I recommend Sarah Dunant's trilogy: The Birth of Venus, The Company of the Courtesan, and Sacred Hearts. Her books on the Borgias are great, too; she's a Renaissance Italy scholar and her historical fiction is very well grounded in actual history.
An open book chat perhaps once in a while for Wonks would be great for us book nerds but dangerous for my growing, teetering TBR (To Be Read) list. I got three recommended tomes just from the Wonkette Book Club's readings of Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Ministry for the Future" (2020). That book was my introduction to climate fiction (cli-fi).
I just finished White Trash Warlock, which is - not deep reading. I know you're shocked. I actually liked it better than I expected to; fans of Cherie Priest might enjoy it as well. I'm now about a third of the way thru Piranesi, by Susannah Clarke. It is something more like serious fiction.
What could I possible be up doing at nearby 12:30am? Making cheese biscuits from scratch. Mom hates these, but she’s been recuperating from health issues for two months. Not home. Coming home on Wednesday. So I’m going to eat cheese biscuits with my eggplant tagline, and with eggs tomorrow.
I’m on SNAP and it’s a damn good thing that SNAP pays for veg seedlings. I’ve been subsistence faming since July.
Last week I was in Cleveland visiting my brother and his wife, and that Thursday she and I walked her neighbor's Border Collie Piper. Sister in law explained he dog zigs left and right because that's how they herd sheep.
Yesterday I think, CakesWeLike showed us her Border Collie, Loki. I posted a picture of Piper.
In that thread or one nearby, somebody mentioned they were earwigged by the theme of Good Omens. I watched the first two this evening and to my amazement there is an important Border Collie named Dog.
I had a thought that Neil Gaiman chose a shepherd dog, to tweak the Christian Concept of "shepherd of the flock" of people's souls.
"Some central Florida lawmakers said they were considering 'all legislative, legal and executive options available' to stop business owners in a small town from voluntarily displaying rainbow decals in their windows indicating that they are 'safe place' for LGBTQ+ people who feel threatened."
Not as first amendment protected as the 2 neonazi parades they had in Florida today.
Apparently religious people and good Florida republican voters have decided that white supremacy and antisemitism are both OK with God and the bible, unlike drag and gays.
With stars there are no actual green stars since the stars do not emit just one color or wavelength We are evolved to see most clearly in the sun's emitted colors which are strongest in the mid spectrum and the combo looks white to us. Our eyes are more sensitive to green than red so pretty strong green lasers show a beam at night that we can use as pointers to the stars and constellations but not red lasers. Maybe if like Superman's Krypton, our planet had evolved around a red star, we could use the kitty's red dot laser at night and see a beam. This site is really informative.
Green comes out as green, hence it having a name distinct from white. The human retina has 3 types of "cone" color receptors: red, green, and blue. For low light conditions we also have "rods" that are most sensitive to colors between green and blue, but relatively insensitive to red. This is why red light preserves your night vision.
I cleaned parts of the house today. Bathroom, living room, dining room, select parts of the kitchen. My back is yelling at me never to do that again. But our house cleaner left to do something else with her life, and we haven't found anyone to replace her.
One thing I know for sure, we need a new vacuum. I keep thinking that the one we have is "new" but it's probably like 10 years old. I need to get one of those lightweight ultra-powerful Dyson numbers. The one we have really does a number on my back, even in small spaces.
So what are *you* reading right this minute, Mr. Smart Guy?
(You may say.)
Well, I'm glad you raised that question, Young Sir or Madam. I must have the oddest pairing of current projects anywhere on the planet.
Project 1. I am slowly working my way through Diane Keaton's autobiographical memoir "Then Again." Slowly, not because it is heavy-going nor because it is one of those "and-then-I-played" showbiz tediumfests. No, the slow pace is because I am also reading a German translation of it entitled "Damals Heute." Because the idiomatic wordplay in English does not exist in German, the title is already a little wide of the mark.
All of this effort by way of trying to recover what is left of my faltering German. I think I will have to bear down a lot harder to advance in that language and am considering various YouTube and Internet options.
But to get back to the book in question, almost half of it is devoted to the private journals of her mother. To oversimplify greatly, Keaton is self-deprecating to a fault and then some, struggling with the fact that she was not a beautiful baby and unable to see herself as a swan, or even a very pretty duck. Her mother's dissatisfactions are of different origin: The Depression stymieing her ambitions for higher education, a father who abandoned her.
Somehow, their prose styles are similar.
I have spotted a few glaring mistakes by the translator (triumph!) but can't claim to be able to carry on a conversation in German (despair!)
Why am I putting myself through this? I dunno. I wish I knew every language and this seems like a place to start.
