Disorientation

 Here in Barcelona I went to restaurant one Sunday soon after I arrived. It had one of those fixed menus and they advertised "jazz moodd todo el día."  [sic]  They had good music, perhaps some Sonny Rollins followed by Miles, etc... The food was a little salty but not too bad. 

A few days later I started to go to one of the outside terraces near where I live; did it several times, having some beer or wine and tapas in the past few weeks. Then yesterday, I went back to the "jazz moodd" place.  Not as many places were open, and I had the same food more or less, but sitting on the other side of the restaurant this time. I was starting the suspect something, so I exited from the other door, onto another street, and there I was, at the outdoor terrace I had been frequenting on several other nights. It was the exact same restaurant, just experienced somewhat differently: day vs. night, one street vs the other, outdoors or indoors. The wait staff was different during the say. 

 I hadn't really noticed the name the first time, so even though I knew the outside place was called "Ginger" I didn't really associate it with the "other" place at all until I had another daytime meal there.  

Dante

 I saw in an interview with Borges (by Piglia) that he didn't think you needed to translate Dante into Spanish. Instead, you should read Dante in Italian, by learning another dialect of Latin. He had read the commedia several times himself, unsurprisingly.  

He always says that the scholarly editions of Dante in Italian are quite good, which is not hard to believe.   

Dream of New Yorker

 I had a mini-story accepted by the New Yorker.  But when it was about to come out (in the dream) it was merely a negation of my acceptance. Not exactly a letter of rejection, but something that had that same effect.  

Theory of Rhyme

Repetition + difference. 

Marks endings.  

From song to poem and back again

 

Here's what it could be. There is song; a poet imitates the song form and creates the poem. The composer sets the poem to music, and there is a new song.  

But this new song is different from the original, anonymous, popular song.  In 2 ways.  Now the text comes first, and is set to music. (In the original form of a song, music and words both come first, in a way. There is no necessary precedence.)  Secondly, there is a popularization of a text that belongs to the cultured tradition.  

Simple things at a high level

I saw a video by the drummer T. Igoe about doing simple things at a high level of proficiency. That would be my philosophy too.  Complex things done with a high level of proficiency are also great, but complex things done badly are doubly bad.    

As I type

 As I type my fingers act automatically. I don't look at the keyboard: my fingers simply know where the letters are. I make mistakes, but that is beside the point. My brain knows on some level what I am doing. For example, it knows that some words only need the left hand. However, to remind my brain of where a letter is, I have to move my fingers. I couldn't recite to you the querty keyboard.  

On the piano, my fingers also know where the keys are. I can play blind, for example. I can make a mistake if the key I am reaching for is two octaves up. 

The neurological process of writing by hand is different, I'm told.  Maybe better, but there is still a beauty in the unconscious logic of typing.