Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Monoglots Need Not Apply

Unless you're blind, you've noticed the aesthetic revisions made to the blog's template. If you are blind, please stop pawing at the computer screen; you're getting fingerprints all over it and you look fucking ridiculous (you'll have to trust me on that last part).

Wow...even I feel a little ashamed about that last line. And it didn't even involve sex tangentially, which is the usual source of my ever-present Catholic shame. Dammit. I just know I'm going to be conned by gypsies in a few years for that one. Or I'm going to lose my own sight in a tragic amateur falconry accident. Ah, the bitter price we pay for our aristocratic pleasures. But I digress.

The cartographical theme is, at least in part, inspired by recent events. A post I made shortly before my absence seems to have garnered no small bit of international response. Apparently, something of my doggerel poetry in anticipation of my annual Dungeons & Dragons vacation struck a cord in my fans from the Far East, for at last count, there are a full fifty two comments on the post. Now, I can draw sounds as well as the next guy, but the strange markings in each of these responses remain utterly impenetrable to me. American monoglot that I am, anything that isn't in English is ultimately gobbledygook to my stunning blue-green eyes, save for the occasional halting Spanish inquiries regarding the location of the library (which, if you were wondering, esta en la ciudad).

Still, the very opacity of their comments tantalizes me, not unlike how sometimes the most enticing accoutrement on a lovely woman obscures more than it reveals. And yes, I just compared language to a nubile female body and the act of translation to her disrobing; I am not the first to do so, and even if I were, I remain utterly unrepentant. My point is this, though: I want to know what these comments say, and thus if any of my readers could translate even a few of these remarks, I would be eternally grateful. Chances are they're advertising solutions to erectile dysfunction, or if I really struck a chord, threatening my life. Maybe both. Still, before I can appreciate these haiku and their poetic conceit of cherry blossoms in winter as flaccid genitalia / my life's expiration, I need your help in disrobing this exotic beauty. I promise we'll keep it between you and me.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I just read this. I'm using Chrome as a browser, so I could go back to the poetry post and it has been translated. I can indeed confirm that these comments are of advertisements, made by some spam-bots.