Random Thoughts XI: Listen to the Whispers

[Birdjaguar]

Walls (my translation, original by Konstantin Cavafy)

Without caution, without shame or regret

they built extensive and high walls around me.



And now I lay here in despair.

Reflecting on this misfortune. It’s all I think about;



because I did have many things to do outside the walls.

Ah, how could I be oblivious, when they were still being built.



And yet, I never heard builders clanking or making any other noise.

I was shut out of this world all too subtly.

(I want to ask if this sounds like english at all, or is too rigid )

It reads just fine.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Walls (my translation, original by Konstantin Cavafy)

Without caution, without shame or regret

they built extensive and high walls around me.



And now I lay here in despair.

Reflecting on this misfortune. It’s all I think about;



because I did have many things to do outside the walls.

Ah, how could I be oblivious, when they were still being built.



And yet, I never heard builders clanking or making any other noise.

I was shut out of this world all too subtly.

(I want to ask if this sounds like english at all, or is too rigid )

If you repost it in A&E (the Watcha Writin'? thread would do), Zkribbler and I and anyone else could take a crack at it and if you want to make any edits and post those, it would be easier to find than posting in a serial thread where it can get lost. I do have some questions.

 

[Kyriakos]

If you repost it in A&E (the Watcha Writin'? thread would do), Zkribbler and I and anyone else could take a crack at it and if you want to make any edits and post those, it would be easier to find than posting in a serial thread where it can get lost. I do have some questions.

Thanks, but maybe some other time (I don't have much of a use for this particular translation, so it wouldn't serve any purpose)

 

[Kyriakos]

Time for a change.

 

[The_J]

 

[Kyriakos]

It's still me, just a few hundred years ago.

 

[amadeus]

How did the agency responsible for the Mission: Impossible people justify their budget for tape recorders without letting anyone catch on they were a spy group? Those things weren’t cheap.

Did the teamsters who moved them in ask a lot of questions? “You’s guys got buttahfingahs or sum’min? I gots five hundred tape recorders for yous in the truck.” Although I suppose if you’re a teamster in the sixties you probably wouldn’t want to ask too many questions anyway.

 

[Farm Boy]

Time for a change.

Spoiler eh? :

 

[Takhisis]

How did the agency responsible for the Mission: Impossible people justify their budget for tape recorders without letting anyone catch on they were a spy group? Those things weren’t cheap.

Did the teamsters who moved them in ask a lot of questions? “You’s guys got buttahfingahs or sum’min? I gots five hundred tape recorders for yous in the truck.” Although I suppose if you’re a teamster in the sixties you probably wouldn’t want to ask too many questions anyway.

Which iteration of Mission: Impossible is this about?

 

[amadeus]

Which iteration of Mission: Impossible is this about?

The Peter Graves era, not the Dianetics era.

 

[Takhisis]

I haven't watched that in over a decade. I mostly remember the myriad nifty gadgets.

 

[Farm Boy]

Which iteration of Mission: Impossible is this about?

Journalists used to buy those things when they were a profession worthy of a degree in higher education instead of an afterthought. Societies changes explained much? But anyways... you go back to the 60s/70s and my father's journalistic interviews with people have crazy sounds overlapping the interview to demark to both the interviewer and the interviewee that the conversation is being recorded and will later be quoted. How fudging quaint in this era, eh?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The Peter Graves era, not the Dianetics era.

Then the answer is easy. Leonard Nimoy was in that, so he just time-traveled to the TNG era, and replicated all the tape recorders they could ever need.

 

[shadowplay]

I want rock bands to go back to wearing matching suits and ties like in the mid 60s.

 

[Takhisis]

I want rock bands to go back to wearing matching suits and ties like in the mid 60s.

Ramones forever, you square.

 

[amadeus]

How come the wheels on old cars were so narrow? They made the cars out of cast iron or whatever, so they were like 50 tons off the line, can’t imagine all that weight sitting on one.

Also, kinda on cars but kinda off, where’s the crumple zone on the human body? For me, it’s the knee. It absorbs more desk and coffee table collisions than the rest of my body combined. I don’t go a week without bruising it somewhere. How?

 

[Sarin]

How come the wheels on old cars were so narrow? They made the cars out of cast iron or whatever, so they were like 50 tons off the line, can’t imagine all that weight sitting on one.

Also, kinda on cars but kinda off, where’s the crumple zone on the human body? For me, it’s the knee. It absorbs more desk and coffee table collisions than the rest of my body combined. I don’t go a week without bruising it somewhere. How?

Older cars were made from sheet steel and steel tubing. Between lighter engines, sparser furnishing and less safety measures, the cars tend to weigh about the same or actually more these days. Modern cars tend to be more overengineered to provide better safety margins under heavier loads and higher speeds than old cars.

 

[Snerk]

I want rock bands to go back to wearing matching suits and ties like in the mid 60s.

Yes!

 

[Takhisis]

^The hour of day at which you posted that, Snerk, is 11:04 in my timezone.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yes!

It's the singing ability that matters more than the clothes worn while singing. I had to stop listening to this video. It's awful.

Another group that is dressed at least sort of formally (no ties), but their ability to sing is just as good now as it was decades ago: