To Invent the Universe

I'm Claire: 22 years old, studying creative writing and computer science at Oberlin College, enthusiast of many things.

Photo Post
newyorker: Junot Díaz: “Miss Lora” You were at the age where you could fall in love with a girl over an expression, a gesture. That’s what happened with your girlfriend Paloma—she stooped to pick up her purse, and your heart flew out of you. That’s what happened with Miss Lora, too. It was 1985. You were sixteen years old and you were messed up and alone like a motherfucker. You were also convinced—like totally, utterly convinced—that the world was going to blow itself to pieces. Almost every night you had dreams that made the ones the President was having in “Dreamscape” look like pussy play. In your dreams the bombs were always going off, evaporating you while you walked, while you ate a chicken wing, while you rode the bus to school, while you fucked Paloma. You would wake up biting your own tongue in terror, the blood dribbling down your chin. Someone should have medicated you. In this week’s issue: Junot Diaz’s “Miss Lora”: http://nyr.kr/HVyGJp

newyorker:

Junot Díaz: “Miss Lora”

You were at the age where you could fall in love with a girl over an expression, a gesture. That’s what happened with your girlfriend Paloma—she stooped to pick up her purse, and your heart flew out of you.

That’s what happened with Miss Lora, too.

It was 1985. You were sixteen years old and you were messed up and alone like a motherfucker. You were also convinced—like totally, utterly convinced—that the world was going to blow itself to pieces. Almost every night you had dreams that made the ones the President was having in “Dreamscape” look like pussy play. In your dreams the bombs were always going off, evaporating you while you walked, while you ate a chicken wing, while you rode the bus to school, while you fucked Paloma. You would wake up biting your own tongue in terror, the blood dribbling down your chin.

Someone should have medicated you.

In this week’s issue: Junot Diaz’s “Miss Lora”: http://nyr.kr/HVyGJp
Posted in fiction lit short story long reads junot diaz writing prose
Photo Post
scribnerbooks: ‘nuff said. View high resolution

scribnerbooks:

‘nuff said.

Posted in hemingway writing lit motivation
Text Post

Alright, my merry band of followers. Who’s your favorite public domain author?

I’m working on the implementation of a program that will take in some bit of text and “translate” it into the style of some author.  But in order to do that, I need to collect data from some (large) compilation of the author’s works and turn that data into a statistical model of his/her literary style.  To get that data, I’ll need to choose an author whose work is entirely in the public domain.

So my question for you is this: with regards to literary style (rather than actual content), who is your favorite public domain author?

Posted in programming lit literature public domain computer science nlp natural language processing
Link Post

Bad translator will butcher your language.

I know this isn’t a new concept at all, but that doesn’t mean it stopped me from fiddling around with this for a while. My favorite so far: I gave it the first stanza of this iconic Emily Dickinson poem:

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality.

And, 56 translations later, I got this gem:

I hope to avoid the ball. However, discrimination.

This is why I’m often skeptical of translated works.
Posted in translation poetry emily dickinson lit fail
Ultralite Powered by Tumblr | Designed by:Doinwork