про сослагательное наклонение

Читаю условия переводческого поэтического конкурса. Триста долларов приз, публикация, все дела.
Ну и как объяснение выбора автора для перевода:

In 2012, Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva would have turned 120...

и даже при всей моей избирательной любви к творчеству Марины Ивановны, хочется добавить, "если б ей только тогда дали работу судомойки".

Sorry, guys, but she would have never turned 120. Курила потому что много.

Франкфурт, Galerie La Brique

Картинки Виктора тут.
А текст опубликован в красивом, но, увы, пока почти недоступном каталоге. Хотя он продолжает, вроде бы, прирастать и, дай бог, во что-нибудь еще вырастет.

UPD. Ну и моя речь на открытии выставки.


The greatest wisdom handed down to us by the ancient Greeks didn’t come from their dialogues, treatises and speeches. This wisdom is revealed in their practice of drinking wine mixed with water. We know from many sources, not just from Plato, that they never got drunk at their night-long symposia because at those symposia slaves only served well-watered wine. This wine allowed them to stay awake and mentally vigorous for the whole night without getting drunk. The mixture of wine and water gave them access to the spirit in its double sense but never allowed them to abandon their selves for the sake of this spirit.

Now we would call that ‘moderation’ and think it’s really dull. Besides, try to mix today’s wine with water and you’ll get an absolutely disgusting mixture. Our culture favors purity – be it the purity of a drink or the purity of an art work. It values clarity and plainness. Fish should remain fish when you cook it, wine should result from the naturally developed grape juice and a film should be either a drama or a comedy. Not to mention that it should be film and not a mixture of still photography and, say, literature.

This dominance of definite genres and pure substances betrays our weakness, our readiness to submit to something absolute. It’s most clear in the case of hard drinks. You consume this very definite spirit (either transparent or slightly colored by an oak cask) and, in a few drinks, you’re no longer yourself – you’re possessed by the spirit. You open Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, unblemished by non-philosophical matters, and you’re carried away. Mixing, by contrast, allows you to partake in the spirit while remaining who you are.

Victor Pivovarov is a great master of mixing. He mixes genres, media, plots, real people and imaginary characters, texts and pictures, myths and documents, and, most outrageously, art and philosophy. He gives hard time to art critics who often find it impossible to say something definite about his works. But he also gives very easy time to us all because we can vividly follow his art, add something of ourselves to it and are never required to submit and be knocked out. This art counts on our active participation, sometimes in its very extreme forms – when it turns you into a living yet fictional character.

I must say this experience is highly enjoyable. I appreciated the mixture.

In the country where I live now and where Victor has been living for 30 years, there’s a traditional production of very light beer. Now this beer is in great danger because critics say it’s impure. Those who make it simply take the brew and add water – that’s why it’s so light. But it never occurred to those critics that this added water can be delicious in itself. No less than the brew.

I guess it’s time to drink to the master of mixing who knows how to value every ingredient.

я помню, что они все жаворонки

Никак не привыкну к чешскому чувству юмора. Сегодня вот таксист мне говорит:
- Странное дело. Время еще только час ночи, а снег уже идет.

Изящно

На днях один известный современный писатель похвалил мой текст, высказав восторг по поводу прилагавшегося к нему отрывка Краснахоркаи про Туринскую лошадь.

Мысленно аплодировала.