An addendum, of sorts

After my last post, I got to thinking and decided to post a translation of Senhor Andrade's poem. I decided to do my own translation because I hadn't translated anything for awhile and I figure I could probably use the practice. I'm not going to retype the Portuguese version, you'll just have to look at my last post if you'd like to see it. So here goes:

In the middle of the path there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the path
there was a stone
in the middle of the path there was a stone.

I will never forget this occurrence
in the life of my fatigued retinas.

It will not be forgotten that in the middle of the path
there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the path
in the middle of the path there was a stone.
- Carlos Drummond de Andrade (translation by Bill)

Some people may disagree with my translation, so I would like to explain some of my decisions.

The first thing I'd like to explain is my translation of "tinha". Roughly "tinha" is translated as "I/you had" or "I/you used to have". I chose to translate it as "there was" in this case because I think it's more in keeping with the feeling of the poem in Portuguese. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the meaning of the Poem, and maybe that is why I seemed to have such a different view than my teacher who is a native Brazilian, but it's what I understand when I read the poem, so in essence I'm translating my understanding.

The second thing I'd like to look at is some of my English word choices. For caminho, I chose path. I suppose I could have used way, road, street, direction, etc. Something about the word path, however, seemed appropriate. I tend to use the word path when thinking in a metaphysical way. I feel that "path" implies multiple layers of thought that some of it's synonyms do not and this lends itself to greater imagery and depth as you contemplate the poem. I also chose the word "stone" to take the place of "pedra". I originally thought pebble because of the "p", but I think stone is more correct. The word, "pedra", is kind of generic; given neither size nor shape. I feel pebble would be to specific to fit this poem accurately. "Stone", however, allows the reader to give his own personal dimensions to the object.

The words that I had the most trouble with were in the second stanza. In the first line I decided to use "occurrence", but I'm still not entirely sold on it. I'd also thought to use: happening, incident, and event. My first instinct was to use event, in fact that was the first word that came to mind, but it seemed to short to fit. I eventually whittled it down to occurrence and happening. I still feel like happening could work, but I decided to go with occurrence for now. The second line gave me some trouble as well. The phrase "fatigued retinas" doesn't seem right to me, but I think this rather raw translation is in keeping with the spirit and intent of the poem. I considered other words, but none of them seemed quite right. I thought of changing retinas, but most of the words that I thought of have direct translations into Portuguese, so I didn't want to use them because senhor Andrade didn't use them. For instance, I thought of using, "tired eyes", but that could have been easily expressed in Portuguese as "olhos cansados". I decided that Andrade was looking for a deeper meaning, and I didn't want to lose that. I seem to get a sense that the use of "retinas" implies a depth. It's the back of his eyes that are tired, and not just tired, they're fatigued. Perhaps to say they're tired of looking at the path before him? It's this lack of clarity that has led me to keep the "raw" translation, because I would rather have a crude translation that keeps the interpretation open than to force a reader to read my interpretation.

The last part that I had difficulty with was the first line of the last stanza. I originally translated it to match up with the first line of the second stanza, but the two lines are written differently in Portuguese. It's actually a very subtle distinction, and one that is perhaps lost in English. In the third stanza Andrade adds a reflexive "me" to esquecerei. The reflexive "me" would, I think, roughly translate as "myself", but one of my grammar books pointed out that it's often used to represent a passive voice. I decided to try and take this tact and attempted to make the first line of the third stanza passive. I'm not really sure if I succeeded in my attempt. Perhaps an English scholar could critique this for me. If nothing else, I did find a way to differentiate the two while maintaining the meaning.

Hopefully my translation hasn't butchered the simple complexity of this poem. Also, I hope you understand why I made the choices that I made and that those choices are acceptable. If you've never translated something before, I hope this has opened your eyes a bit to the world of communication. I know that even though I'm not a professional translator, the exercise of translating has taught me a great deal about communication and people in general.

No meio do caminho

I apologize for my absence. I haven't felt like writing this last little bit. Sometimes I find myself in these little ruts where I just feel out of sorts for awhile. I've decided that I've ignored this site long enough, and even though I still don't feel like writing, I've decided to share something I wrote awhile ago, but never shared. Perhaps typing it out will help me to get back to normal. Many of you won't be able to fully understand this post, because it's based on a poem that was written in Portuguese by Carlos Drummond de Andrade entitled, "No meio do caminho". I'll start by citing the poem and then share what I wrote.

No meio do caminho
No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra
tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
tinha uma pedra
no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.

Nunca esquecerei desse acontecimento
na vida de minhas retinas tão fatigadas.

