"¡Eres un animal, Viskovitz!", de Alessandro Boffa

(Para visitar un avance del libro en Google, haga clic en el título de esta sección)

Hace un par de años tuve la suerte de tener una cíberamiga que me presentó este libro. Es una colección de relatos cortos escritos en italiano, con una perspectiva muy peculiar. Cada texto se adentra en la cosmovisión de un animal en particular (hay una historia hasta para bacterias), y tiene una agilidad sorprendente. Es de los libros que me hacen desear que supiera suficiente italiano como para poderlo leer en su idioma original.
He leído algunos pasajes en español, y otros tantos en inglés. Los traductores eran geniales, pero se nota que tenían la materia prima para producir textos tan originales en sus respectivos idiomas a partir de las letras del Sr. Boffa.
Les dejo aquí mi traducción al español de la traducción al inglés de John Casey y Maria Sanminiatelli del prólogo en italiano de Alessandro Boffa.
Ojalá que añadan este libro a su lista de libros a leer. Mejor todavía: añadan este libro a la lista de libros a comprar.

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Prólogo



Pues nos encontrábamos en un témpano de hielo los dos solos, a la deriva en la noche polar. Viskovitz se volteó y dijo:

—Me gustaría que pusieras nuestra conversación en blanco y negro.

—No es posible —respondí—. No soy mecanógrafo. No soy escriba. Soy un pingüino. Por mi parte, eso de "ponerlo en blanco y negro" significa hacer más pingüinos.

Entonces, en cambio, ahí me tenían un mes después, quieto y de pie con un huevo bajo mi barriga, recordando…

Fui yo quien abordó el tema.



Alessandro Boffa

El ¿retorno? de Ubu

¿Qué está sucediendo, carambas? Apenas acabo de pasar por Aristas (no los aguanto, pelados, pero cómo los extraño…) y me encuentro tres o cuatro relatos nuevos por Ubu (Ferreira, el del "Cabaret Cre Nom" en mi lista de blogs) y voy emocionado a visitarlo a su blog para saludarlo… ¡Oh, qué horrible! Está vacío el blog. Nomás tiene una foto de una anciana tomando de la mano a un párvulo.

Bueno, supongo que el que quiera leer a Ubu, que se vaya a visitarlo al foro Aristas, si es que no ha borrado sus cuentos todavía.

Y, si por milagro pasan por aquí antiguos miembros de Aristas, ¡saludos, compañeros!

Pero lo dudo…

D

Para Frida: ¡Rancheras!

Maybe now you'll come back "oftener"!

Ectopic

Note: Originally posted in the forum "Prosófagos," in Spanish, by author Aureliano Babilonia. This translation has been authorized by the author.

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When I hanged the x-ray film on the light-table, my two colleagues could hardly swallow again. I told them it had been the most awful freak of nature ever. That same night, we gathered and made a plan. We consulted a neurosurgeon and explained the situation. He accepted without much ado: his curiosity was as piqued as ours. There was silence; the room in tenterhooks. And afterwards, doctor? How'd it go afterwards? Well, we performed the surgery. There was another, much longer silence. And what did you do with the baby? Well, it died an hour later… But… For God's sake! Don't you realize? This is a supernatural case! His faced flushed. He made fists and shot off his chair, laughing like a loon, loudly. Two policemen came and dragged him outside, past the bemused relatives of the murdered woman. Outside, there were more than a hundred reporters. I remember the scene neatly: it was rather stifling. I never knew afterwards why they were all laughing their ass off, even those colleagues who were still waiting their turn.

Aureliano Babilonia,

Translated by DNAZ Franco

Guitar for beginners… Not!

As an amateur guitar player, most of the things that the professional guitar men do fascinate me. For example, the endless tinkering with a variety of amps and effect pedals, what with a little adjustment of the overdrive here and a little tweaking of the delay there, which ends up sounding just like the guitar player wanted it.

Also, I have always been impressed by those who can actually experiment with alternate tunings. It's difficult enough for me trying to remember all the chords and progressions and scales for standard tuning. I know that I haven't even learned all the main chords or scales yet, so I imagine how hard it must be trying alternate tunings in order to achieve a particular sound or in order to facilitate better fingering for difficult passages.

This is an example. In their famous song, "No one knows", by the Stone Temple Pilots, the guitars are tuned in such a mysterious manner that I keep finding new tuning schemes on the Internet, with all kinds of different fingerings. But I think the tuning is just transposed from the standard E/A/D/G/B/E to C/F/Bb/Eb/G/C.

Anyway, enjoy this driving rock-dirge. It makes me think about the angst of the perpetual middle child: our generation.



We get some rules to follow:
That and this,
These and those…
No one knows

We get these pills to swallow,
How they stick
In your throat!
Taste like gold.

Oh, what you do to me
No one knows.

And I realize you're mine;
Indeed, a fool of mine.
And I realize you're mine;
Indeed, a fool am I.
Ahh…

I journey through the desert
Of the mind,
With no hope
I follow

I drift along the ocean;
Dead lifeboats
in the sun,
they come undone.

Presently caving in,
I come undone

And I realize you're mine;
Indeed, a fool of mine.
And I realize you're mine;
Indeed, a fool of mine.
Ahhh…

Heaven smiles above me;
What a gift here below,
But no one knows

The Gift that you give to me,
No one knows…