I didn’t drop off the face of the earth. I went to New Zealand. Wellington is about as rainy as Oregon (rainier, some days) but the sun peeked out and I didn’t catch the fabled wind. The Pohutukawa trees were in bloom, many of them. I left the hotel window cracked (the room was stuffy)…

Here’s a fun code. I first read Angélica Gorodischer’s Kalpa Imperial this past summer in Ursula K. Le Guin’s excellent translation. (For anyone considering study in Rosario, by the way, Gorodischer is a rosarina.) There’s a lovely creation story near the end, a kind of mash-up of movie actors, plot points, technologies, and conventions (much more…

I’m watching a travel site slideshow of Iguazú Falls (not coincidentally, a frequent excursion destination for the study abroad program in Rosario, Argentina, where I’ll be teaching next fall). The images are mesmerizing, so I’ll leave aside the absurdity of a natural feature having an “official” site and supply the link just for fun (http://www.iguazuargentina.com/espanol/).…

The first time we visited the Mezquita in Córdoba, we admired the extraordinary red and white pillars and arches, we examined the detailed stonework and elaborate inscriptions, we noted the chapels, and then we emerged into the front courtyard, visit completed–certain we’d missed something. Was that it? we asked the guards. We took a wrong…

I am working on a paper called “Funny Accents,” about translating accents in fiction.  Of course, it’s unkind to laugh at someone’s accent, but fiction writers, at the behest of their characters (on pretext of their characters?) undertake all kinds of uncool or cruel or misguided acts, and teasing people who talk funny is one…

Last night, four of my translator colleagues and friends (Amanda Powell, Ibrahim Muhawi, Karen McPherson, Adrienne Mitchell) read with me on the wonderful Tsunami Books stage. We heard poetry and prose both funny and dark. Work just out (Adrienne’s translation of Beautiful and Dark, by Rosa Montero) and work about to appear (Ibrahim’s translation of…

This past weekend, I was able to see Throne of Blood at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival–a performance multiply adapted and translated (cross-media, cross-culture, cross-language), being Ping Chong’s stage adaptation of Kurosawa’s film, itself an adaptation of Macbeth. Interestingly, many of the languages being translated, one to another, were also present together on stage. A screen…

I know a lot about many of our study abroad programs, and I know who to ask about most of the rest. As my advisees start filling my office this week, asking questions about course equivalencies and comparable programs, I’ll be able to help them. Programs vary, but there are a few constants. Students want…

I do know my title should have another question mark, but then I would have had to give up at least a letter or two from one of the words. So I start with an initial translation, or maybe distortion. It’s like trying to make a paper just a little longer or just a little…