Nunca me esquecerei que no meio do caminho
tinha uma pedra
tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.
-Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Now for what I wrote:

Tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho.
That's what the poet wrote.
"What does it mean?", she asked.

I responded that it took me
back to his land,
when I walked in the caminhos.

Some were paved,
some cobbled,
but mostly dirt.

The dirt ones stayed with you.
On your pant legs, in the treads of your shoes.
They'd get into your shirts and coat you skin.
You'd breath them in on the hot, dry days.

Sometimes you'd walk on the paths when it was raining
or after they were turned to mud.
You'd slosh through the mud, sometimes ankle deep.
Hard going, walking in mud; your pants get dirty, your shoes heavy.

Maybe on a day like this he saw a pedra in the caminho
and was grateful that for a moment he had a sure dry
place to step, to kick some mud off his shoes
before continuing on.

Maybe I'm right,
probably not,
but she didn't need to laugh
and say that I was wrong

How does she know?
The poet never said.
I stepped. I thought it was a pedra,
but it was only mud.

Bed sheets and Vampires

Here are a couple of very random thoughts:

A few nights ago I was tossing and turning in bed and having an all around difficult time falling asleep. Unfortunately it was almost literally an all around time. Covers and pillows were all over the place as I tried to find a position in which I could fall asleep. As is usually the case in said situation, my mind was pondering many a thought when I struck upon one that I thought was worthy of sharing. The vast majority of the aforementioned thoughts are not worth sharing and are usually disjointed half thoughts that only a pot head or philosopher (did I just repeat myself?) would find of any interest. This idea, however, may or may not be worth something.

It started by my thinking, "What will my future wife think when I have a night like this? I'm liable to be kicked out of bed and sentenced to the couch." At which point I began to ponder what kind of couch I should buy for this future inevitability when I decided instead to think of ways to prevent the problem in the first place, which is to say the bed place, that being the first place that many of us think to visit. So it was that I conceived of a new type of sheet for Queen and King sized beds. It would be just like a normal set of sheets, with a fitted sheet on bottom and a top sheet, appropriately enough, on top. However, in addition to the norm, we would add a panel running perpendicular to the two planes down the middle of the bed, bisecting the whole into two equal halves. The two halves would preferably be the left and the right as opposed to the foot and the head, or bottom and top if you prefer; as the left and right sides of the bed are the typical sleeping arrangement for couples. Now this center panel shan't run the entire length of the bed from top to bottom as this would create an undesirable separation, well hopefully undesirable. Instead the panel will start at the foot of the bed and stretch about half way to three quarters of the way to the head of the bed. This will allow for canoodling while preventing the legs from kicking ones partner in sleep or during a tossing and turning episode. Also, I believe this could have the added benefit of preventing one person from stealing all of the covers during the night as the panel will only allow them to pull the covers so far.

I think there are some drawbacks to this arrangement, but since I have yet to experiment with this conceptual sheet design, I can't say for certain how it will work out. It's probably not a good idea to implement this design in a honeymoon suite for instance, but perhaps it might help a couple a little ways into the arrangement. Like I said, just a random thought, and one in which I lack experience, so hopefully I don't sound too naive.

The second thought that I would like to share is something I thought of today in church. While I was sitting in Sunday School, a fellow by the name of Oliver was making a point about something or other during the course of which he noted that the logo for Bacardi is a vampire bat. This got me to thinking about vampires and I suddenly realized what an amazing symbol vampires are, especially because they have been somewhat glamorized of late. I began by thinking, what is a vampire? A vampire is an undead creature that sucks the blood of normal folk in order to survive, but the blood doesn't give them life it merely sustains them for a short time, with a secondary byproduct being either the death of their victim or the victims conversion into a fellow vampire. I began to think how this represents people who search for happiness and satisfaction in unrighteousness. Having lost the life that comes from God they are forced to prey upon others who are still alive in Christ for temporary satisfaction, either to destroy them or to make them miserable like themselves. I think it's similar to the tales in the movies that just as the vampires consider themselves better off as they are, so to people who are without the light of Christ in their lives think that they are doing the "living" a favor by changing them. This is not to malign non-Christians in any way or to imply that they're vampires. I'm merely using the phrase "the light of Christ" to mean any person who seeks after righteousness, it being somewhat akin to following one's conscience though a bit deeper. If you would like to know more on the subject of the meaning of "the light of Christ" please feel free to so indicate in the comment section below. Speaking of light, I think this lends itself again to the simile. Vampire's by definition can't abide the light. Likewise those that work in darkness shun the light of truth and shrink from it. The light of truth burns them and destroys their craft. I think the persecution and criticism by these people is somewhat akin to vampires trying to suck the life out of their victims. If you allow yourself to be enticed and listen to them, then you give them a chance to suck the spiritual life out of you. At that point, you die spiritually and become even as they are.

