Day: June 29, 2013

Caveat: 그냥 제 결에서 걸으면서 친구가 되어 주세요

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

 

제 앞에서 걷지 마세요. 제가 따라가지 않을지도 몰라요.
제 뒤에서 걷지 마세요. 저는 당신을 이끌지 않을지도 몰라요.
그냥 제 결에서 걸으면서 친구가 되어 주세요.

I  thought this was a Korean proverb and I was all set to try to translate it, but then I saw it attributed to Albert Camus, with a longer lead-in to the last sentence that I had first run across. I did some googling.

Camus seems implausible as an author, just on the basis of its philosophical content. I suppose it’s some kind of popular poem or aphorism. It’s widely distributed online and definitely not originally Korean. I saw someone attributing it to George Sand – this seems slightly more plausible. And several online notes confirmed that attributing it to Camus is an error and one spot suggested it was an old Jewish children’s song.

In any event, I don’t need to translate it, as I found numerous versions in French and English online already for the longer quote.

In English:

Don’t walk behind me: I may not lead.
Don’t walk in front of me: I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.

In French:

Ne marche pas devant moi, je ne suivrai peut-être pas.
Ne marche pas derrière moi, je ne te guiderai peut-être pas.
Marche juste à côté de moi et sois mon ami.

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Caveat: Hitchens

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

Cover_of_Mortality_by_Christopher_Hitchens,_Atlantic_2012Walking through the bookstore only last weekend, I saw lying on a table display a cheap paperback edition of Christopher Hitchens’ short, posthumously published book Mortality. The man died last year after a year-long humiliation in the company of a metastasizing throat cancer.

Ah, how relevant, I had thought to myself. I purchased the book.

The book is not very long. I read the 8 essays collected there in spare moments – at bedtime, at wake-up time, waiting for things.

It’s well written and I’m deeply sympathetic to his curmodgeonly and materialist perspectives.

But… my gut reaction is jealousy: Hitchens had already attained his intellectual immortality, through his writing.

I, on the other hand, may die utterly obscure. There’s no finishing those novels I’ve been working on, now. I’ve been much too lazy with my alloted time on this earth.

I’m like the student waking up one morning and realizing the exam is today, but I’ve frittered away my time procrastinating, not studying, and now it’s too late.

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Caveat: Wending Around Kburbia

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / My Photos

Today I set off to run errands. I’m trying to be “organized” about this long sojourn in the hospital that is fast approaching.

I took a long walk first, heading east from my apartment building along Jungangno (which just means “Central Avenue” but which I still always call “Broadway” in my mind for some reason). I went wending around “Kburbia” – the non-rectilinear streets on the west side of Jeongbalsan Park and north of Jungangno are eerie in the extent to which they echo yet reinterpret the curved streets and cul-de-sacs of suburban North America. I took some random photos.

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There was a temple.

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Then I went into the park and up the hill. I saw a magpie.

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I saw a swampy place.

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Turning the other way, there were redwood trees (a few of these are Chinese “dawn redwoods”).

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At the top of the hill I took a picture of a view I probably have taken before – this is looking northwest, toward my place-of-work and the new towers of Tanhyeon on the right, beyond the old Ilsan station. Also, a fine portrait of the piece of dust on my lens, center.

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I saw some weird bird sculptures.

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Then I walked down the hill and went to the store.

What I’m listening to right now.


Ben Kweller – Holy Water from Guest List on Vimeo.

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