Just checking whether there are people who read (and like) William Gibson's work. I am translating his latest novel All Tomorrow's Parties and want to check some things...
Not being an English native speaker, I have some problems with apparently trivial things.
e.g.: I didn‘t quite get names of the following chapters: Why is the 9th chapter called „Sweep Second“? 13 - Secondhand daylight – secondhand? 45 – Jack Move 68. The Absolute At Large
Can anyone help me out? Or send me to a Gibson fan forum? Thanks
T.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Good luck. The only thing I can think of is that the "sweep second" is the second hand on a stopwatch that counts off each second (as opposed to the one that marks off fractions of a second).
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
If you are asking for what "second hand" means, the American English eqiuvalent would be "pre-owned". Something that someone owned before you did.
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
quote:"Sweep Second"
I'm not familiar with the books, so there may be something in the chapter in that hints at the name. A sweep second hand is what Vogon Poet was talking about; it's a system in some watches and clocks that moves the second hand with causing a "stuttering" effect. The other thing I can think of is when a team at a competition places second in all of the contests. That team is said to sweep second place.
quote:secondhand?
PsyLiam's got this one.
quote:Jack Move
According to the Ebonics Werdz Dictionary, "Jack Move" is basically the act of carjacking someone. He could be referring to that, or he might be talking about a telephone repairman who wants to move a jack.
quote:The Absolute At Large
The only reference I can find to this is that this is a science fiction story titled The Absolute At Large. It's written by Karel Capek. The story itself deals with religious intolerance. One review I found for it called the story, "Very, very Czech."
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Liam: You only find the word "pre-owned" when talking about car dealers, or something like that. Marketing people think it sounds better than "used". But the American-English equivalent of "secondhand" is "secondhand".
Posted by Red Magnus Pymster (Member # 239) on :
Blockbuster has Pre-Viewed DVDs. Woot! Summer Catch for $9.99! Oh yes!
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Electronics Boutique and similar shops now sell "pre-owned" computer games too.
Posted by Red Magnus Pymster (Member # 239) on :
Good Deals can be had. Good Deals.
Posted by Red ThoughtPym (Member # 480) on :
I have a giant poster of John Candy's "Delirious" on my wall. It is from Blockbuster, and it is secondhand.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I said "car dealers, or something like that". It was only the first example that came to mind. Basically, you'll find it anywhere that marketers are trying to make things sound "better". It's like the way prices always end in ".99", because it makes the price look smaller.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
THEN YOU WERE WRONG FAT TIM!
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
thanks for the hints - I know of course what "secondhand" USUALLY means. When asking, I want to know the meaning in the whole kontext. Therefore, my questions are for those who know the text. But thanks a million to all who contributed to this discussion.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Ahh. In that case, "secondhand daylight" sounds like a metaphor. Or is it being reflected off of something?
Posted by Obi Juan (Member # 90) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Ahh. In that case, "secondhand daylight" sounds like a metaphor. Or is it being reflected off of something?
Yes it does smack of some of Gibson's other favorite metaphor's like "television sky." Then again, he is known for his interesting names for new technology (some of which filter out into pop culture eventually becoming well-used words), so it could be referring to something else.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
Here is some more, in case you got bored on the last one… (I just need to put the expression after ??? in other words… to get the right idea)
Rydell briefly entertained the idea of pulling over on the margin, beating Creedmore senseless, then leaving him there at the side of the Five, to get up to San Francisco as best he could. ???the Five?
Rydell had never actually caught anyone shooting anything up, in the store, although he wouldn't have put it past them. ???put it past them
Posted by Colorful Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"To put past" means something like "consider capable of" or "within the realms of possibility" or "not inconceivable". As for the other expression, I have no idea.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Being from California, I can answer this. In LA and Southern California, freeways are often referred to by their numbers prefaced by 'The'. Some friends from LA and I were discussing this the other night. Up here we usually drop the 'the'. So from San Francisco, you might take 101 South to 237 and then get on 5 South. In a matter of several hours (depending on how fast you drive) you will wind up in Los Angeles and you will now be on the Five. So 'the Five' refers to Interstate 5 which runs South to North from San Diego, California up through Seattle, Washington (an on up into Canada). It is also called 'I-5', although that's mostly Oregon and Washington. The stretch between LA and 237 is pretty freakin' desolate scrubland and utterly depressing. Once Creedmore regained conciousness he could wander for miles without seeing anything but tumbleweed. Gibson was likely referring to this.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Of course, Gibson's language can come back to haunt him, as anyone with a modern television and cable knows.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Cartman's explanation there is a little confusing. Basically, another wording of "he wouldn't have put it past them" might be "he thought it was something they might do".
