(Belated) Valentine's gift idea: The Story of Your Relationship

Hi there,

I know I've not been updating the blog (especially the Cooking Challenge stuff) very regularly lately and that's because I've been working a lot on Tom's belated Valentine's present in the evenings when he was out climbing, and on weekends when he was at work, but it's finally finished (in the sense that I'd done as much as I could do) and although it took many, many hours (and involved a bit of cursing) I'm really pleased I stuck with it.

Cutting that window and lining up the photo required a lot of patience

Basically it's a scrap book of our relationship (soppy I know) but I read about getting a book made in a print shop of your relationship, and saw a video about making art out of old books so I thought I'd just combine the two ideas. I didn't know who the poet was whose book I was butchering, but I wanted a nice looking, sturdy hardback, that someone else had written notes in, and at £2 from the market in Welshpool, this was perfect. I may well add a 'title' of some sorts over Cowper's name on the front at some point in the future, but for the time being I'm happy with it. I've filled it with our background story (condensed version: we met at high school and liked each other, but never got together, stayed really close friends, and eventually got our act together 8 years after we first met), photos, poems, and memorable moments from our past as friends and since we got together, like concerts we went to, when we moved into our house, and so on. The idea is that as time goes on, I'll add more things to it, hence why it was never going to be finished in the proper sense of the word, as that would imply our relationship was over!

I'm not going to include pictures of everything I included because, well, it's personal, but I just wanted to share the idea as I really enjoyed coming up with all the different things to include and different ideas of how to present them. It's a little bit messy in places as I kept changing my mind about how much writing to include, and how to include the writing over the original typed text, but it gradually became more like a diary summary over the past two years so I needed to write more. To do this I cut out pages of my current journal and just glued them over the book pages, and wrote in them like a normal diary (I used my journals to remind of dates etc). I also made use of some nice paper that I got free with a load of craft magazines I bought when I was researching the industry for a job interview back in November, but I didn't want to make it too girly, because it was supposed to be a gift for Tom, although I couldn't resist a bit of vintage floweriness in places(see below).

I tried to include as many pictures in the book as I could but when I took my original batch of photos to Boots to develop, I realised that it would have been absurdly expensive to print them all, so I had to cut back and just print the ones I thought were most appropriate. I also experimented with creating windows in the pages with glued in photos showing through the gaps, but the pages turned out to be quite difficult to cut without tearing and making a mess. Even with brand new Stanley knife blades it posed quite a few difficulties.

When I first started the project I also purchased a glue gun with the idea of sticking in photos, or glueing pages together with it etc, but it proved to be far more hassle than it was worth. Maybe the equipment I bought was too cheap, or maybe I didn't allow the glue to warm up sufficiently, but it just came out really thick and then seemed to dry and harden ridiculously quickly, so it was pretty much impossible to use. I initially stuck the front cover image on with the glue gun glue but it very quickly lost it's stick, so in the end I just used god old reliable Pritt stick!!

 I love this poem by Carol Ann Duffy (Poet Laureate) from her collection Rapture; in fact it was this collection of poems that got me thinking about a special Valentine's present in the first place. The bit didn't quite turn out as tidy as I wanted, but I basically wanted the verses of the poem to stand out as being on top of the original type (which was itself the first poem of the original book), and going round the edges of the journal paper with a black felt pen actually gave it quite a nice, almost reverse-emboss effect, it just could have been a bit tidier. I might go over it one day if I get round to it.

One of my favourite parts of this project was cutting the photos into different shapes and sizes to fit with the words I wanted to include. Once I got the hang of the Stanley Knife it was really quite easy and weirdly satisfying slicing through the photographic paper. What wasn't quite so easy was the mini-project I decided to do at the last minute and which took absolutely forever to finish.




I'd read another poem by Carol Ann Duffy in Rapture called 'Finding the Words' a few months previously and just felt that it completely reflected what I felt when Tom and I eventually got together. I'd been really hurt by my ex and had been in a place where I could see myself becoming really cold and emotionless about guys I was dating before Tom and I started going out, and this poem just seemed to convey what it was like to find that I could love and be loved again.