I think one of the main differences with this symbolism is that, unlike vampires, people can be reborn spiritually, or in other words they don't have to remain like vampires but can be redeemed. Unlike the movies where the only way to stop the vampires is to destroy them, we are able to put an end to the threat by helping them return to life and true joy. I can only imagine that this symbolism wasn't arrived at randomly, but that it was part of the original idea, whether intentional or not.

If caulking is an art than I've found another art form that I'm no good at!

A few days ago I was presented with a challenge from my father. There was a piece of trimming at the bottom of a door sized window looking out onto his deck that had rotted out and needed replacing. He proposed that I should fix it and being a decent son, I accepted his challenge figuring what the heck it's not my house.

The first step was to remove the remnants of the existing board. This was simple enough. I used a utility knife to slice through the latex paint and a pry bar to pull the wood out. I didn't get any pictures of this because I didn't think about blogging this until after I screwed up the caulking procedure. Half of the board had disintegrated. Somehow water had gotten in behind it and wood rot had gone into full effect. Strangely, the other half of the board was completely sound, but I discarded it out of spite. If it's not going to take of it's other half than I have no use for it. If one half fails the whole fails. I know it's a stern lesson, but how else is that board going to learn that it needs to tend for the wood around it?

The second part of this labor was to find a replacement board. You would think this would be simple, but it wasn't. I went to a Lowe's Home Improvement store with my dad in search of the perfect piece of lumber. We were looking for a board that was one half inch wide, one and one half inch tall, and thirty one inches long. Unfortunately this isn't a standard size for boards in the exciting world of lumber. We weren't too concerned with the length because we could trim it down. It was the height that was the problem. There were one inch tall boards and there were two inch tall boards, but wouldn't you know it, no one and a half inch tall boards. This wouldn't have been a problem if we owned a table saw or other similar power tool, but we don't. So it came down to, do we buy a table saw for a couple hundred dollars and a two inch board, or do we just buy the two inch board, slap it on and call it done. Well we took our time and did the math, and after completing our price comparisons, my dad decided that we'd probably get the best bang for our buck by converting the window frame to a new two inch form factor. Sadly, I was forced to concur, though I still think that you really can't put a price on the joy of owning a table saw, yet somehow Lowe's found a way to put just such a price on their table saws and therefore I was left wanting as it was not my buck that we were trying to get a bang out of.

The third thing that had to be done was to kill the mold and mildew that was growing on the frame where the board would attach. This was accomplished with bleach! What would the world be like without bleach? That stuff is fantastic! I put some bleach in a spray bottle and spritzed away. I figured, what's the harm, I'm going to be painting the thing white anyway, so what if it bleaches a little. Of course, after I put the bleach on I had to give the boards some time to dry out. I originally thought I'd give it a day, but somehow I got distracted and this stretched into a couple days. During this time, I thought to myself, "Bleach is good, but what if it isn't enough?" At this point I remembered back to my time in the pest control profession that boric acid was often used in the treatment of lumber to make it resistant to molds, mildews and wood destroying organisms. So I diluted some boric acid dust in some water and treated the raw wood with my concoction. I then had to let the board dry again. By this point the exposed wood was looking much lighter than it had just a few days before and I took this to be a positive sign.

Finally, installation day arrived. I measured my board and cut it to the correct length. Actually I cut it a little long, only to discover that I had actually cut it to the correct length. This, of course, is in keeping with the old Carpenters adage, "Measure twice, add a little on, cut once, don't curse your life and those around you." Ah Karen, where would we be without you? As I was setting it into position and admiring my good fortune at cutting it so correctly, it occurred to me that I didn't currently posses any sealant with which to caulk the board. This necessitated another trip to my friendly neighborhood Lowe's. At Lowe's I perused the sealant section trying to look like I knew what I was doing as much as possible. I studied the various labels with great care and I only needed the store attendant to point out that I was looking at the wrong product once. Eventually I whittled down my choices to a product produced by GE and a product produced by DAP. This was made all the simpler by the fact that there were only two choices to begin with. I eventually settled upon the DAP because it had a name, namely ALEX, so I could relate with it, I also having a name. However there was a bit of advice on the GE tube's label that would have saved me some trouble had I heeded it. It seems GE knows a thing or two about caulking and they recommend putting down tape on either side of the area you'll be caulking so as to make cleanup a little easier. Oh, if only I had heeded that advice! However, I didn't and the rest is, as they say, history.

Back home, I nailed the board in place with some surplus nails that we had laying around. My dad has an excellent collection of old hardware, so finding the proper nails wasn't difficult. Then I began the caulking procedure. I cut the tip off the tube and inserted it properly into my caulking gun and away I went. Everything was going fine until I got to the first corner. At this point I had a big goop of caulk and I thought, "I'll just smooth that out." I first attempted the procedure with a putty knife which was a little futile. I then resolved to use the greatest of all tools, my finger. I smeared that blob out quite well, I then decided to even out the entire line I had just put down and try and blend it into the board to make for a smoother paint job. Bad decision. Before I knew what had happened I had caulk everywhere. To make matters worse, when I set the caulk to the side to focus on the board the caulk kept exiting the tube without my permission. It just kept pouring out. Several paper towels later I got the project to a point I could live with and decided to just paint over the mistakes.

Painting was an easy enough process. My dad had some spare paint laying around. I had to choose between two varieties, and of course I chose the wrong one. We had some Valspar American Tradition Exterior 100% Acrylic White, and BEHR Premium Plus Ultra Pure White Exterior Semi-gloss Enamel. I was seduced by the patriotism of the Valspar. I also wasn't sure about that semi-gloss concept. Is it glossy or not, make up your mind. So I opened up the Valspar and set to stirring it. It wasn't long until I noticed that there was a lump in my can, no not that can, the paint can! Anyway, I didn't let that initially stop me. It was only after I started painting that I allowed my doubts as to the paints condition effect me. I began to think that if it wasn't mixing properly then maybe it wouldn't last as long and I'd find myself back outside replacing another board. So I decided, out of self-interest, to switch to the BEHR paint. It wasn't until later that I noticed the bold lettering across the front of the can that read, "Ultimate Durability, Improved Hiding Power For Great Coverage." Had I seen that in the beginning I would have selected it, because if there was anything this project needed it was "Improved Hiding Power".

I painted the section where the board was and then I noticed it wasn't quite matching the rest of the bottom, so I decided to paint the entire bottom of the frame. My dad really liked that so he had me paint the bottom of the other side as well. He thought it was looking a little shabby and of course they all needed to match. This was all really uneventful. In the end I think I did a pretty good job and if you don't look to closely, you can't even notice any of the flaws, well except for the copious amounts of sealant that made its way onto the green parts. I think that could be a good life lesson, but what lesson is it? Don't look to closely or you'll see the flaws? Don't tell your dad a board is rotting? Use tape when you caulk? I'm not sure, but I'll think about it. At least, until another project or random thought comes my way.

Pumpkin carries the day, will LeBron do the same?

It's over! A winner must be declared, and that winner is the Pumpkin! Long rule Pumpkin, most beloved of the gourd family. I'll keep the poll up for a little while, but for posterity's sake, King Pumpkin won with fifty percent of the vote, a total of six people. Watermelon came in second with three votes, or twenty-five percent of the vote. Zucchini was third with two votes for sixteen percent of the total. Calabash received a vote for eight percent. Cucumber and "my favorite isn't listed" didn't receive any votes. Funny side note, if you add up all of the percentages you'll notice that we only get to ninety-nine percent. I'm not really sure how that happened, but maybe I'll just give that extra one percent to cucumber because I'm feeling a little sorry for the poor guy.

Now that the gourd issue has been resolved and order has been restored to the universe, I've placed a new question on the site. It's something I've been pondering, but I'm not really certain what the outcome would be, so I'm soliciting your opinions on the matter. Perhaps we'll reach some sort of consensus. So vote now and let your opinions be heard. The new question is, "If Godzilla fought LeBron James today, who would win?" I think this is a compelling and pertinent question. If you would like to comment on it or to lobby for an answer feel free to use the comment section of this post to do so. I think an argument can be made for all of the selections. Would it be the cagey veteran in Godzilla? The young phenom in LeBron? Would it be the residents of the great city of Tokyo who would most likely host the event? How about the viewing public, this kind of spectacle doesn't come around very often? You also know that wherever such a major event is, you're going to find corporations trying to exploit it. Would Nike be able to score a major advertising coup? Would ESPN be able to turn this into the ratings bonanza of the century? When contemplating this question, I think the best way to break down the problem is to think about who would be the biggest winner out of this whole thing. I think there can be multiple winners, but who is the biggest winner?