南向き翻訳事務所 岩渕デボラ ブログ

I sent my absentee ballot in yesterday, along with one of my daughter’s. The count is now 2-0 in California!

昨日、アメリカ大統領選挙の不在者投票を送りました。 どうか、今回の選挙は良い結果に終わって、アメリカと世界全体に良い働きのできる大統領が生まれますように！

moar funny pictures

(With this photo, I chose “adorable” over “statesmanlike”… .)

(ここは日本だから、「可愛い」系写真を選びました）

Yesterday I got my first copy of NOON: Journal of the Short Poem published by Philip Rowland right here in Japan.

It’s difficult to see in this photo, but the cover is hand bound (click on the photo for a slightly closer look) and the title is indicated in a hand-applied stamp too delicate to get on my camera. It features poems by my two good friends, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa and Margaret Stawowy.

For someone like me with limited time to read, picking up this beautifully designed book and opening it to read one of the gems of poetry is a true luxury.

Anyone looking for a copy can send $10 or 1000 yen to Philip Rowland, Minami Motomachi 4-49-506, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0012

I was distressed to see that my US bank, WaMu has been foreclosed. Glad to see it has been repurchased, and am trying hard to believe my small but comforting account is guaranteed. It is not amusing to feel the ripple effect of Fannie and Freddie all the way over here on the other side of the pond.

I should have spent more in California this summer instead of keeping a nest egg in the bank for my next trip!

We took a large-family trip to Ashland, Oregon for the Shakespeare Festival (sorry, no pics of the plays), and on the way there and back enjoyed the bounties unique to the northernmost part of California and Southern Oregon coast. It was my photographer’s first trip to Oregon and he enjoyed the experience with lots (and lots) of photos.

オレゴン州への旅の写真。目的はシェークスペアー劇祭で有名なアシュランド市。でも行きと帰りで北カリフォルニアと南オレゴンなりではの見どころをたくさん 回りました。うちのカメラマンにとっては初めてのオレゴン州なのでたくさん写真を撮りました。

See below a couple of the famous California and Oregon redwoods, grapes from a winery in Mendecino County, and the harbor at Fort Bragg, complete with sea lions swimming around.

西海岸だけに立つ巨大なredwoodの木の森を歩いたら、どの木も違う特長を持っています。森の中はとても静かです。北カリフォルニアのワイナリーとそれぞれのブドウ畑も次から次からありました。Fort Braggという町でお昼を食べるためによったら、あざらしが何匹か港に泳いでいました。

The Olympics have begun!  The presidential campaign is underway and the conventions are right around the corner! It’s a fine time to be in the old country.

Even more fun, though, is what we found at the local grocery store.  Can you read the label? Double click on the photo for a closer look…

「ムースのよだれ」 というビールです。もしかして、英語だとおいしそうに聞こえる？いいえ、聞こえません。写真にクリックすれば、よだれを出しているムースの絵がはっきりと見えます。今里帰り中です。オリンピックや大統領選挙でにぎわっている母国では、うちはと言えば、スーパーをゆっくりまわって遊んでいます。思わず、この微妙な新製品を買ってしまいました。父には「ムースのよだれ飲む？」と愛想よく聞いたら、ちょっと不機嫌に「ビールなら飲むよ」とかえってきました。

以外とおいしかったです．．．

The Four Stories website now has MP3 downloads and photographs from the June 15 Four Stories event in Osaka at Portugalia. I’m the one with her bangs in her eyes and too nervous to sit down and read. I read from Translucent Tree by Nobuko Takagi.  It wasn’t exactly in keeping with the theme, but the other three stories certainly were and they are definitely worth a listen to!

高樹のぶ子先生の“Soaked in Asia” ブログに新作短編の「投」の英訳が載っています。今回の英訳を高樹先生に頼まれて、私のウェブ上英訳が初めてです。高樹先生はアジアの国々を旅して、各国で短編を書いて、雑誌にご出版後、ブログで英訳を乗せています。今回は上海についての話です。是非見て下さい。話の中に石庫門について書かれています。私はこの短編を読む前まで聞いたことがなかったですが、昔からの上海の特徴的な住宅です。最近では次々と取り壊されて、高層ビルがたてられているそうです。

See Nobuko Takagi’s blog, “Soaked in Asia,” and read the English version of her latest short story “Casting Out,” which I translated. Ms. Takagi visits different Asian countries, writing a short story at each location. The story is first printed in the original Japanese in a magazine, and then in English and Japanese on her blog.

The story, set in Shanghai, focuses on a character who lives in a traditional type of dwelling called shikumen. Here is an article on it from The Standard. I’d never heard of shikumen before doing this story. Most are (apparently) made of brick; multi-family dwellings with courtyards. They sound cozy to me, but, according to this and other recent articles, including one in the New Yorker, shikumen are being torn down in droves to make way for skyscrapers.

For some reason I cannot fathom, I announced this new book on my website, but forgot to do it up big here!

Beyond the Blossoming Fields by well-known author Jun’ichi Watanabe, and translated by Anna Isozaki and myself–with the kind assistance of Deborah Davidson and Manna Iwabuchi, not to mention all of the kind folk at the Japan Literature PublishingProject (JLPP) ,was published by a fine British publisher, Alma Books, and released this spring.

Watanabe is better known for somewhat racier novels, but this was his first as a doctor-turned-author, the story of Ginko Ogino, the first licensed female doctor in Japan. She was born less than an hour away from where Anna and I live, in Menuma, a small town on the Saitama side of the Gunma border. Of equal interest to me was that she was a Christian. In fact she was baptized by Danjo Ebina, a follower of Niijima Jo (another big Gunma name!) and the first pastor of Maebashi Church, where I am currently a member.

Personally, I love books in the non-fiction genre (truth is always stranger–and often more interesting–than fiction. Ginko led a remarkable and colorful life in Menuma, Tokyo and in Hokkaido. And her persistence in pursuing a career that was specifically and systematically denied to women will keep you spellbound. In addition to the details of the main theme, learn how she struggled throughout most of her life from a serious and chronic disease, how she led a crew of bone smugglers into a graveyard at night, how she ran her practice–the Ogino Clinic, protected prostitutes from the local thugs, her marriage to a man who took her to the wilds of Hokkaido–and much, much more.

My baby sister just put out her fourth CD of baroque flute music. This one is Joseph Bodin de Boismortier: Six Suites, Op. 35 for Unaccompanied Flute. It’s available at “CD Baby,” (An extremely congenial web site. They send you love letters after you order!)

If you like that one (and I know you will), be sure to order her second-most recent album, Music for Flute & Guitar, with Georges Torres.

ああ、写真撮れば良かった。土日と旦那のごちそうを家族全員プラス娘たちの友達２人でいただきました。

土曜日は煮豚(焼き豚みたいなjuicyな煮込んだ肉）とアボカドのディップとチップス。日曜日はちらしずしとゴーヤチャンプル。大人数で愛情たっぷりのごちそうを食べながら、楽しい会話がありました。久しぶりでした。

Both daughters are at home, and adding to the pleasure of that, my husband cooked for all of us (including two friends of daughters) Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, we had his specialty, a kind of Japanese-style pork accompanied with a Japanese adaptation of Americanized guacamole dip with tortilla-chips-as-available. Sunday we had chirashizushi and the Okinawan dish–goya champuru–pictured above.

Food full of love and affection and outrageously hilarious conversation. It doesn’t get much better than this!