Translation Bake-Off: Call for Submissions - 2013 Edition
 

Dear Eratosphereans,

Here comes The Translation Bake-Off!

I'm excited to let you know that I'm bringing you an exciting Host & Distinguished Guest (DG) for this year's event! But, more on that later.

*** TO ENTER :

1. Send email one translation only to http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/images/send2bakeoffs.gif . (Note: this is not a link, it's an email address--so, don't click on it. Type the email address as indicated into the To/Recipient field of your favorite email-client program.)
2. Include the original and a prose crib.
3. If the original text is in an unfamiliar script, it would be very helpful to include a transliteration into Roman characters as well.
4. *NOTES *: a) If your submission is in a file attachment, make sure that your name is not present anywhere in the submission file (for blind judging!). b) Also, if you know how, please remove your name from the author field of the document properties; if don't know how, then never mind, and I'll have to do it for you.

Be sure to send in your submission by midnight (U.S. Eastern time) on Sunday, September 22, 2013. The Host & DG will narrow them down to about a dozen finalists, more or less.

Formal and non-formal poems, published and unpublished - are all welcome.

The Host & DG will begin posting the finalists, with the DG's comments, two per day, starting on Friday, October 4, 2013. At that point everyone is welcome to join in with comments of their own.

When all of the translated poems have been posted, the Host & DG will start a thread in which people can vote for the top three, and thereafter, will tabulate the results and announce a popular winner, and will also announce the DG's own top three. Only then will the names of the authors be announced ... and, a twist, the Host & DG revealed--more below!

*** THE USUALS & THE TWISTS :

For this bakeoff, the Host & DG will be judging the submissions blind--do I hear a yeah from the participants from the last bakeoff!? I'll be removing all the identifying information from submissions before forwarding to the received material to the Host & DG.

And for all who are fond of anonymous, blind judging, how about I give you a double dose of it for this bake-off? Yes, you'll be having not only blind judging, but blind judge--meaning we'll have a secret Host & DG! Thus, bakeoff participants for this event will not know who the DG is until after the votes when the results are revealed, and one of the revelations then will be the the identity of our Secret Distinguished Guest! So, for this bake-off, you can have some fun guessing not only the identity of the translator for the posted poem, but also guessing who the so double-oh-sevenish Secret Distinguished Guest is!

And it's a go ... so, go ahead -- submit now! Submit one, submit all!

Cheers,
...Alex

I'm confident everyone is working on a secret translation that no one will recognize. :(

Can one submit more than one translation?

No, John. Only one translation per person. So, send your best!

Just did, Alex.

Got it ... thanks, Tim! - Alex

And Sphereans, keep 'em translations coming -- in just one day after the reminders, I've received half as many submissions as in the week before ... But we need more more!

Cheers,
...Alex

I thought we had another month...

Wrong, Ann -- you have another month minus a couple of days:) ... but it never hurts to keep reminding everyone to submit (especially since things seem to pick up after the reminders!).

Cheers,
...Alex

Right. Gotcher. But...

When I click on the address link nothing happens. When I try to copy it so as to paste it into the address field, a left-to-right attempt just conjures up a crossed-out circle that hovers accusingly, while a right-to-left attempt proves, when pasted, to have copied only the full stop (period) from the line below.

So what am I doing wrong?

I think that is not really a link, Ann, but a sort of a picture of a link to foil spammers and such. Try typing the letters one by one on the address field of your browser instead of doing copy/paste and see if that works. Hope this helps!

It seems to be an image of a link to an email address. If it were an actual text link, clicking it would open your mail program and set up a new message to that address. Typing it into the address bar of a browser won't get you anywhere.

Just open your mailer program and type the email address into the "To:" field of a new message.

Why, thank you, kind peeps. Lois, you are now my friend and I forgive you for beating me to the rubber ducky, and Peter, I am sure you have it exactly.

My problems is often the paucity of my vocabulary in these matters. When I said "address field" I thought that was what you called the "hereunto..." space at the top of an email, which was where I was trying to paste my ghostly copy of bugger all.