Because of the name and nature of the poem I wanted to try to compose this copy of the poem with words 'found' and cut out of the original typed text, but this proved to be a mammoth task. I had to cut out pages and pages from the back of the book (I didn't want to use the Stanley Knife directly on the book itself as I was afraid of tearing the old paper) and ended up learning an awful lot about this Cowper chap through repeatedly scouring his letters for the words of the poem. In the end I had to construct some words out of other words. I became disproportionately excited when I found a word I could use (a certain Mr Palmer very kindly donated the 'palm' and Wordsworth lent his 'Words'. The letters for the title I managed to glean from the headers of his letters, and 'Oxford University Press' lent it's letters towards 'Our Story' at the very front of the book. This might seem sad, but having set myself this stupid task I was damned if I wasn't going to finish it, so every new discovery was a small victory of sorts.

I particularly liked this idea of drawing a calendar page for a memorable occasion, although again, I'm sure someone with more natural artistic talent than myself could achieve much better results. On this day for example we drove up to Manchester to see The Hold Steady and it was one of the most fun concerts ever. Afterwards, we chilled out in the Thirsty Scholar (the pub under the railway lines at Oxford Road station), and then I drove us home with cool music on the stereo and we saw in Valentine's day on the journey home. It might not seem like much, but it was just the coolest experience.

 I subsequently decided to add the little calendar pages over photos I'd already stuck in as another scrapbook-style element.

Like I said I didn't want to include too many personal elements of the book (some of it is copied from old diary entries), but I just wanted to show some of the different ideas I had. As a first attempt I'm really pleased with how it came out (even with my silly stick drawings illustrating the first night we kissed!), but I'm looking forward to adding to it, and developing techniques and other interesting ideas for other projects as they come along. I really enjoyed going back through my journal and sharing thoughts and feelings that I might not otherwise have shared with Tom.

I'm not going to lie, it was a little scary including some of my most private thoughts in the book, and though I'm definitely a believer in maintaining hobbies and doing some things as individuals (basically not becoming one half of a relationship) that it's still important to share your feelings, hopes, fears, and dreams with the ones we love the most.


Anyway, this has already become a pretty long post, so I don't want to harp on. Hope this has been interesting in some way!

Bye for now,
xx

Demain dès l'aube translation (Victor Hugo, via Pierre Bensusan)

Hi all,

well today's Christmas Eve and we're on the brink of another New Year. In anticipation of some of the changes I'm looking forward to, and in reflection of years gone by, I stumbled upon another translation I did a couple of years ago. The text that I have translated is the song lyrics for Pierre Bensusan's track "Demain dès l'aube", which is composed of lines from Victor Hugo's poem of the same name as well as lines from another poem "A Villequier".

I'm pretty happy with the translation, although the penultimate stanza was a bit harder to render (I'll have to spend some more time thinking of suitable words that rhyme with Harfleur!), so if anyone has any helpful suggestions or comments I'd be glad to hear them!


DEMAIN DES L'AUBE / A VILLEQUIER
(Texte: Victor Hugo, Musique: Pierre Bensusan)

Demain, dès l'aube, à l'heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Je sais que tu m'attends.
J'irai par la forêt, j'irai par la montagne,
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.

Tomorrow, at dawn, when the sun bleaches the land,
I will leave, I know you wait for me.
I’ll go by the forest, I’ll go through the mountains.
No longer can I bear to be away from thee.


Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit.
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.


I will walk in a world of my own,
Hearing no sounds, without sight,
Alone, back bent, hands crossed, unknown,
And the day for me will be as night.


Maintenant que Paris, ses pavés et ses marbres,
Et sa brume et ses toits sont bien loin de mes yeux;
Maintenant que je suis sous les branches des arbres,
Et que je puis songer à la beauté des cieux.

