Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵

Checked back on that thread, and I was wrong. Emily Wilson really is translating the Odyssey again.
bsky.app/profile/emil...

This is the part in The Brothers Karamazov that's one of the inspirations for Akutagawa's The Spider's Thread. From the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

The Traveling Tree: The international bestseller from Japan The Traveling Tree: The international bestseller from Japan eBook : Hoshino, Michio: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

I'm thrilled to announce my latest translation: The Travelling Tree (旅をする木) by Michio Hoshino!!! To be released by Gaia (Hachette) in the UK this fall, followed by a USA edition in February!

#upcomingrelease #japaneseliterature
#essay #collection #translation
#Alaska #wilderness #travel

Can see some confusion in the comments, and I needed a moment myself, but presumably a book about translating the Odyssey!

Expanded my cultural horizons this weekend by watching my first episode of Oshiri Tantei.

Maybe the radium craze is a better point of comparison for the AI boom.

Just keep using them and ignore all the AI bunk.

Daily Bluesky routine of checking the trending topics and guessing which of the names I don't know are US sports players.

Doubleplusungood.

I don't know if we'd call this The Age of Irresponsibility, when people don't want to think or make decisions.

Next I'm reading Onda Riku's 蜜蜂と遠雷, which won the Naoki Prize in 2017. It has been translated as Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Philip Gabriel.

Is that sound the sound of intermittent drizzly showers in late autumn or early winter?

This text is from "Yokoshigure" by Maruya Saiichi. A yokoshigure is a kind of "sideways" shower of rain blown by the wind. Being more precise, shigure is autumn/winter intermittent drizzle. There's a lot about Santoka and his poetry about shigure.

The haiku is mentioned as shorter than the famously short poem by Ozaki Hosai.

咳（せき）をしても一人（ひとり）
Even coughing, I'm alone

Very much enjoy this haiku!

I came across this mention of a very short haiku by Taneda Santoka (freeform or 自由律 haiku doesn't have to follow 5-7-5. This is just 7 sounds.)

おとはしぐれか
Is that the sound of rain?

Plenty of room for different translations here
おとis a sound and しぐれ a shower of rain.

On Wiktionary, it says that 丑 has come to mean ugly as a simplified version of 醜.
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%91

I just did a bit of googling, and found 丑萌, which also seems to often turn up in combination with 拉布布 (Labubu).

Just 7,000 steps a day cuts risk of health issues - study Everyone targets 10,000 steps - but a lower tally could reduce the risk of serious health issues like cancer, dementia and heart disease, a study suggests.

Looks like daily step counts are on special offer.
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Most shared story on NHK now is the discovery of a children's story written by mystery author Yokomizo Seishi when he was 14.
www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20...

I deny all rumours that I plan to resign.

Just seen on the TV that we're into the Big Heat today, or the solar term 大暑 (Taishō), which lasts about two weeks.

Not actually a giraffe. A vehicle for trimming trees painted in giraffe colours

Actually vehicles for trimming trees, appearing in giraffe colours.

Giraffes on the loose in Tokyo. 🦒

This morning's newspaper, showing election results and picture of LDP leaders, with a large section cut out.

This morning's news already turned into a craft project.

UNRWA has food for the entire population for over three months — stockpiled and ready also in Al Arish, Egypt.

The supplies are available. The systems are in place.

Open the gates. Let UNRWA deliver.
1 million children are waiting.

Is it time to chart a new path for xenolinguistics through sci-fi? | Aeon Essays To truly explore alien languages, linguists must open themselves to the maximum conceivable degree of cosmic otherness

my essay for @aeon.co on the science of alien languages and science fiction has gone live! This thing is over a year in the making. Give it a read and let us know what you think!

#xenolinguistics #alien #language
#scifi #philosophy #solaris

Rereading is another way to cut down my Amazon purchases. Taking on The Brothers Karamazov again to see if it clicks this time.

Fwiw, "Working, cleaning, doing the shopping" sounds natural to me with this context.

One of the characters on children's TV was speaking in Showa slang this morning (for some reason). I enjoyed "mochi no ron."

As I hypothesised though, people nearest to the seat got off at the next stop.