I would never have known it was a trompe l'oeuil device for the confusion of beelzebots if you hadn't told me, and I'd still have been clicketting hopelessly with a growing sense of persecution.

I am forever in your debt.

Peter is most certainly right! It's an email address, not a site address. (Definitely a senior moment on my part). Glad to be your (rather obtuse) friend!

P.S. If I'd known you were competing for the Shakespeare ducky, Ann, I would have humbly deferred! As it was, that was what got me started on submitting poetry - pure and simple beginner's luck!

If that's really what set you a-going, then the luck was not just yours - it was everybody's - hurrah!

I've just seen your question, Ann. Glad the spam-proof email twist has been straightened out for you by Lois and Peter. I think I should add another note thingie there to minimize frustration for others who might be tempted to click!

Cheers,
...Alex

Good idea, Alex, though perhaps not many of your intending submissives are as innocent as I am with regard to such devious wheezes.

I thought you defeated them (the Beelzebots, that is) by writing out the address with the @s in grown-up writing, and when it was in a different colour it was up for clicks.

But it was the uncopiableness that really threw me - how do you DO that?

Alex, in a reminder that time is fleeting, writes:

Eratosphereans, submit, submit! 2 few, > 1 dozen in thus far!!! Since this event is only targeted to Sphereans (& not outsiders), you've got to submit!

Outsiders? Are outsiders trying to enter? Are you sure that some addle-brained member(s) didn't just simply forget to sign his or her name?

Sorry not to have commented sooner on this (I have been flat out like a lizard hit by a truck), but big thanks to Alex for arranging anonymous judging this time in addition to all his other organising work--I notice and appreciate.

My translation on the way.

Just sent mine off, sans identification (except the return email address).

Thank you all ... and keep them coming!

...Alex

what's a prose crib?
 

I've just been told my submission might be rejected because I didn't include a "prose crib" -- what's a "prose crib" ?

Melanie, a prose crib is a literal translation of the poem in prose. It is included to show how you vary from the literal meaning in transforming the poem into a poem in a different language.

Susan

I haven't participated here at all for quite a while, but I did look in today expecting to see the Translation event in progress. I was looking forward to seeing the new work. (I did not submit anything this time.) Alex, I think, set an October 4 start date for this event. What happened?

I do hope the judge wasn't translated to a higher Sphere.

...or got lost in Translation.

Or got Marionated: A state wherein the observer is overcome by the brilliance of another and despairs of equaling it, temporarily (we hope) causing digital immobility. Adam, where are you? If you're lurking, please tell Honored Guest that everything he does or will do is "lovely". Works wonders for most here. Now if only we could get every member to use that word more often. I could say more, but a restraint-order might come under consideration.

I, too, was wondering what happened to the October 4 Translation Bake-off date. I emailed Alex to ask if the event had been postponed and he hasn't replied as yet.

I hope all is well. . .

"...that everything he does or will do is "lovely".

Uh, Skip, I ask respectfully that you may want to consider that the Distinguished Guest might be a she! I for one think our Distinguished Guest is a she for no other reason than that I am guessing. However, my guesses have been wrong before.

I too hope Alex and our Distinguished Guest are well.

My bad, Don. Yep, could be a do-it-all woman with a house full of kids, a dog, a cat, bills to pay, a job to attend, perhaps even worse, a divorcee who came into an ill-fated marriage as an orphan and is now left to fend for herself without kith or kin for support. Now I'm feeling like a sh-t-heel. Happy with what you've undone, Don!

My pleasure. Cheers.

I suddenly realised that what I wrote might be thought offensive and wasn't particularly funny...

...so: Plink!

The "Top Secret Distinguished Guest" at the Latest Membership Request spot at the bottom of the main page seems promising. Or maybe I didn't notice that yesterday.

You're right, Andrew. I heard from Alex. He had MAJOR technical difficulties with his Internet provider.

You mean the Beelzebots have got him? What must we do to be saved?

Ann, he has defeated the Beelzebots. He always does.

But - what about their mothers...?

Ann, based on your comment above, I am ever hopeful that you submitted a translation of Beowulf (in its entirety, of course).

Of course I did. That's probably what's crashed Alex's system.