Now that Paris, with her marble and streets,
Her mist and her roofs are so far from my eyes,
Now that I am beneath the branches of trees,
And I can dream of the beauty of the skies.


Maintenant qu'attendri par ces divins spectacles
Plaines, rochers, forêts, vallons, fleuves argentés,
Voyant ma petitesse et voyant vos miracles,
Je reprends ma raison devant l'immensité.


Now I am moved by these divine spectacles,
Field, crag, forest, valley, silver stream,
Seeing how small I am, seeing your miracles,
I come to my senses before your creation supreme


Nous ne voyons jamais qu'un seul côté des choses;
L'autre plonge en la nuit d'un mystère effrayant.
L'homme subit le joug sans connaître les causes.
Tout ce qu'il voit est court, inutile et fuyant.


We only ever see one side of life;
The rest is shrouded in terrifying mystery.
Man bears his burdens without knowing why.
All he sees is short, useless, and fleeting.


Je ne regarderai ni l'or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et, quand j'arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx et de bruyère en fleur.

I will not watch the gold of the evening rays,
Nor the distant sails of journeys resumed.
And once I have arrived, I will place on your grave,
A bouquet of holly and heather in bloom.


Nous ne voyons jamais qu'un seul côté des choses;
L'autre plonge en la nuit d'un mystère effrayant.
L'homme subit le joug sans connaître les causes.
Tout ce qu'il voit est court, inutile et fuyant.


We only ever see one side of life;
The rest is shrouded in terrifying mystery.
Man bears his burdens without knowing why.
All he sees is short, useless, and fleeting.

photo.ortho.free.fr

Patience is a virtue...

Ok, so aside from being indecisive, I'm also pretty damn impatient. I know this about myself. I recognise and accept that that's a bad thing, and I apologise when I know I've gone a wee bit far, but sometimes I find it really hard to be patient with things. Slow walking people in the street, grammatical and spelling errors from co-workers (don't get me started...), people who drive at 40 miles an hour in a 60, and then continue to drive at 40 in a 30 zone (damn you to hell!!)....

Maybe it's because I feel I have to do everything quickly - move quickly, type quickly, talk quickly - that if someone or something holds me up for what seems to be an unnecessarily long time, I don't know how to deal with it. I always seem to have a lot of nervous energy and I'm pretty sure I've got restless leg syndrome.

But something I recently discovered about myself and my impatience - and please don't think for a minute that I'm proud of it - is that, given the right (or should I say wrong) set of circumstances, I can be extremely impatient, and dare I say it, intolerant of others who are drunk when I have to be sober. In fact I'd go so far to say I've recently been borderline rude in this particular situation, and that is something I really, really dislike in others.

As a bit of context, I had agreed to drive me and Tom to his work Christmas meal - mainly because he is not insured on my car and I didn't think it'd be a good idea to go on the motorbike - which meant that I would have to be the designated driver as I don't like to drink anything when I'm driving as I just don't trust myself.

Normally I don't mind driving us to and from various places, but for a combination of reasons (including work-stress, hormones, sleep deprivation, and having already driven 70 miles that day) I started to feel like I was being taken advantage of, particularly as it turned out I would have to take 3 additional people there and back. It wasn't that it would add much time to the journey really as they were all pretty much en-route, but what I ultimately found frustrating was that I would have to be the responsible and sober adult for not just one but four inebriated people who all worked together, whose anecdotes and jokes I would not get, and whose drink-fuelled antics and cringe-worthy chat up lines (thank god they weren't aimed at me) I would not find amusing, and who I would eventually have to herd up like the prodigal cats at the end of the evening, bundle into my car and get them home safely, hopefully without any of them needing to vomit on the way home. I also had to work the next day. Correction, it turns out I didn't actually have to work the next day, I was getting my calendar mixed up. So even less excuse for being so moody...Sorry to everyone who I may have been a bit rude to!

