Why won’t anyone eat my pizza?

Day 73: Friday

Good morning Zak,

I saw this the other day, and I thought of you… you know, since your real name is Ernest:

“The Importance of being Named Ernesto”

Just judging by the title… they don’t get, it do they?

Sad how much gets lost in translation.

Have you ever been lost in translation?  It’s hard to find your way back out.  It’s dark in there.  If you’re not careful you’ll trip over surreptitious syntaxes and run into cultural barriers.

But here’s my real problem: why won’t anyone eat my pizza?  Mamma mia!  About once a weak I make a big beautiful pizza from scratch.  But my roommates don’t like me enough to accept the offer.  So I have to put it in the refrigerator, which is a real peccato, as we say.  It’s best right out of the oven.

I don’t get it.  Is it something I said?  Do I smell funny?

So that’s my sad story.

I think I’ll make one today.  If anyone reading this would like to come eat it with me, leave a comment.  If you’re not far from Milano, maybe we can arrange something.

Maybe I should try craigslist.

Anyway.  Cooking takes a long time.  But I think I want to make a habit of doing it.  You can save time by getting ready-made food, but it costs more and it’s not as good.  I don’t ever want to end up in a vicious circle where I’m paying more for worse food to save time so that I can work more to afford the bad food.  You know, that’s silly.

Until tomorrow,

Tim

Expressing Light

Day 25: Friday

Good morning Zak,

At the moment, I’m working on several musical compositions that set various poems from the dolce stil novo, a movement in Renaissance Italian poetry. Despite their antiquity, the poems are surprisingly resonant with contemporary sensibilities, and paradoxically I feel they are some of the most apropos texts I could have found to set at the present moment.

La dolce vista e ‘l bel guardo soave

In these compositions I am fixated on the expression of light and the universality of light and of the juxtaposition between darkness and light. I am structuring the texts in a metaphorical “tonal space” in a way that reflects my symbolist reading.

Ciò ch’i veggio di qua m’è mortal duolo

These illustrations are what I call “concept scores.” They are similar in function to graphical scores, except that they attempt to capture the overall poetic vision of the piece and not the music itself. The actual scores are written in conventional notation.

Although I don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to visual art, I’ve found concept scores to be useful to me in several ways. In the case of these compositions, the main benefit of incorporating a visual medium is that it allows me to articulate my vision of light and spacial symbolism more concretely.

Li occhi dolenti per pietà del core

It’s hard to really capture the lyricism of the Italian poetry in translation. But just to give you a rough sense, I’ll try to translate a small passage from this last poem, which is by Dante Alighieri.

Beatrice has betaken herself to heaven,
on high in that dominion where angels are at peace,
and you, O ladies, are left bereft of her.
'Twas not the quality of chill nor fever
that brought her there, as many others falter,
but her benignity alone deprived us so;
for Light of her humility and lowliness
has pierced the very heavens with such virtue
that the Immortal Master is made to marvel—
such that sweet desire
obliges him to bid untimely salvation.

Dante’s Italian is an example of a kunstsprache, or “art language.” It is a purely literary language that cherry picks elements from different spoken dialects. It would have been very awkward and impractical to use in everyday speech, and I feel this justifies a stylized use of English when translating.

Maybe once some of these are performed I’ll share the recordings as well. We’ll see how the singers and instrumentalists feel.

Until Monday,

Tim