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Spotlight on Intralingo (& other summer inspirations)
Translator Lisa Carter has been running a series of Translator Spotlights on her blog, Intralingo. Today, I’m the lucky guest. I hope you’ll visit (http://intralingo.com/?p=2938)–and have a look at some of the other translators who’ve been spotlighted as well! I’ve benefitted from Lisa’s collegiality and goodwill off line, too, so I’ll take this opportunity to […]
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Proofreading and Second Chances
It has never yet happened that, reading proofs, I haven’t found some dreadful if trifling error–often after 20 or 30 error-free pages, when I was beginning to wonder whether the task was, indeed, worthwhile. But there it will be, the third i in the middle of a word, the second however in a row. No […]
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Family Business/Sharing Books
Winter’s Hill Vineyard UNO Press Last week, visiting my family’s winery, one of the wonderful women who often works special events there told me she’d bought a copy of Beyond the Islands for a friend of hers who would be diving in the Galápagos. What should she tell her friend about the book? Pirates, I […]
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May memories, Mayhap, May help
When I was little–four or five–we used to hang May Baskets from the doorknobs of elderly neighbors. My mother instigated this, of course, but I enjoyed filling the construction paper cones with garden flowers, placing the surprise, ringing the bell and running away. It’s not a tradition I ever tried to continue with my children. […]
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2nd Annual Wine and Word Tasting
2nd Annual Wine and Word Tasting at Winter’s Hill Vineyard. Saturday, Feb. 11. Sample tasty morsels of poetry and prose expertly paired with fine Oregon wines. Short readings by local writers Barbara Drake, Karen McPherson, Kelly Terwilliger, Adrienne Mitchell and Amalia Gladhart served up in literary “flights” at 12:30,1:30, 2:30, and 3:30. Taste Winter’s Hill […]
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Juxtaposition (compare and contrast)
When the program excursion to Buenos Aires (several weeks ago now) visited the Recoleta Cemetery, I was struck by the “Make a Wish” billboard framed at the end of one of the narrow paths–streets, in a sense–that crisscross the cemetery. Well off hallowed ground, but present in its visibility, a foil to the wishes expressed […]
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Birdwatching for Translators
I was asked recently when on this trip I had particularly felt I was somewhere else. Well, running, last Friday. It was a gray, cold, drizzly morning with a strong wind, easily run-in-a-fleece weather; a day worthy of Michigan at the end of March (remember, we just celebrated the first day of spring). The wind […]
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Signs (taken for wonders?)
The exotic is always alluring; borrow a few words from another language, or a cinema icon from another era, and the possibilities blossom. Or wilt. I always enjoy reading signs (we recently turned the car around to photograph a sign for “Salad Shrimp” offered right next to night crawlers; imagine our disappointment when it was […]
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Travel guides new and old
I love reading travel guides. I’ve bought several in preparation for my upcoming trip to Argentina, and I’ve pretty well cleaned out the public library’s shelf. (Good news for those planning their own trips: I leave at the end of the month, and all books will be returned.) The university library has just one book […]
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Bored as an oyster?
Razor clam, boredom long past The translation I’m working on includes the phrase, aburrirse como pingüinos— become bored as penguins? A little sleuthing around turned up the phrase, aburrirse como una ostra or una almeja— bored as an oyster, or bored as a clam. Bivalves likely lead pretty dull lives (though a razor clam can […]