Project 2. "L'histoire de France vue par San-Antonio."
At least this book is in a language I know well and even about a subject that I know well.
However, the author, one Frédéric Dard, is a literary outlier. He wrote prolifically under the pen-name of San-Antonio, his own name and many other pseudonyms. Furthermore, San-Antonio was also the name of the title character in 175 first-person crime-suspense novels that he churned out at a pace that makes Balzac and Simenon look like lazybones. Of course, the quality varies.
His books are full of puns and obscure, frequently vulgar vocabulary that make them very difficult for a non-native to understand and for translators to deal with. If I say that his San-Antonio novels are like Mickey Spillane with a bit of Ian Fleming and a lot of Tom Robbins, I'm still not close.
Biographical details are sparse but the general impression is that he was not a nice guy and proud of it.
This book is not one of the crime novels but a spoof-history book.
To give you an idea of how difficult this is to get the joke in anything other than French:
Avant Propos
Hors Propos
Mais Qui Vient À Propos
In English this means, literally:
Foreword
Off topic
But which is by the way.
So you see the problem. The wordplay vanishes in translation.
On the other hand, I relish a challenge in my other almost-mother tongue.
I love that you're reading a celebrity memoir both in English and in a translation that is not a fluent language for you. My first thought was, why would you do that? My second thought was, why the hell not?
I imagine that you are learning a lot not just about German as a language but also German culture reading the translation alongside the original English.
I'm reading some memoirs (some by celebs, some not) lately for a project I'm working on. It never occurred to me to read their translations. I bet they're very different books in translation. And I bet I'd learn a lot about how other cultures reflect on the topic I'm reading about.
It has certainly re-alerted me to the challenges of translation.
In this case, I spotted a potential problem almost immediately. Keaton studied for two years with the famous teacher Sanford Meisner and he said to her, "One day, you will be a great comedienne."
He was right, of course, although she has also had success in dramatic roles.
But the flub I anticipated came from knowing that in both French and German, the false-friend word means an actress, not specifically a specialist in comedy.
In another passage, Keaton describes asking her parents for advice on men.
Her mother married young and scarcely knew how to respond.
Her father said, "Women like bums."
The translator obviously thought that he meant to say that women like the hindquarters of men. As an American, I assume that he meant that women are attracted to jerks and bad-boys. Maybe not globally true but we've all seen examples.
Not to put too much blame on the translator, he sometimes had to shrug his shoulders and just skip something. Why spend a whole footnoted paragraph explaining that the writer is referring to a long-defunct restaurant chain in Orange County, CA?
You are right that I am learning a lot of stuff and hope to retain some of it.
I've long been a fan of Keaton. I dressed in menswear in high school because of Annie Hall. And though I haven't consciously emulated her style over the many decades since, whenever I check in with her, seems like we're making the same style choices. :)
That's a hilarious translation of "women like bums." This is what I mean when I say that a translation can teach you a lot about the culture that is translating the book.
I presume that the translator has German as a first language. Someone whose first language was English and who was translating into German might have made a different but similar sort of error.
I recommend Sarah Dunant's trilogy: The Birth of Venus, The Company of the Courtesan, and Sacred Hearts. Her books on the Borgias are great, too; she's a Renaissance Italy scholar and her historical fiction is very well grounded in actual history.
An open book chat perhaps once in a while for Wonks would be great for us book nerds but dangerous for my growing, teetering TBR (To Be Read) list. I got three recommended tomes just from the Wonkette Book Club's readings of Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Ministry for the Future" (2020). That book was my introduction to climate fiction (cli-fi).
I second the Octavia Butler recommendation. I only read the Xenogenesis series (Dawn, Adulthood, Imago) and it is really good.
I loved her novel Wild Seed.
I just finished White Trash Warlock, which is - not deep reading. I know you're shocked. I actually liked it better than I expected to; fans of Cherie Priest might enjoy it as well. I'm now about a third of the way thru Piranesi, by Susannah Clarke. It is something more like serious fiction.
I just found out this book is coming and never has 17 days seemed so long:
42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/1143985847?ean=9781800182684
(Also: hi! Longlonglongtime reader, first-time commenter. I will try not to despoil the furniture.)
I am rereading my way through the More than Complete HHG right now ;) Thanks for the linkage!
We've just been listening to the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Universe, the NPR broadcasts back in the early 80s that we had taped. Ah the good old days.
Welcome to the club! Noncommenting is fun and easy.
or at least it would be, if allowed
What could I possible be up doing at nearby 12:30am? Making cheese biscuits from scratch. Mom hates these, but she’s been recuperating from health issues for two months. Not home. Coming home on Wednesday. So I’m going to eat cheese biscuits with my eggplant tagline, and with eggs tomorrow.
