Eloquent oddities

There aren’t a lot of good Japanese-themed quizzes out there….

You Are a Sarariiman!

Or “salaryman.” Whatever. Treadmill off, treadmill on. Most of the sleep you get is on Tokyo’s extensive subway system, since you are putting in 14 hour days. You’re a workaholic who works hard for no overtime. And vacations? Forget about it. You spend most of your trip hunting around for gifts to bring back all of your coworkers.

Moving the other direction, from English to Japanese, a friend sent along this link to a collection of Jabberwocky translations. It’s been a long time since I could summon the mental energy to disagree with someone about their translation of nonsense verse, but apparently there’s a lot of views on the subject, all represented here. Quite a few of the translators appear to be relying on the Gardiner annotations, is all I’ll say, which is … a choice.

Though WWII remains unsettled between Japan and Russia, The Russo-Japanese War has finally ended for Japan and Montenegro.

Finally, in art news, three times. First, an interesting discussion of private art museums in Tokyo illustrates the power of individual collectors and non-canonical thinking. Second, though I can’t possibly get there for the exhibit, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Art of History is a lovely online experience, though I have mixed feelings about the “elegant mash-up” postmodern elements of the art itself. Some of it (including the Hirohito image) is chilling; others (e.g. Henry’s wives) are barely clever. Finally, Ansel Adams’ pictures of Japanese internment camps in the US are available online, fantastic documentation, not to mention photographs.