Category: Latest Post

Teaching Russian Short Fiction

I’ll be teaching what is called a “second 8-week” class this semester. This is a special format that my university came up with to address two problems. The first one is that sometimes a professor offers a class that doesn’t get enough students to sign up, such that it has to be canceled. The second… Continue reading Teaching Russian Short Fiction

How Loving Your Source Can Make Your English Translation Into Doggerel

I think that some translators must have a terribly sad streak inside, but let me start with doggerel since it’s lighter. By doggerel I don’t only mean the unintentionally funny or the inventive and exploratory. To get a sense of these, for the funny end of the spectrum, try William McGonagall’s “The Tay Bridge Disaster”: … Continue reading How Loving Your Source Can Make Your English Translation Into Doggerel

On Imaginary Islands and Real Ones

For many years when they were still trying to map the world, explorers thought there was an island or even something bigger in the northern Pacific between Russia and North America. This was one of the possibilities anyway, between the land being connected (no Bering strait) or there being nothing large out there at all,… Continue reading On Imaginary Islands and Real Ones

Da Levante

Decided to add Soundcloud to Ba Ren Chi’s outlets. Composed a new song for the occasion: “Da Levante.” It’s here. Had quite a ball making this. I hope listening takes you somewhere. At the same time, I remastered “Oni Daiko” with a slight change in instrumentation that makes a big difference to my ear. Now… Continue reading Da Levante

Aspersion and Aspersions

While translating Propp’s Historical Roots of the Wondertale, my colleague Miriam Shrager and I wondered a bit over the “sprinkling” (окропление) that comes up occasionally in fairy tales, often in the context of crossing between this world and some other, magical one (“she sprinkled the door with water”). This, so claims Propp, is a remnant… Continue reading Aspersion and Aspersions

Oni Daiko and Too Cool

Ba Ren Chi has two new singles out, both available (for free as always) on Jamendo. The first is called Oni Daiko, or “Demon Drums,” and is my take on a traditional Japanese summer festival form, in which the performers wear some scary looking oni, or “demon,” masks during part of their performance. I’ve seen… Continue reading Oni Daiko and Too Cool

From Non-Space to Landscape

I am struck by the notion of the absence of space in Vladimir Propp’s account of the wondertale. This is similar to Mikhail Bakhtin’s observation about the absence of the effects of time on the hero and heroine of romance, where they have adventure after adventure but, in the end, don’t seem to have aged… Continue reading From Non-Space to Landscape

Propp’s Magic

While his prose might not be scintillating (see previous post), Vladimir Propp’s insights and analyses are of the sort that occasionally help just about everything one has ever read in a certain domain fall into place. This happened today when I worked on this passage: Sometimes the hero is tested through a contest before the… Continue reading Propp’s Magic