I’m on SNAP and it’s a damn good thing that SNAP pays for veg seedlings. I’ve been subsistence faming since July.
That's super thrifty of you!
I had an interesting threepeat this week.
Last week I was in Cleveland visiting my brother and his wife, and that Thursday she and I walked her neighbor's Border Collie Piper. Sister in law explained he dog zigs left and right because that's how they herd sheep.
Yesterday I think, CakesWeLike showed us her Border Collie, Loki. I posted a picture of Piper.
In that thread or one nearby, somebody mentioned they were earwigged by the theme of Good Omens. I watched the first two this evening and to my amazement there is an important Border Collie named Dog.
I had a thought that Neil Gaiman chose a shepherd dog, to tweak the Christian Concept of "shepherd of the flock" of people's souls.
Hi back from Cleveland!
'Night, folks. Swiss cheese, crackers and cold tea will have to do, since I couldn't hit the Wonkmeet. Party safe, campers!
I have a black t-shirt, with an artwork set of star trails and this from Marcus Aurelius:
"Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."
Movie thread is open now.
"History books will document the dark moment when the ruling party weaponized the legal system to ARREST its leading opponent as an innocent man
But you can own a piece of that history signed by the very man who was willing to risk his own freedom for the sake of protecting YOUR freedom."
.
oh. my. god. The number of delusional people in this country is truly disheartening.
Can I buy them on credit? Through a third-party bank in Nigeria with a branch in Hong Kong, utilizing a money mule who has a cousin in Kolkata?
Because, if so, I am all in!
If nothing else, I am appreciating the fact that they are so blatant about how this is all about separating the rubes from their money
Dumbass is botomless.
Is there a limit to how many I can buy?!
"Some central Florida lawmakers said they were considering 'all legislative, legal and executive options available' to stop business owners in a small town from voluntarily displaying rainbow decals in their windows indicating that they are 'safe place' for LGBTQ+ people who feel threatened."
https://apnews.com/article/florida-lgbtq-safe-places-orlando-eb2cab0fa22aaee977d48db14be2d29a
.
"I like rainbows" should be sufficient First Amendment challenge, shouldn't it? SHOULDN'T IT?!
Ladies and gentlemen, the Party Of Small Government and Freedom.
Irony has died, again.
Not as first amendment protected as the 2 neonazi parades they had in Florida today.
Apparently religious people and good Florida republican voters have decided that white supremacy and antisemitism are both OK with God and the bible, unlike drag and gays.
Ron DeSantis is sure of that.
Those lawmakers can shit in one hand and have their options in the other.
6 colors or 7?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROYGBIV#/media/File:Newton's_colour_circle.png
Seven, I believe. Doesn't green come out as white to the human eye?
With stars there are no actual green stars since the stars do not emit just one color or wavelength We are evolved to see most clearly in the sun's emitted colors which are strongest in the mid spectrum and the combo looks white to us. Our eyes are more sensitive to green than red so pretty strong green lasers show a beam at night that we can use as pointers to the stars and constellations but not red lasers. Maybe if like Superman's Krypton, our planet had evolved around a red star, we could use the kitty's red dot laser at night and see a beam. This site is really informative.
https://sciencenotes.org/the-colors-of-the-stars-from-hottest-to-coldest/
Also check this site.
https://www.pas.rochester.edu/~blackman/ast104/cindex.html
Green comes out as green, hence it having a name distinct from white. The human retina has 3 types of "cone" color receptors: red, green, and blue. For low light conditions we also have "rods" that are most sensitive to colors between green and blue, but relatively insensitive to red. This is why red light preserves your night vision.
https://askabiologist.asu.edu/rods-and-cones
If flying a rainbow flag is wrong I'd say it applies to MAGA hats too.
So now murdering someone for flying a rainbow flag is illegal?
MAGA flags too of course!
Even more than that, showing solidarity for LGBTQ+ is protected speech under our constitution.
You would think.
I cleaned parts of the house today. Bathroom, living room, dining room, select parts of the kitchen. My back is yelling at me never to do that again. But our house cleaner left to do something else with her life, and we haven't found anyone to replace her.
One thing I know for sure, we need a new vacuum. I keep thinking that the one we have is "new" but it's probably like 10 years old. I need to get one of those lightweight ultra-powerful Dyson numbers. The one we have really does a number on my back, even in small spaces.
Vacuuming is the source of pain that drove me to find a house cleaner, even with a nice Dyson. Good luck!
So what are *you* reading right this minute, Mr. Smart Guy?
(You may say.)
Well, I'm glad you raised that question, Young Sir or Madam. I must have the oddest pairing of current projects anywhere on the planet.
