Apparently so! This is a little embarassing.
Okay, so around the beginning of ‘05 I set up an email list about translations, with the aim being to encourage and support more translations of radical material of the sort I’m interested in (along the lines of what the good people at Generation-Online do, myself being one of said good people in that I’ve translated a bit of stuff that’s up there too). More and better, those are always the aims. And I just like being involved in this stuff. Anyway, set up the list, called it Notas Rojas meaning Red Notes, after the Red Notes folks from the UK back in the day who translated a stuff by Negri, Tronti, Bologna, and others, as well as material on the political situation there. Red Notes are heroes of mine.
So, I wrote to some friends and sent an announcement about the idea of the project to an English and a Spanish language email list that I’m on. It’s worked reasonably well, more translations have been done, and some support of other translation projects. Hardly a deluge, but a handful of things have happened and I at least have met some interesting people as a result. (And like I said in my end of ‘05 post, just recently someone got in touch with me about other translation stuff as a result, also quite exciting.) Here’s the embarassing part.
For some reason, probably boredom mixed with curiousity and an admitted hope that the idea had circulated, and interest to see if anything on the UK Red Notes was online in Spanish, I googled “notas rojas” and various phrases. For one thing I found out that’s also the name of a Spanist language Maoist publication. I also found an announcement posted on Bolivia’s indymedia site by some looking for others to collaborate on translations together, and it mentioned UK Red Notes!
I should say at this point that I am an enthusiastic sort. I hug people nearly spontaneously (only not totally spontaneously because I don’t want to hug without permission). I am prone to the use of exclamation points. It’s also why I’m shy in some way, I feel in my excitement I am likely to do and say dumb things, like hugging and exclaiming.
So I wrote an excited email to the person who posted the announcement to the site, and checked if they’re on the translation list currently. They’re not! They’re a new person with similar interests! And they want to collaborate! Me too! So I wrote an enthusiastic email!
Then I found my original announcement about the email list. And wait… that’s funny, they’re kind of.. they’re… Damn. The thing on Bolivia Indymedia? Most of the text from the announcement I sent out to one list, or perhaps the whole text of what I sent to the other, pasted in by someone else. I wrote to someone who quoted me, saying in short “what a great idea!” and “I’ve had a similar idea! We should talk! I am very enthusiastic! And I don’t write very well in Spanish! Un abrazo!” *sigh*
In recent (*ahem*) discussions about Zizek it was at one point suspected that Zizek had quoted someone else approvingly and for support, when that someone else had quoted Zizek to make their own point. This was christened a Munchausen or sockpuppet technique. I thought that was all quite funny, and while I neither know nor like (that particular neither… nor… pairing always works really well for me, now that I think about it…) Zizek, I felt a simultaneous respect, disdain, and amusement at the idea of doing so. Now I’ve gone and done something somewhat similar, only it was talking to myself. Luckily I didn’t make any claims about the project based on this announcement’s being posted at the Bolivian site…
In any case, I still hope I can get in touch with the person who posted that, though, as they’re not on the email list… the address provided was a dud, my email got returned to me. I wonder where they got the announcement from and who they are.
On a less cheek reddning note, I got another email about the project, which was nice, because of an update they saw about a translation project I’ve been working on, in which I mentioned the informal translation collaborative. I haven’t written back to this person yet, but it’s quite nice. The soviets of general intellect? No. But perhaps some comradely possibilities for pamphleteering.
note to self: read the entirety of the interview with Virno here: http://generalintellect.blogspot.com/2005/12/intervju-med-paolo-virno.html
Snippet I glanced at includes him saying he’s never used the term immaterial labor…
Comment by Nate — January 5, 2006 @ 7:08 am
another note to self: the journal issue that this Virno interview appeared in also includes a translation of Virno’s Luogo Commune piece on postmodern fascism…
Comment by Nate — January 5, 2006 @ 7:12 am
This is molto funny. Thanks for the heads up about the Virno.
Comment by s0metim3s — January 6, 2006 @ 3:12 am
Thanks Angela. I aim to please.
That Virno interview is really interesting. I thought it particularly interesting that he was saying the problem with Italian receptions of the Frankfurt school is that they don’t pay enough attention to Negative Dialectics. And yet, while he’s such a interesting thinker, he says some really weird stuff sometimes… like the whole idea about capitalism today and human nature… what’s the deal with that?
