.C.D.E.F. Godthaab. A self-important hack bangs on about the art of writing, the state of literature, and the nature of contemporary existence in general. He talks about literary ‘form’, and ‘style’, and other such trifles; he snivels and begs before his prospective future readership; he barks abuse at his poor, browbeaten secretary.

Well, it’s not like I was nervous about the project. I knew it would be easy. After all, if I’ve done this once then I’ve done it a hundred times. You start with the first word, and you end with the last, working calmly and methodically, from the opening line through to the finish. The only real trick is to make oneself invisible.

Well, the title was obvious enough, certainly. What I would like to say by way of introduction to my essays on the art of writing. Or maybe the craft of writing. But then came the author’s name. That was slightly trickier. According to the textbooks, everything in the world is not only fixed but also carefully calibrated. There is a right word and a wrong word, and the goal is to replace the latter with the former. But this was a whole other problem altogether: Literature with a capital L, a matter of such great importance that it was apparently ‘not worth anything’… Suddenly I felt rather unsure of myself.

The name of the author was obviously some sort of code – nobody is called ‘A.B.C.D.E.F. Godthaab’ in real life. And yet ‘Godthaab’ is not only supposedly a surname, but also the ancient name of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland (est. 1728; pop. 15,000). Moreover, a rearrangement of the letters turns this surname ‘Godthaab’ into ‘Bath Goad’ – i.e. someone who encourages you to take a bath. Are we to understand this, too, in terms of some relationship to Greenland? That the city itself would like us to ‘swim’ to some alternative location? Perhaps some altogether different type of ‘swimming’ is intended. Or are we meant to recognise some allusion to the currency of Thailand (with or without inferring some kind of direct pecuniary incentive)? Or should we jumble the letters again, and extract from ‘Godthaab’ the cry of a man who suddenly appreciates the distinction between two different species: ‘Ah! Bat/Dog!’

Again and again I went back to the original text, scouring it for clues, hoping to decipher its hidden meaning. Soon enough, religious interpretations began to suggest themselves. ‘Godthaab’ is just one transpositioned H away from ‘God T[o] Ahab’ – ‘God will speak unto Ahab’, the son of Israel (just as the author of this essay intends to speak unto his readers).

But, I confess, I was at a dead end. I had progressed no further than the name of the author. Sure, I had reread the Old Testament, researched extensively the cost of package holidays to Greenland, and even made some preliminary enquiries into the anatomical structures of dogs vs. bats – but then the deadline was upon me, and all of my considerations had been wasted. The only thing left for me to do was to write you this short letter of apology. I understand how frustrating it must be for you to hold your breath for something that has not turned out as you’d expected.

Still, now we’re even.

—
Unauthorised translation, arrived at with the considerable Swedish-English assistance of Google Translate and additional editorial contributions from Madelaine Carlander. None of the aforementioned to be held responsible … etc. Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s original can be found in Multiples: 12 Stories in 18 Languages by 61 Authors (ed. Adam Thirlwell), where it is, in itself, a translation of the work of no fewer than six preceding authors. 

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The Betty Nansen Teatret’s Mozart Undone features six singers and five instrumentalists in a two-hour ‘freewheeling musical deconstruction’ of 20 of Mozart’s most recognisable melodies – or what Nikolaj Cederholm would call ‘hits’. Formerly-recognisable, anyway. These ‘hits’ have been, according to the show’s garrulous and inimitable press release, ‘re-imagined and re-engineered into a wild synthesis of ancient and modern genres’ involving such (neo?-)classical touchstones as The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mumford & Sons, and – deep breath – Dolly Parton.

The players come nominally dressed as characters from The Magic Flute – plus Don Giovanni (naturally) – but with only half a dozen of them, each playing numerous ‘roles’, there are never-ending on-stage costume-changes, and no shortage of off-stage antics (we will say nothing of the poor girl charged with inserting microphones into condoms…). The costumes themselves, however, seem influenced less by the fashions of Mozart’s own era than, say, the aesthetics of a Stanley Kubrick production, with a dash of Lady Gaga thrown in for good measure – the net result roughly approximating, perhaps, the opium-befuddled nightmares of an overwrought Mozart scholar. In many respects, it’s not a million miles away from Amadeus. Except that – ahem – there is no actual narrative to speak of. What there is, is a lot of water. Bloody gallons of the stuff.