Project 1. I am slowly working my way through Diane Keaton's autobiographical memoir "Then Again." Slowly, not because it is heavy-going nor because it is one of those "and-then-I-played" showbiz tediumfests. No, the slow pace is because I am also reading a German translation of it entitled "Damals Heute." Because the idiomatic wordplay in English does not exist in German, the title is already a little wide of the mark.
All of this effort by way of trying to recover what is left of my faltering German. I think I will have to bear down a lot harder to advance in that language and am considering various YouTube and Internet options.
But to get back to the book in question, almost half of it is devoted to the private journals of her mother. To oversimplify greatly, Keaton is self-deprecating to a fault and then some, struggling with the fact that she was not a beautiful baby and unable to see herself as a swan, or even a very pretty duck. Her mother's dissatisfactions are of different origin: The Depression stymieing her ambitions for higher education, a father who abandoned her.
Somehow, their prose styles are similar.
I have spotted a few glaring mistakes by the translator (triumph!) but can't claim to be able to carry on a conversation in German (despair!)
Why am I putting myself through this? I dunno. I wish I knew every language and this seems like a place to start.
Project 2. "L'histoire de France vue par San-Antonio."
At least this book is in a language I know well and even about a subject that I know well.
However, the author, one Frédéric Dard, is a literary outlier. He wrote prolifically under the pen-name of San-Antonio, his own name and many other pseudonyms. Furthermore, San-Antonio was also the name of the title character in 175 first-person crime-suspense novels that he churned out at a pace that makes Balzac and Simenon look like lazybones. Of course, the quality varies.
His books are full of puns and obscure, frequently vulgar vocabulary that make them very difficult for a non-native to understand and for translators to deal with. If I say that his San-Antonio novels are like Mickey Spillane with a bit of Ian Fleming and a lot of Tom Robbins, I'm still not close.
Biographical details are sparse but the general impression is that he was not a nice guy and proud of it.
This book is not one of the crime novels but a spoof-history book.
To give you an idea of how difficult this is to get the joke in anything other than French:
Avant Propos
Hors Propos
Mais Qui Vient À Propos
In English this means, literally:
Foreword
Off topic
But which is by the way.
So you see the problem. The wordplay vanishes in translation.
On the other hand, I relish a challenge in my other almost-mother tongue.
I am not going to list the dozens of books I am technically currently reading, because many of those I haven't touched in months :D
I know the feeling.
I love that you're reading a celebrity memoir both in English and in a translation that is not a fluent language for you. My first thought was, why would you do that? My second thought was, why the hell not?
I imagine that you are learning a lot not just about German as a language but also German culture reading the translation alongside the original English.
I'm reading some memoirs (some by celebs, some not) lately for a project I'm working on. It never occurred to me to read their translations. I bet they're very different books in translation. And I bet I'd learn a lot about how other cultures reflect on the topic I'm reading about.
Thanks for that idea!
It has certainly re-alerted me to the challenges of translation.
In this case, I spotted a potential problem almost immediately. Keaton studied for two years with the famous teacher Sanford Meisner and he said to her, "One day, you will be a great comedienne."
He was right, of course, although she has also had success in dramatic roles.
But the flub I anticipated came from knowing that in both French and German, the false-friend word means an actress, not specifically a specialist in comedy.
In another passage, Keaton describes asking her parents for advice on men.
Her mother married young and scarcely knew how to respond.
Her father said, "Women like bums."
The translator obviously thought that he meant to say that women like the hindquarters of men. As an American, I assume that he meant that women are attracted to jerks and bad-boys. Maybe not globally true but we've all seen examples.
Not to put too much blame on the translator, he sometimes had to shrug his shoulders and just skip something. Why spend a whole footnoted paragraph explaining that the writer is referring to a long-defunct restaurant chain in Orange County, CA?
You are right that I am learning a lot of stuff and hope to retain some of it.
"Then Again" is worth a read if you can find it.
I think I might, now!
I've long been a fan of Keaton. I dressed in menswear in high school because of Annie Hall. And though I haven't consciously emulated her style over the many decades since, whenever I check in with her, seems like we're making the same style choices. :)
That's a hilarious translation of "women like bums." This is what I mean when I say that a translation can teach you a lot about the culture that is translating the book.
I presume that the translator has German as a first language. Someone whose first language was English and who was translating into German might have made a different but similar sort of error.
Fascinating! Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls6n1TWeEQ4&list=PLAbSwpu-qbTlLXQC8jffzur_ymhNJ2Tnq&index=9
Lonely Looking Sky
The latest installment of 'Just Plain Jasper':
https://substack.com/@theheroofcanton/note/c-39483315?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2kpacs