New Age religions make me laugh hard. I can understand believing in a supreme being and unversal codes of ethics and all, but why go to the trouble of making up your own religion, unless you plan on turning it into a pyramid scheme, like L. Ron did. Roberta-Margaret Wiggins channels Songee, which could have been a profitable enterprise if she hadn't broken one of the primal laws of webpublishing: "no first-person pet pages" - observe Colin and Elroy. "Wedge" has a much better grasp of reality, witnessed by his choosing a "Star Wars" name and publishing his favorite communication spells:

"To Communicate With Others
Write a letter to a distant friend (or whoever you wish to call you) as if you were going to mail it. Next light a blazing hot fire and throw the letter into it firmly visualising the person's face. You should receive a reply soon."

Here's an idea, "Wedge:"

"To Communicate With Others
Write a letter to a distant friend (or whoever you wish to call you) as if you were going to mail it. Next mail it. You should receive a reply soon."

Meanwhile, Heather Firth is channelling a 12-year old boy.

Last week I posted a link to Lost in Translation, by Carl Tashian, which uses a PERL script to repeatedly submit text entries to AltaVista's Babelfish until the translations have completely corrupted the text. At the time I posted it, it seemed just another humorous diversion, but now I see it as a demonstration of the dialectic nature of all languages that is a humorous diversion.

When I first got to the site, I was immediately reminded of the old Monty Python Hungarian Phrasebook Sketch, and giggled when one of the translations converted "nipples" to "nozzles." I quickly learned that some of the translation dictionary databases at Babelfish have errors(!). Using the example above, the Spanish translation for "nipple" was a word not found in any of the Spanish dictionaries I searched, including Babelfish's, since it was unable to translate the word back into English. I found that if I instead entered the phrase, "Oooh, my pezón explodes with delight," the final output, "Oooh, nipple of the mine blows for above with the pleasure" was much more satisfying.

The usual problems of article usage and noun genders of European languages are compounded in my second language, German, by Babelfish's insistence on formality: in German, the informal, "you", du, dich, dir, is obvious, while the formal, "you", Sie, Ihr, is the same as the pronouns for "she" and "they". The result being that sentences with "you" are often converted to "they". Add to this an attempt to tone down verbs, and "you love me" becomes "they appreciate."

The greatest bottleneck, historically as well as at Babelfish, appears to be translating Portuguese into Spanish. Many sentences migrate through the script unharmed until reaching one or the other of the Iberian languages, where the Hungarian Phrasebook takes over. I thought an obvious test, and one of the first things learned in most languages including Latin, would be "I love you." This faired as well as expected with the old stand-by's appearing in each language, until the Spanish converts this simplest admission of tenderness into the Inquisitional, "Master to him." In keeping with Monty Python, this should be followed by a couple in a romantic setting with the man whispering to the woman, "master to him," as she blushes and Michael Palin bursts through the door in red vestments...

Then I thought, "hey, I wonder if it does music, too?" So, I entered Beethoven's Fifth:

da da da dum
da da da dum

The French would have nothing to do with the oppressive feel of the tune, and gave it a galloping rhythm:

dum de da de da de da de dum de da de da de da

The German translator on hand was apparently Bavarian, since he interpreted this as a polka:

dum von da von da von da von dum von da von da von da

The Italian brings it back to Beethoven, but alas, it's the Minuet in G:

dum da là da là da là del dum da là da là da là

The Iberians are all lyricists at heart, and make it a poem:

Of one of here,
of here, of here,
of that it is of one,
of here, of here, of here.

I did a bit more testing and found that one of my personal favorites is the mistranslation of "I like spaghetti better than manicotti." No, the other pastas don't work...

Escher's trickery revealed!
Friend and fellow "blogger" Ned Gulley found Andrew Lipson's LEGO™ interpretations of Escher's prints, including "Ascending and Descending." In trying to copy the print in three dimensions, Lipson found that the picture was of a spiral and not a circuit, and that the circuity was only apparent from a specific point of view. I guess the real trick is that Escher didn't build the model before carving his woodblock, so he had to mentally envision the spiral and the correct vantage to give the illusion of infinite stairs. Certainly more clever than all that fish becoming birds business. Here are some Escher quotes from Jon's "Daily Escher" calendar:

"We adore chaos because we love to produce order."

"I have sometimes heard painters say that they work 'for themselves,' but I think they would soon have painted their fill if they lived on a desert island."

"I'm starting to speak a language which is understood by very few people."

"The other day I gave a lecture to a Rotary Club in Hilversum... The audience included three medics who had made their diagnosis of my 'case' by the end of the lecture - obsessional neurosis. I suggested to my publisher that he use this as a title, but he said no."

Yeah, boy! That sniper means business, if you know a good opportunity when you see it: like Reverend Sunshine does.

Well, my first blog. And it doesn't hurt as much as my mother told me. Hemingway? My ass. Oops. can I say that on... umm... the blog? While I'm back home in London from a little Shakespearian tour of Ireland I'm filming a little pilot I co-wrote - so here's a picture of my ass.
-sorry I can't seem to upload a picture of my bum. Butt if you're interested you could go here.
http://www.cm73.com/hand/
PS. I was wondering if the sniper in our Nation's Capital takes requests?