Category: writing

Dread and Dreams

On my first research visit for The Translator After AI, I came upon two perfect bookend images and managed to get a picture of each. First, “AI Dread,” which I was able to snap even while behind the wheel because traffic was completely stopped. I assume the phone number and invitation is for counseling, and… Continue reading Dread and Dreams

Two Jokes Walk into a Bar: AI Translating Humor

Jokes are notoriously hard to translate. Often one ends up not just translating them but also explaining why they’re funny. Which of course is not very funny. I thought I’d test out Chat GPT on this score. So here are three examples of jokes I’ve used in my Russian and Soviet culture classes in the… Continue reading Two Jokes Walk into a Bar: AI Translating Humor

Productive Delay

I stumbled across or — maybe better — waded into the notion of productive delay while writing about the Adriatic as a translational space. I was thinking about how things tend to be when you have to move in and through water, but also how connected it makes everything. Here’s a paragraph from early in… Continue reading Productive Delay

Where You Say, I Don’t Know

Having now written thousands of pages of Sea of Intimacy — I’m trying to make it shorter, I really am — I have to come clean about something. There’s a kind of posing expertise that rubs me the wrong way. The outsider comes in having studied a bit, makes some sententious pronouncements, and then leaves… Continue reading Where You Say, I Don’t Know

From Six Parts to Five (and a pre-part)

I thought Sea of Intimacy was going to have six parts, and I was writing that fourth part for some time as a long-ish essay after George Steiner’s Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, a fine book with a smart contrast at its heart. My two points of contrast were going to be the two would-be masters of… Continue reading From Six Parts to Five (and a pre-part)

The Translator After AI

While Sea of Intimacy proceeds — I expect to have a full draft by later this summer — I seem to have another project developing. Pulling together some of the threads on this site, and looking at other pieces here and here, helped me to see it. At this point, my working title is The… Continue reading The Translator After AI

AI and Literary Translation: Key Questions and Experiments

AI has begun to reshape literary translation, not only in how texts are rendered but in how we understand language, meaning, and interpretation. Over the past several years, I’ve explored this problem through talks, teaching, and a series of experiments and reflections collected on this site. The results are not conclusive. But certain patterns—and certain… Continue reading AI and Literary Translation: Key Questions and Experiments

Looking for Lucy

I just finished an essay that feels freestanding and that could fit in three places in my Sea of Intimacy. I can’t tell whether its potential multifarious placement is a good thing or not. “Looking for Lucy” begins in Split, Croatia, where a sign that says “Lucy” hangs outside the cathedral (once the mausoleum of… Continue reading Looking for Lucy

Adespota on Valentine’s Day

There is no Saint Russell. So I am, as my Italian friend Vanessa once told me, adespota. Vanessa, who is from Le Marche, knew because she is too. With all the names in the world, and a limited number of saints to go around, many of us are. I love the word. It means both… Continue reading Adespota on Valentine’s Day

The Sea’s Direction

My book lacked a direction. It was all facts and curiosities and vignettes. A lot was interesting, but coherence kept escaping me. When writing about a river, you can start at the source and make your way to its outlet, a bit like Claudio Magris does with his Danube. But a sea? Where do you… Continue reading The Sea’s Direction