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — January 6, 2006 @ 6:00 am
This is marginally faster than logging in and all that and this is not something about which one wants to waste time -
You heard it here first true believers, the ever lovin’ John Holbo wins the clash of titans about Zizek and all that (not that I’m invested in the Ziz) at Long Sunday and elswhere, because via his other blog, the URL for which I’m temporarily misplaced in my excitement (don’t bother me with details, this is big!), I found THIS:
http://www.truthforyouth.com/special/hpcomic/
a cool drink for thirsty eyes, a radiant vision that makes sleeplessness a dream (so to speak). I can’t belive I almost went to bed so I’d be rested in the morning, I would have totally missed this. Aleatory encounter indeed, fuck yeah. I also can’t believe that people still keep buggin’ about that wack Zizek when they could be reading this slammin’ comic. I’m even more wicked stoked than when Mark Interbreeding and I drove from Pennsylvania to Chicago scanning the dial for christian pop radio stations! Please, someone shoplift a copy for me. When the adrenaline rush I got from the Event of my encounter this fine work leaves my system tonight I shall surely sleep the contented slumber of a haloed babe in a manger, and awake so refreshed, full of peace and tranquility, that I will not worry as to whether I have hereby tarnished the carefully cultivated online persona of cold detachment and somber erudition to which I have heretofore shown such fidelity. At least I haven’t revealed that I’m a 14 year old girl.
Comment by Nate — January 6, 2006 @ 7:30 am
Mein Gott (squared)!
1. The post
2. “I will not worry as to whether I have hereby tarnished the carefully cultivated online persona of cold detachment and somber erudition to which I have heretofore shown such fidelity”
Comment by Tzuchien — January 6, 2006 @ 11:44 pm
Holy fuck, I can not do justice to this in words.
Today was a going away party/gig for the drummer for a band we know (Brother And Sister - Sister is moving to Ireland). Turns out, it was a scavenger hunt. We got to the first place at 9am, watched a band, got a clue that told us to go to some train stop (the clue was projected on a movie screen, a street sign: “Marshall Street Northeast”. It turns out the guitarist for the first band was named Marshall. He got the directions for where everyone was supposed to go tattooed on his shoulder!).
When we got there we hunted around until someone found a bag with a picture of a girl, labeled “this is a lass”, a picture of a woman’s shirt labeled “this is a …”, and a confederated flag. Someone figured out “this is a top”. The lass top. The last stop. confederate flag = south. The last stop south. So we took the train there (to the Mall of America!).
Got off. Found a sign “If you’re looking for a good time, call …”. Someone called. Was told “go to such and such print store.” We went there, got another sign with pictures, which we figured out meant that we were to look for theater seats on the first floor of the mall, and look under one of them. Eventually got that sorted out.
Next clue: eight pictures of Al G and the word “or”. Ali G. Eight. Or.
Alligator.
We (about fifteen people, the other like 70 or so were still milling around talking about what the clue meant) walked down to some tourist cafe that had all these animotronic animals. One was an alligator. We were standing around. One guy reached his hand into the alligator’s mouth.
A cop ran up and said “get away from there! this isn’t a playground! you people need to leave. you know what, come with me.” Then we figured out he was part of the events. He lead all of us out to the parking lot where we were handed white jumpsuits and told to put them all on, on the back it had the show info, like a concert tour shirt. Two rented schoolbuses pulled up and we rode for about an hour.
Then we got out at the Scott County Jail! We went upstairs into the jail (which was actually an ex-jail, a small sign on the inside door said that, they’d moved to new facilities). Upstairs, in the cellblock, all this music equipment was set up. We all squeezed in and watched two bands play. The second was Brother And Sister.
Brother (Michael, a friend of mine from high school and now an art teacher) had a guitar made out of four guitars cut up and reassemble so that the necks of the guitars made an X with his body in the middle. They were set up to swivle so he could spin them, like a windmill, and all four of them were fully functional. He had a big like parachute harness or something to hold them on, to help distribute the weight. They’re kind of a metal/noise band. They played my favorite song of there’s: “Best Sister Ever”, Most of which consists Michael making his guitar make fucked up noises and him shouting “you’re the “B-E-S-T-S-I-S-T-E-R-E-V-E-R” over and over to Katie the drummer while she keeps the beat.
Then we got back on the buses for a ride back into town. We were told the next band was playing at 5pm, and told where to go for our next clue. Angelica and I decided we were old and tired out already, so we left and got some food and drinks after people found the clue. All this for $15. It was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had ever. A friend of mine writes for some music paper and is doing a longer write up on it. It was so strange…
If anyone’s interested, their website is here:
http://www.brother-and-sister.com/
Oh, I just looked, it turns out they got written up in a local paper:
http://citypages.com/bestof2005/sexdrugsrocknroll/bestof2505.asp
Comment by Nate — January 8, 2006 @ 5:24 am
My friend Justin did a write up on the show in some online music thing, includes a photo…
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/?q=node/447
Comment by Nate — January 17, 2006 @ 7:48 pm