Honestly, I'm not sure why I even agreed to do it in the first place, must have been a moment of madness, but I know for sure that I will not be doing it again. Not because any of my charges were particularly horrendous or awful (annoying but not awful), but I realise now that I personally do not enjoy at all being the sober one at a work 'booze up' for a company that I do not work for. I'm not going to go into any more detail about the evening as I don't want to sound like a miserable old sod, but I did end up writing a short poem about the feelings of extreme frustration that such a situation can inspire, and the bad behaviour it can lead to.

At Last

Nails drumming,
Coke sipping,
Fingers in ears to block the shrieking.
Knees bouncing,
Weak laughing,
Eyes glancing towards the exit.

Deep breathing,
Thin-lipped smiles,
Keys in hand, 'Is that the time?'
Coat on and
Buttons done,
But they're at the bar for another one!
Patience waning,
No more hints,
Does it really take an hour to finish one drink??

Finally in the car,
The heating blows,
As the doors slam shut, away we go
Radio up,
Foot on the floor,
Rain pounding on the windows and doors.
Cargo delivered,
No time for goodbyes,
Wheels spinning wildly on muddy drives.

Fingers unclench,
Can stop grinding teeth,
As we near the house a great sigh of relief...

Engine switched off.
The ordeal is past.
With head on the wheel, I'm home. At last.

Le Vieil Amant/The Old Lover, by Emilie Simon (translation)

I've wanted for quite a while to transfer a lot of my old translation attempts away from Facebook, so after my translation of the Georges Brassens song 'Les Passantes', the next obvious choice is Emilie Simon's music.

If you've not heard of Emilie Simon, she's one of my favourite musicians/singer/songwriters, not just in French, but EVER. I suppose you could say she comes under the electronic category as she does use an amazing array of weird and wonderful gadgets to create her music, including some strange contraption that attaches to her arm like something out of a Tim Burton film and which modulates the quality of her voice in real time, a bit like the Talk Box favoured by Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi, so she can get that strange auto-tune effect, add echoes, or make her voice 'stutter', amongst other things - anyway it's very cool.

But when anyone says electronic music it might suggest something more techno than what it actually is - Emilie's voice is towards the higher end of the range, clear and crisp and times, then soft, breathy and delicate at others, and at times innocent like a young girl (especially when she sings in English on tracks like 'Flowers'), though she can belt it out as well (e.g. on tracks like 'Song of the Storm') - so thinking about it, she's actually quite similar to Kate Bush - and a few of her albums are themed around the natural world like Végétal, Flower Book, and La Marche de L'Empereur which won the 2006 Victoire de la Musique award for a film soundtrack for the French documentary of the same name about the Emperor penguins. 


This probably makes her sound a bit like Bjork, but she does also play the guitar so many of her tracks have a punky-rock feel (like 'Roses Never Fall In Love') and she's covered a few rock tracks like Nirvana's Come As You Are, and Iggy Pop's I Wanna Be Your Dog. But what is awesome about Emilie's music is her amazing ear for music so her and her very talented sound engineer Cyrille Brissot (he built the arm gadget) come up with some awesome ideas to make the sounds they're after - like striking the strings of a piano from under the lid while Emilie is playing a melody, splashing out and looping a rhythm in a giant bowl of water, or just tapping and knocking a rhythm on the piano lid. Although I love Emilie's tracks as they are on the album, I think she really comes into her own when she and her team perform live, especially if it's been recorded on film so you can see all the cool gadgets, and inventive sound-makers they use on stage.

But it's really the lyrics and sounds of the words that are my favourite part of her music, which is why I wanted to try to translate them so non-French speakers could in some way access her music, although I have to hold my hands up and admit, it's nowhere near perfect. Poetry/music is one of the hardest things to translate, partly because of trying to get the rhythm of the words right, but also the sonority and rhyme is extremely difficult to replicate if you're trying to keep the meaning of the words. At times I've had to adapt the words to keep the sonority whilst still trying to communicate the overall meaning - it's definitely good exercise for the brain! But anyway, this is my best shot, so I hope you like it :)

