Posts Tagged ‘English’

Well. Today my friend Elana told me: you have to write a post every day.
It is in order to improve my written English. Why? Because I’m not paid a becco in Italy. Oh, Christ.

See? I’m a writer in Italian, Elana.

Voice Of My Mind: “Hey Olga, a writer is a writer. Don’t you remember Kafka or your beloved Kundera, or the poet Celan, or Canetti”
Olga:”yes, I do”
VOMM: “Then…”
O: “Jizuz, voice of my mind: they were genius, which I’m not. Take Canetti: he was trained from his mother… kind of martial education”

Ok, Voice Of My Mind. I can ideally structure a readable text. I can. But English has so many words, so many shadows. You know that, you studied VOMM”
V.”Yes I did. Ok, listen: now let’s go through the list, ok, and let’s see what you can do”
O.”I’m frustrated”
V.”Yes I know, the Italian industry. The Italian journalism. The sun, the seaside ecc. I got that, and I started to get bored”
o.”ok, then. Go and read”

v.1.IF YOU WRITE EVERY DAY, YOU GET BETTER AT WRITING EVERY DAY
o. yes, I know that. But you can’t write whatever, you need content.
v.2. “If it’s BORING TO YOU IT’S BORING TO YOUR READER”
o. Yes I know. It’s my meter to judge my writing. When I read some of my best things I laugh. Ok… the opposite of boring is not necessarily comic.
v.”Fair enough. What is a meter?”

o. What? Oh, I see. They use inches here. Or acres? Listen, VOMM, I’m a fast reader. I think I got everything except the 10, can you repeat it loudly?
v.”GO FOR WALKS. DANCE. PULL WEEDS. DO THE DISHES. WRITE ABOUT IT”
well I do walk, a lot. And I run. Have you read the last of Murakami, on running?
“….”
and I dance. Actually. I freaking love dancing, VOMM
v.”be honest”
Ok, not recently.
v.”PULL WEEDS”
o.Pull weeds. What does it mean?

v.”Do the dishes?”
o.”fare i piatti” ah. In the sense that I have tho wash them? I normally don’t clean dishes, someone else does for me…
v.”Olga… do the dishes means to cook”.
o.I do.
v. “write about it”
o. Jiz. Can you imagine somefing more boring? Writing everyday about my daily life: what I’m cooking now.
v. Read the  number 12: I have the solution: “Don’t settle in just one style. Try something new!”
o. ok, I like it. Tomorrow…what should I do? It’s like sex, isn’t it?

v. “Important it’s that you read somfing everyday, see rule n.6″
o.Baby, I do a lot.
v. “For ex, what did you read today”
Well, I’m reading “Reporting” of David Remnick. He’s editor  for the New Yorker. It’s a series  of important people’s portraits.
I’m reading Philip Roth’s one. Oh, this sentence I really like:

We drove though the hills. New York was a dreary mess of cold rain. But here the river was icy, clear as gin, and there was snow in the woods and in the trees.
v. “What did u like, the gin?”
o. Yessir!! I mean don’t tease me. I liked the metaphor: he comes from NY, he stays in the office during the day and he goes to clubs the nights. Of course if he has to take something clear, might be gin or vodka. Now consider: couldn’t be vodka, either for the sound, and bc hey: he’s American. And I can feel a certain aversion to Russia…
v.”he. who??”
o. Remnick
Gin is America. Gin is NY. He writes for the New Yorker, there is somfing clearer than GIN, for a new york citizen?
“…”
o. Oh, you never understand me, when it’s night.

v.”Shut up. By the way. You were right. I wikipeded him and in 1994 he won the Pulitzer for…Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire”

o. Lovely. I’m a good reader.

v. “Wait. Could you write a sentence like that in Italian?”

Don’t think so. I’m not from NY, un fiume chiaro come la grappa.

mmmm jiz you know what I mean.

“No, I couldn’t”

Then. Fair. Rember: language is just a medium.

Write. A. Post. In. English. Every. Day.

o. Yessir.