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| Willem Dafoe and Antoschka (Photo: Christina Voigt) |
When answering Jerry Mander’s question about whether the ubiquitousness of mass media is more of an opportunity or problem, Iyer responds: “Unquestionably a problem. A problem so great that it dwarfs the opportunity that it brings with it. More and more of us lead our lives mediated. We see the world through screens. While getting the world second-hand, sitting before screens spellbound like the creatures in Plato’s cave, while the world itself - life in all its urgency - is tapping at our window, waiting to be heeded.”
There’s also Eliot Weinberger, the US-based writer and translator, who also had some astute things to say about the 24-hour media. I was lucky to have the opportunity to meet him in the lobby of a west Berlin hotel on the eve of the Table, but at first he looked a bit nervous. No, it was not the daunting task of answering 100 questions that was on his mind; it was something else. He was asking about the seating situation for Saturday’s event. He had heard that one of the 112 participants was a Russian clown…literally. The spectre of sitting next to a clown for a good part of 9 hours…well, it would be more than a little distracting if he had to answer questions about global warming, mass media and consumer culture next to someone answering questions with juggling, handstands and squirting flowers.
Fair enough. But as I peered out over the full table on Saturday morning, I just had to laugh. There was Weinberger sitting right next to Ekaterina Moschaeva, aka Antoschka. Or, if you prefer, the “Queen of Clowns.” It seemed to go alright for Weinberger, though. Although Antoschka did show up in full-clown regalia (painted face, zany hat, red wig), her answers seem on-topic (my Russian is very rusty, so I’ll wait for the translation before I can say for sure!). Actually, we knew that along. After all, Moschaeva is ambassador for the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation and member of the World Wisdom Council of the Club of Budapest. So, no juggling in the face of such pressing issues.
Yes, I am exaggerating Weinberger’s coulrophobia for the sake of an anecdote. But Weinberger’s English translations of Jorge Luis Borges — not to mention his award-winning translations from the Chinese (!!) — set the bar almost impossibly high for aspiring writers and translators like myself. This work also inspires me like never before to hit my German grammar books, for maybe someday I may actually do a German author some justice with a decent translation.
Weinberger was also courteous enough to share his reasons for coming to the Table:
“First of all, it’s such an unusual project. Nobody has done anything like this at all. It also seems such a strange piece of performance art, that how could I say no when they asked me. So, mainly I accepted to find out what it was going to be like.”
“First of all, it’s such an unusual project. Nobody has done anything like this at all. It also seems such a strange piece of performance art, that how could I say no when they asked me. So, mainly I accepted to find out what it was going to be like.”
“And I love the idea of asking questions, and that also that this is the beginning of something that is going to take a life of its own on the Internet…The kind of people that are going to be here are not the kind of people that are in the mainstream media at all in the United States. I’m sure practically none of them have been on television. So, this is where you get to hear people like that.”