INTERVIEW PROTOCOLL

Location: Berlin-Plänterwald
Date: September 27th, 2026
Start of Interview: 10:34 AM, CEST
End of Interview: 11:15 AM, CEST
Method of transcription: Computer keyboard

Jordan Lee Schnee [JLS]: Hi Karen!

Karen Byk [KB]: Hey.

JLS: How’s it going?

KB [Rolling eyes]: I’ll tell you later. Bad coffee, huh?

JLS: Yeah, the coffee here is always bad. Let’s drink some yerba mate.

KB: Ooh, it’s a party.

JLS: So, about your poem.

KB: Which one?

JLS: “PREPARASE PARA LA FIESTA ES LA PERFORMANCE DE SER UN ANIMAL”

KB: Oh the one you translated for some reason as “WE ARE GREEN AND TREMBLING”?

JLS: No, the one called “GETTING READY TO GO OUT PARTYING IS PERFORMATIVE OF YOUR ANIMAL NATURE”?

KB: Oh yeah. What about it?

JLS: So, I ran the numbers on them and my version is 51 letters longer. More Ballast in there I guess? Also interesting: I used the letter “I” around 60 times but you only used it around 30. American English is so egodriven.

KB [Laughing]: Yeah and Argentine Spanish is all about the show [yo is pronounced that way in rioplatense dialect].

JLS: They say the vowels of the poem are its soul.

KB: Who’s “they”?

JLS: I’ll tell you later. Anyway, here are the vowels of your poem:

eaaeaaaieaeaeoaeeeuaiaeuaieoeuoeaooooaieaeeauueeeeooueaaeaeoeaeoeaueauaueoiieaeeaeoeeeieiouoaeaaioeuaooooeaueoooeeaaiouaiioeaiaoeaaeaaooeoooaoaeaaaaeeueooeeeioaeaaeeiooeioiaiaooeaoaooeaieaaaeaioaiaoaeeoioueeuioieaaaeaeooeeaeaoaaeauauaiaoeaaieaueaiaoeaiaeeueeoaooaeeaieeueoaeoooeuaeeeieeooueooaueuaa

I kept them all in the same order in a new English version:

separate 
harrass 
armies appealed 

coasts dependent guards dictate guards 
direct congress 

purpose among common constrained 

affected act 

future-dependent 
common cruelty 

character ages compleat 
becomes abuses 
act guards 

cruelty crown
citizens affected 
ages commerce define without coasts 

declaration equal common common 
measures common commerce 
harrass 
without raising 

compleat disavow 
separate harrass 

common beyond common 

among ages 
harrass 

paralleled cruelty common 
dependent importance 

paralleled history 
connection inhabitants common 

creator among compleat 
direct 
harrass 

appealing constrains among affected 
crown without brethren 
      cutting bodies 

harrass appealed common 
repeated among characters 

act guards guards 
disavow bear armies 
abuses 
arbitrary 

compleat 
dictate 
reduce beyond 
among coasts 
mercenaries reduce 
coasts beyond common 

equal dependent 
      indeed
common cruelty 
    common abuses 
guards act

Obviously, this is better version on some kind of psychospiritual level. More equivalent somehow?

KB: Nice poem, but nothing is obvious. Except that you subsumed the title into the text. Did you write that? Or is it plagAIrized? Or did I?

JLS [Marketing tone]: The founding fathers wrote that one, I’ll admit, but now it is more perfectly localized to the American idiom!!!¡¡¡¡ New and improved flavor formula for the American palate! 

KB: Wouldn’t it be good if they were the founding mothers?

JLS: ‘Twood be good, though as they say deceit awaits him who's born of a mother.

KB: I think you’re misconstruing kit anya szült, az mind csalódik végül a little bit. There’s no HE in Hungarian! 

JLS [Singing to an old tune]: HU, you’re right! Let me tell the second mother this has been done.

KB: We’re not done here.

JLS: What do you mean.

KB: This reminds me of a poem I read once on a bathroom wall in a ‘cool bar’ in Neukölln:

All the coffee
I had prepared for us
Has been tipped over.

JLS: The Bashō of Neukōlln! Plus, now we’re drinking mate. 

KB: But wait there’s more:

I’m sitting across from no one 
A chair with no one in it.

Yesterday, while we were drinking
I was dreaming of this moment.
While you were there, 
I was thinking of your empty space,
You dissolved into the ground
Were buried alive in the sea
Stiff and white in the zone of neutrality

I don’t know how to know you
The morning after, 
I feel it’s possible
That the chair was always empty.
I look around not seeing you
And the only truth is
That you are not there
You live in a space so neutral 
That we never met. 
Your absence is more real
Than any traces of bone. 
I can’t see you and I can’t tell you aprt
From the other versions 
That I invented. 

That’s when I understand,
You exist because today
The chair feels empty.

JLS [Moved]: Well that certainly got profound. 

KB: Pass me another mate.