This entire thing probably has to be seen to be believed – a kind of full-on (and slightly inevitable) ‘Cirque du Gubbay’. But doubters be warned: the company’s Beethoven show had Darwin, Turner, and Nelson Mandela in it. And that ran for months. In Norway.

So, what is a ‘theatre concert’? You have to run to keep up with Cederholm’s comically relentless enthusiasm for his work (think Adrian Edmondon’s Red Baron in Blackadder), but the rough explanation goes something like this:

‘Theatre and music are very old colleagues. But the musical, vaudeville, opera – these are not the ancestors of the theatre concert: they are its cousins. The theatre concert is a real hybrid: music and theatre as equals!

‘In Copenhagen, in the Nineties, we wanted to do musicals; but there was a dissatisfaction with the way that musicals were done – the music was always serving a secondary role. You know when the story calls for a song about someone finding a letter on a mantelpiece… and it’s always a bad song! And there’s always that certain style of singing. Rock concerts, also, had these Old Testament-style rituals: “Good evening, London!” And they had a very low dynamic. In the first quarter of an hour they had shown you everything they had to offer: lighting, playing, singing.

‘So our first show was Gasoline, about ‘The Rolling Stones of Denmark’, and we took an interpretation of their work – as when a theatre does Shakespeare or Chekhov. The only difference is we can hear how the Beatles were supposed to sound. We had the boldness to say, “It doesn’t matter: a song can mean a lot of things.” We interpret not only through the music but also through the rituals, the costumes, the dramas. It’s very rich. You cannot necessarily get everything from seeing it only once.’

Cederholm, it seems, is constitutionally incapable of resisting a challenge. Having subsequently pulled off theatre concerts on Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys and the Beatles (twice), he thought ‘Why don’t we do a classical composer?’ Why not, indeed. But between the mischievous mentions of ‘electro-Irish, punk, and power ballad’ influences, and the programme credits for ‘Music Directors and Producers’ (Jens and Peter Hellemann) and ‘Songs written by’ (Neill Cardinal Furio), an obvious question arises: what really remains of Mozart once he’s done being undone?

Cederholm doesn’t falter: ‘The basic notes.’ But his aim is not to put on a note-for-note concert of Mozart’s music so much as to recreate the antic spirit of, say, Die Zauberflöte’s original Freihaus performances. ‘We just took the music that we could talk with,’ then ‘we tried to make the lyrics about important issues today that would fit…’

To wit, as played over (a piece formerly known as) a piano concerto: ‘Where is my target? / Where is my drone? / The cruel insurgency / I track on my phone.’

Your call. As I said, there’s no storyline. ‘This is not about Mozart, certainly. But if you want to make connections, you are free to do that for yourself.’

Traditionalists will argue that the end product is less Mozart being re-worked than Mozart being worked over. At best, it’s Mozart being sampled (remember the Lloyd Webbers vs Paganini, back in the day? That. Only more so). But Cederholm is unbothered. In fact, he’s far more concerned about people turning away from it because it’s ‘Mozart’.

‘Is it for Mozart-lovers? Maybe… if you are an open-minded Mozart-lover!’ But not liking Mozart is not a reason not to go, either. ‘The years gone since Mozart composed have added to the significance of his music,’ he says, with heavy ambivalence. ‘Same as with The Beatles, Mozart produced some of the greatest hits – part of our understanding of what Music should sound like. He’s a big hit-maker: in the cinema, in the supermarket… So the audience come with their luggage; but the most exciting thing is people don’t know what it is they are going to experience.’

The whole performance, not so incidentally, is in English. ‘Mozart was German but wrote in Italian, the language of opera. English is the language of pop music, and we want to reach out to an audience everywhere.’

And that audience is…? ‘It’s a lot of people who would rather go to the movies. But also traditional theatre-goers, who find the energy very satisfying. It’s a family form. It’s for everybody who loves a good show!’

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For Sinfini Music. Published/edited version here.