10 August 2006

Package tracking drama


My copy of the new Oxford translation of Mallarmé was scanned in Cincinnati today. The Gashouse Gang is also in town, but Pujols, Ducky Medwick, and Rolen (one of the best-read ballplayers) better keep their hands off it - I know how they like to trade uniforms with postal workers and loiter around the warehouses, especially Pepper Martin. They can read my Dover Tolstoy that I got to get up to the free shipping threshold.

This translation was in production when I had my dream of ‘A Throw of the Dice Does Not Abolish Chance Starring Erik Estrada’ but I think I would classify that as either an unwarranted anxiety dream or a review of the Weinfield versions that I never got. In other words, I’m giving this thing a chance. My MacIntyre Selected is currently AWOL which is not an acceptable arrangement.

When that baby comes some commentary on rhythm and form is sure to ensue.

6 comments:

david raphael israel said...

ah, the MacIntyre Selected is the book I had some years back, and really liked. Darn if that guy (MacIntyre) isn't good -- ditto for his Rilke. (no idea now where the book has gone, maybe this is a collective experience). Your book wait nudges me to essay a pleasantry on the theme (merely imagined in the instance)

Mallarmé's finally en route
was s'posed to be here by ten!
when I open the package I shout
all I find within is rien!

But one trusts (sports professionals notwithstanding) your tome will fare more safely.

Ian Keenan said...

Thanks for your reassurance amid the heightening of Mallarmé Edition Anxiety. The MacIntyre translations were always what I thought Mallarmé to be and never really had much to compare them to. The sudden disappearances can be attributed either to Ducky Medwick or the aliens.

shanna said...

been meaning to write you to THANK YOU for the etiquette books, ian. they are truly terrific. i think i will get some poems out of them. :)

Ian Keenan said...

Departure scan in Philly so OUP comes-a-punting to my doorstep tomorrow.

The other unexplained Mallarméan phenomenon is that the edition of Auster’s Tomb for Anatole translations that arrived a year or so back seems completely unlike what I read in a school library six years ago. It’s me, not the edition, and so this is the sort of poetry I like.

No problem Shanna and thanks for all your books. I really wanted to check out your Guest reading but I couldn’t make it up: tho the Loy reading Sun. was great.. I never thought I would attend a Loy reading much less one where Loy's voice changes every two poems.

kevin.thurston said...

‘A Throw of the Dice Does Not Abolish Chance Starring Erik Estrada’

you done gone flarf?

Ian Keenan said...

Kevin, best to your mother for a speedy recovery.