An Interview With Sam Garrett Translator of Herman Koch’s The Dinner by Claire Cameron  “IF YOU KNOW only one language, you live only once,” goes the proverb.  Fluency in another language grants us two unique perspectives: an insider’s view into a new place, and an ability to see how our culture influences our thoughts.  “Language is never neutral,” says Sam Garrett, translator of Herman Koch’s The Dinner.  “It shapes our world.”  An American writer and literary translator, Sam Garrett has lived in Amsterdam for more than 30 years.  He is fluent in Dutch, but also has a writer’s command of English.  The Dinner was published in the US by Hogarth (February 2013).  It won the prestigious Dutch literary prize, the NS Publieksprijs; was shortlisted for the National Book Award in the UK; and has been published in 20-plus countries to widespread critical acclaim.  The narrative of The Dinner is shaped around two couples eating a five-course meal at a high-end restaurant.  The luxurious setting might sound polished and polite, but the reason for this meeting is anything but.  The Netherlands is shuddering in the aftermath of a horrifying act against a homeless woman.  Despite a nationwide appeal, the criminals have yet to be identified.  As the aperitifs descend on the table, we realize that these four are the parents of the perpetrators, two 15-year-old boys.  As parents, they alone know the truth.  However, grainy footage of the incident from a security camera has been posted on YouTube and there is reason to suspect that the person who uploaded the video recognized the boys.  During the course of the meal, the couples must decide if they should try to protect their children’s identity or turn them in.  The Dutch have a noun, a word that is difficult to translate into English, that implies belonging or spending time with loved ones in a comfortable atmosphere, usually with good food and drinks at hand:  “gezelligheid.”  It could be said that The Dinner is the dark underbelly of gezelligheid, the seemingly civil conversation at the next table actually concerns a moral question from your worst nightmares.  An unsettling novel, The Dinner explores a shifting Dutch liberal sensibility.  In an increasingly financially and racially polarized country, an anti-immigrant sentiment has reared up and homelessness is more prevalent.  The conversation among the characters shows a range of reactions, some extreme, to a country and a culture that is changing.  Read the interview at http://www.claire-cameron.com/an-interview-with-sam-garrett-translator-of-herman-kochs-the-dinner/

My Dinner With Andre, 1981 film  Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn starred and also wrote the script for this movie, which is about two men having dinner in a fancy restaurant and discussing life.  Yes, that’s the entire plot.  Even for a minimalist plot, surely their conversations are highly thought-provoking topics.  Mainly this debate is about between Andre’s spiritualistic and idealistic worldview and Wallace’s pragmatic humanism and his practical-realistic worldview.  Andre and Wallace are two different men, one eccentric and the other a settled type.  This movie is considered to be a cult classic among independent cinema critics and filmmakers for its philosophical meaning and minimalist style due to its insightful talks about life, the human condition, religion and communication.  http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/the-18-best-philosophical-movies-of-all-time/

The Evenings, 1947 novel  by Gerard Reve  This is the first English translation, published in January 2017, of the famous Dutch novel.  It is a novel about boredom--tedium-- monotony--ennui.  You’d think that with such a subject the book would be, well, boring.  It isn’t.  Remember the TV series Seinfeld?  Pretty much nothing happened in each episode, yet, it was entertaining.  Seinfeld is often described as being “a show about nothing”, since many of the episodes written by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld are about the minutiae, the small humdrum matters, of daily life.  It’s same in this book.  As author Tom McCarthy explains in an article about his favourite books in which nothing happens, the lack of an exciting plot, “creates the perfect blind spot in which a hundred events can take place, and everything can be said.”  https://sevencircumstances.com/2017/03/23/masterful-depiction-of-boredom-the-evenings-by-gerard-reve/

Since its publication in 1951,The Catcher in the Rye  has spawned catchphrases, book-banning campaigns, unauthorized sequels, and untold millions of padded high school English class essays.  Before writing The Catcher in the Rye, author J.D. Salinger was in talks with Harcourt, Brace and Company about potentially publishing a collection of his short stories.  Salinger suggested they publish his new novel instead.  His editor, Robert Giroux, loved it—but Giroux's boss, Eugene Reynal, thought that main character Holden Caulfield was crazy.  Before Harcourt, Brace's rejection, Salinger had his short story "The Boy in the People Shooting Hat" turned down by The New Yorker, who wrote to him saying "it has passages that are brilliant and moving and effective, but we feel that on the whole it's pretty shocking for a magazine like ours."  When Salinger finally finished The Catcher in the Rye, he drove to New Yorker Fiction Editor William Maxwell's house and read him the story from start to finish.  As for "The Boy in the People Shooting Hat"?  It essentially became chapters three through seven in The Catcher in the Rye.  In 1949, Salinger was set to publish "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls" in Harper's Bazaar, but withdrew it before publication.  The story, which is about the death of Holden's older brother, was donated to Princeton University on the condition that it not be published until 50 years after Salinger's death, in 2060.  But in 2013, it and two other unpublished stories were scanned and leaked online.  Daniel Kolitz  http://mentalfloss.com/article/64836/13-things-you-might-not-know-about-catcher-rye

Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) was an American engineer, policymaker and science administrator, known primarily for his work on analog computing and his political role in the development of the atomic bomb.  In 1945, in the article As We May Think (the paper was originally written in 1939, but was originally published in the July 1945 issue of the magazine The Atlantic Monthly) Bush proposed a theoretical proto-hypertext system (an electromechanical device, called memex), which has influenced the development of subsequent hypertext and intellect augmenting computer systems.  In his view, as an engineer and scientist, the answer was to be found in harnessing technology to provide a sophisticated mechanical solution to the problem.  Bush's idea should be viewed from the historical perspective of microfilm technology developed prior to 1945, as Bush was involved in the development of this technology and directed creation of a photoelectronic microfilm rapid selector at MIT during 1938-1940.  Extrapolating from the technology of his time, Bush described a new kind of device which was a sort of mechanized file and library.  He called it a "memex" (from "memory extender"):  A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.  It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works.  On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading.  There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers.  Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk.  See illustration of a memex at http://history-computer.com/Internet/Dreamers/Bush.html

Ten of the 15 fastest-growing large cities were located across the South in 2016, with four of the top five in Texas, according to new population estimates released May 25, 2017  by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Conroe, Texas (near Houston), was the fastest-growing large city (population of 50,000 or more) between 2015 and 2016 at 7.8 percent, making its growth rate more than 11 times the nation’s growth rate of 0.7 percent.  Some of the other fastest-growing cities were:  Frisco, Texas (6.2 percent); McKinney, Texas (5.9 percent); Greenville, S.C. (5.8 percent); and Georgetown, Texas (5.5 percent).  “Overall, cities in the South continue to grow at a faster rate than any other U.S region,” said Amel Toukabri, a demographer in the Census Bureau’s population division.  “Since the 2010 Census, the population in large southern cities grew by an average of 9.4 percent.  In comparison, cities in the West grew 7.3 percent, while cities in the Northeast and Midwest had much lower growth rates at 1.8 percent and 3.0 percent respectively.”  Four cities in the West—Bend, Ore.; Buckeye, Ariz.; Lehi, Utah; and Meridian, Idaho—were among the top 15 fastest growing.  Only one city in the Midwest, Ankeny, Iowa, topped the list while no cities in the Northeast were among the nation’s fastest growing.  The statistics for the time period  between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016 cover all local governmental units, including incorporated places (such as cities and towns), minor civil divisions (such as townships) and consolidated cities (government units for which the functions of an incorporated place and its parent county have merged).  While the overall list of the 15 largest U.S. cities did not change since 2015, Columbus, Ohio, surpassed Indianapolis, Ind., becoming the 14th largest city in the United States with a population of 860,090.   New York remains America’s largest city by a wide margin.  Its July 1, 2016, population of 8.5 million makes it more than twice as large as the next largest city, Los Angeles.  Los Angeles remains the second-largest city, with a population of about 4 million.  Despite a population loss of 8,638, Chicago remains the third-largest city, with a population of 2.7 million.  Phoenix, Ariz., had the largest numeric increase of any city, by adding 32,113 (about 88 people per day on average) between 2015 and 2016.  Release Number: CB17-81   https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/cb17-81-population-estimates-subcounty.html

The Longwood Gardens Fountain featuring 750 jets in changing patterns comes alive with five-minute shows set to music.  Since its 1914 Garden Party debut, this Italian-style outdoor theatre has expanded from its simple original fountains to the 750 jets that create the rainbowed curtain of water you see today, while playing host to more than 1500 performances throughout the years.  Find out more about the Open Air Theatre.  https://longwoodgardens.org/events-and-performances/events/open-air-theatre-fountain-shows  See also Summer Spectacle May 27-September 30, 2017 with gorgeous pictures at https://longwoodgardens.org/events-and-performances/events/summer-spectacle

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1715  May 27, 2017  On this date in 1933, the Century of Progress World's Fair opened in Chicago.  On this date in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.  Word of the Day  silly season  noun  1.  (idiomatic, journalism)  A period, usually during the summertime, when news media tend to place increased emphasis on reporting light-hearted, offbeat, or bizarrestories.  2. 

(idiomatic)  A period of time, as during a holiday season or a political campaign, in which the behavior of an individual or group tends to become uncharacteristically frivolous, mirthful, or eccentric.