1) The first episode of “That Other Word,” a collaborative podcast between the Center for Writers and Translators and the Center for the Art of Translation, which “offers discussions on classic and contemporary literature in translation, along with engaging interviews with writers, translators, and publishers”:
In this first episode, Daniel Medin and Scott Esposito chat about the accidental poetry and reasonable plausibility of César Aira’s Varamo, the miraculous strangeness of László Krasznahorkai’s Satantango, and the hopping city at the heart of Robert Walser’s Berlin Stories.
2) Amateur Archeologists Invited to Decipher Papyri: “Working in collaboration with Oxford University papyrologists and Egypt Exploration Society, Lintott’s team launched the Ancient Lives website, where armchair archaeologists can help with cataloguing and translating the ancient manuscripts.” N.b.: Knowledge of Greek not a prerequisite.
3) No-sword presents We’ll Shield: Taiko Pharmaceutical has a line of products with a brand name written “WE’LL SHIELD” in Roman characters and ウィルシールド wirushīrudo, a portmanteau word combining “English ‘We’ll’, rendered in katakana as ウィル, wiru, … the Japanese word for “virus”, ウイルス, uirusu, [and] English ‘shield’, rendered in katakana as シールド, shīrudo.” Clever!
4) ἂ ἃ Ἂ Ἃ ἒ ἓ Ἒ Ἓ ἢ ἣ Ἢ Ἣ ἲ ἳ Ἲ Ἳ ὂ ὃ Ὂ Ὃ ὒ ὓ Ὓ ὢ ὣ Ὢ Ὣ ὰ ὲ ὴ ὶ ὸ ὺ ὼ ᾂ ᾃ ᾊ ᾋ ᾒ ᾓ ᾚ ᾛ ᾢ ᾣ ᾪ ᾫ ᾲ Ὰ ῂ Ὲ Ὴ ῍ ῒ Ὶ ῝ ῢ Ὺ ῭ ` ῲ Ὸ Ὼ
It’s always struck me as a particularly insane thing to do, to crowdsource the publication of the Oxyrhynchus papyri to amateurs with no knowledge of Greek, but then again, this is Oxford we’re dealing with.
I don’t really see the insanity. It would be insane to accept the work of the amateurs uncritically and publish it as the official Oxford translation of the Oxyrhynchus papyri (“Fragment 23: Dongz LOL”), but presumably the system involves a bit more cross- and double-checking by actual academic experts (and I very much doubt that people with *no* knowledge of Greek will spend much time squinting at dingy papyrus scans, so there shouldn’t be that much garbage to deal with).
I saw the title of the post and thought it was about one of the many Russian short stories and novels titled ‘Varia’ or with a character called Varia – Varvara – Barbara.
Heh. But I would spell that “Varya.”
yes, but still.
Well, of course my comment only works if you use the right transliteration too.