Here's a video of the track I've translated Le Vieil Amant which is an acoustic version (so not so many gadgets this time), but I think its simplicity really makes the beauty and melancholy of the song stand out.  The original text and my translation are both below:

PS I know 'muguet' is not the same as lily, but it fits better :0)

Mon amour j'ai pensé
Avec naïveté
Qu'un brin seul de muguet
Pouvait te ramener
Alors j'ai retrouvé
Un ou deux vieux sonnets
Pour te rappeler
Pour te rappeler
A moi mon amour
A travers ce beau jour
De printemps j'ai laissé
Près de tes pieds tomber
Un brin seul de muguet
Mais il s'est désséché
Attendant ce baiser
Qui ne viendra jamais

I thought, my sweet,
Quite naïvely,
That one single lily,
Could bring you back to me
And so I found
Some old poetry,
To call you back,
To call you back
To me. My sweet,
On this lovely day
Of spring did I
Let fall at your feet
One little lily
That has since dried
Awaiting that kiss
That will never arrive

Le mois de mai
S'est joué de moi
Cette année
J'ai laissé couler trop d'emois
Cette fois le mois mai
S'est moqué de moi
Cette année
J'ai laissé couler trop d'emois
Cette fois
Cette fois

The month of May,
Has toyed with me
This year,
I’ve been too melancholy,
This time the month of May,
Has mocked me terribly,
This year,
I’ve been too melancholy,
This time
This time

Il est parti le temps
Il n'a pas pris son temps
Me voilà qui t'attends
Comme un vieux prétendant
Me voilà qui regrette
Devant ces quelques miettes
Une vielle amourette
Qui n'a ni queue ni tête

He left on that day,
He did not hesitate,
And here I am, I wait,
Like an old candidate,
Here I am, I regret,
I cannot forget,
An infatuated brunette,
The lonely half of a duet

Mon amour j'ai pensé
Avec naïveté
Qu'un brin seul de muguet
Pouvait te ramener
Alors j'ai retrouvé
Un ou deux vieux sonnets
Que tu n'as jamais aimé

I thought, my sweet,
Quite naïvely,
That one single lily,
Could bring you back to me
And so I found
Some old poetry,
You never liked it anyway

The month of May,
Has toyed with me
This year,
I’ve been too melancholy,
This time the month of May,
Has mocked me terribly,
This year,
I’ve been too melancholy,
This time
This time

Je voulais je l'avoue
Danser joue contre joue
Je l'avoue je rêvais
De te faire tournoyer
Respirer cet air frais
Regarder rayonner
Le visage d'un amour
Qui n'a pas vu le jour

I did want, I admit,
To dance cheek to cheek,
I admit, I did dream,
Of our dancing feet,
The fresh air we’d breathe,
Basking in the gleam,
Of the face of a love,
That was never to be.

Mon amour j'ai pensé
Avec naïveté
Qu'un brin seul de muguet
Pouvait te ramener
Alors j'ai retrouvé
Un ou deux vieux sonnets
Je sais tu n'aimes pas les sonnets
Je sais

I thought, my sweet,
Quite naïvely,
That one single lily,
Could bring you back to me
And so I found
Some old poetry,
I know, you don’t like poetry,
I know

The month of May,
Has toyed with me
This year,
I’ve been too melancholy,
This time the month of May,
Has mocked me terribly,
This year,
I’ve been too melancholy,
This time
This time

Just love Emilie's style....

Les Passantes by Georges Brassens, translated by me

Yesterday I was driving to work alone and although the commute can be a bit of a drag (it's about 50min each way on a good day), going alone does mean I can listen to whatever music I like and sing along to my heart's content. As I was driving up one of the hills outside of Whittington, I went up through a little village called Welshfrankton, and the view of the valley below was absolutely breathtaking. The valley floor was covered in fluffy low clouds, with a few autumn trees and telegraph lines poking out, and the sun was shining brilliantly on it all (I was running late so couldn't stop to take a photo, but one day I will, I promise!).

To top it off one of my favourite French songs came on my iPod. It's called Les Passantes and it was written by a poet Antoine Pol, but the singer Georges Brassens made it famous through setting it to some absolutely brilliant music. The video below is of the song performed in duet with Maxime LeForestier (with some additional verses in which I didn't have on my copy of the track) on a show aired in 1979.

What I love about this song, is that a lot of Brassens' music is about rogue-ish men who are on the look out for a bit of fun with the ladies, watching them bathe naked in a fountain for example, and generally being 'lads' or even 'cons' (politely translated as a**holes, but it's generally quite a crude word), and his lyrics are funny, intelligent, and often vulgar explorations of these fun-loving characters and their antics. But this song (or poem rather) is so beautiful and gentle, and the melancholy, longing, and loneliness of these lyrics, especially when sung by such a rogue as Georges Brassens, who even called himself a 'voyou' (French for thug) gives a striking contrast to his usual style and tone.

Here is the original French with a translation (that I wrote a few years ago and have tweaked a bit since) after each verse. I've tried to keep some sort of rhyme, but it's nowhere near perfect - although I am quite proud of the last stanza. I hope you enjoy it. I haven't yet figured out a title that is as fitting as the original, but it literally means "The women who pass you by". Chapeau bas Monsieur Brassens! Hats off :)

Je veux dédier ce poème,
A toutes les femmes qu'on aime,
Pendant quelques instants secrets,
A celles qu'on connaît à peine,
Qu'un destin différent entraîne,
Et qu'on ne retrouve jamais.

I want to dedicate this poem
To all the women we love
For just a few secret moments,
To those you scarcely know,
Snatched away by a different fate
And who you'll never find again.

A celles qu'on voit apparaître,
Une seconde à sa fenêtre,
Et qui, presque, s'évanouit,
Mais dont la svelte silhouette
Est si gracieuse et fluette
Qu'on en demeure épanoui.

To those women that you see
Appear at her window,
For one second, fleetingly
Whose slender silhouette,
Is so graceful and delicate,
That you're overwhelmed, completely

A la compagne de voyage,
Dont les yeux, charmant paysage,
Font paraître court le chemin;
Qu'on est seul peut-être à comprendre,
Et qu'on laisse pourtant descendre
Sans avoir effleuré sa main.

To the travelling companion;
The world reflected in her eyes,
Makes the journey fly by;
Who, perhaps, only you understand,
And yet, you let her go,
Without even brushing her hand.

A celles qui sont déjà prises,
Et qui, vivant des heures grises,
Près d'un être trop différent,
Vous ont, inutile folie,
Laissé voir la mélancolie
D'un avenir désespérant.

To those who are not free,
And who live unhappily,
In an ill-suited pair,
They have, useless folly,
Let you see the melancholy,
Of a future of despair.

Chères images aperçues,
Espérances d'un jour déçues,
Vous serez dans l'oubli demain;
Pour peu que le bonheur survienne,
Il est rare qu'on se souvienne,
Des épisodes du chemin.

Cherished images seen but once,
One day's hopes all lost,
And tomorrow will be forgot;
Though joy may surprise us all,
It is rare that we can recall,
These moments from our travels.

Mais si l'on à manqué sa vie,
On songe; avec un peu d'envie
A tous ces bonheurs entrevus,
Aux baisers qu'on n'osa pas prendre,
Aux cœurs qui doivent vous attendre,
Aux yeux qu'on n'a jamais revus.

But if you have wasted your life,
You dream, with some regret,
Of all those pleasures glimpsed,
Of the kisses you dared not take,
Of the hearts that have to wait,
Of the eyes never seen since.

Alors, aux soirs de lassitude,
Tout en peuplant sa solitude
Des fantômes du souvenir,
On pleure les lèvres absentes
De toutes ces belles passantes
Que l'on n'a pas su retenir.

So, the evenings when you are weary,
You try to fill a life that is lonely,
With ghosts from your memory,
For the absent lips, you do cry,
Of those beauties who passed you by,
Those who you let slip away.