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Although I tend to think of it more as "It's not something they'd be guaranteed to do, but it is certainly possible". Tends to describe sneeky behaviour.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
Great work you all... (the more straightforward the better)
Tonight's batch:
Yamazaki sees that the carton has been reinforced with mailing tubes, a system that echoes the traditional post-and-beam architecture of Japan, the tubes lashed together with lengths of salvaged poly-ribbon. ???mailing tubes ???poly-ribbon
Not far from the station, down a side street bright as day, he finds the sort of kiosk that sells anonymous debit cards. He purchases one. At another kiosk, he uses it to buy a disposable phone good for a total of thirty minutes, Tokyo-LA. ???did he really buy a disposable phone? Or just a credit or something?
p. 26 Raton has a long, narrow skull and wears contacts with vertical irises, like a snake. Silencio wonders if Raton is supposed to look like a rat who's eaten a snake, and now maybe the snake is looking out through its eyes. Playboy says Raton is a pinche Chupacabra from Watsonville and they all look this way. ???pinche Chupacabra
for pinche see also: – Playboy has said he does not like the bridge, because the bridge people are pinche; they do not like outsiders working here. - Silencio hears someone say "pinche madre" and this is Raton. ???pinche madre
Thank you all for doing this!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Mailing tubes are cardboard tubes you put something in to mail. Posters, for instance. Poly-ribbon, I don't know, but sounds like an original coinage. Just fancy ribbon or twine, I imagine.
Yes, he really bought a disposable phone.
Pinche is Spanish, and it means bloody, or at least I'm told. But its used like the English bloody. That is, as a curse. I suppose it seems minor, but if I said "pinche madre" while walking down the street in my hometown I would be in an amount of trouble that suggests "bloody mother" carries a slightly nastier connotation than it does in English. Er, madre means mother, by the way.
Chupacabra might be a little difficult to translate. It literally means goat-sucker, and refers to a creature believed by some to roam the Latin American countryside, killing goats and other animals by draining all the blood from them. Essentially, the Mexican version of alien cattle mutilations. (And since there are plenty of people familiar with goofy UFO culture in Mexico, the two phenomenon are often linked.) In this case it's just being used as an insult, but I really wonder how your readers will react to someone being called a "bloody goat-sucker." Perhaps you might just want to translate it as "vampire," to try and get across some of the cultural context.
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
I have no idea about poly-ribbon; it might besomething he devised for his story (something like pieces of ribbon made of polymers perhaps). As for mailing tubes, those are cardboard cylinders that many companies use to ship posters and large pictures through the mail. You just roll up the poster, stuff it in the tube, and mail it.
The disposable phone sounds like it might be another invention for the story, but it's certainly probable we may soon find ourselves being disposable phones instead of one-shot long-distance phone cards. I mean, we already have disposable cameras.
Babelfish says that "pinche" translates into English as "puncture." I'm not sure if this a Spanish slang phrase or not, but I'd say it's possible since you cite another instance of "pinche whatever." A chupacabra is (literally) a goat sucker. It's an evil little demon creature that runs around at night sucking blood out of its victims (usually livestock) like a vampire.
Posted by Captain... Mike (Member # 709) on :
I ran the term 'chupacabra' past my Peruvian friend at work for translation.. i pointed out that i remembered the X-Files episode it was featured in, and he had this to say.
quote: The Chupacabra is a myth invented by lazy Mexican and Dominican farmers to extract aid money from the government.. basically, their farms did bad, and they would kill their goats and claim that it was done by unexplained phenomena and it would make them eligible for more money than they could ever make raising stock or farming
I pointed out that, to believers, it could be a UFO phenomenon, and that i thought Mulder had caught the thing in the episode. Jaffet responded that Mulder should have shot the lazy farmers instead since they were giving Hispanics a bad name. He included some inter-Hispanic racial slurs i won't repeat here.
Oh, and as for disposable phones, most phones are getting cheaper and cheaper and most of my friends only keep theirs for a few months at a time before upgrading. and they sell prepaid cellphones at 7-11 now, so i think that this is probably the kind of thing he means
Posted by ThoughtPyminal (Member # 480) on :
"Secondhand daylight" may be something that won't translate properly. Used items are usually not as new looking or as clean as brand new items.
Gibson's use of "Secondhand daylight" means that the sunlight had a quality of being dirty, used...it's meant to imply that the atmosphere (the tone, the mood) was depressing. It's not meant to be taken literally.
"I wouldn't put it past him" means, essentially: "My dealings with this guy indicate he is a scumbag. While I don't have proof that he did it, I can fully believe that he would if given the opportunity."
"Poly-ribbon" as it appears in the story is, as far as I know, just a sci-fi device, although the name implies it's function.
"Pinche Madre" can be used in different ways: But the way I hear it most often, it means the same thing as "Fucking Hell" or "Jesus Christ", used as an expletive oath out of frustration.
It's used as a reference to the Virgin Mary.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Disposable phones have already been invented. While trying to find the article I read about it months ago, I found that, coincidentally enough, they're about to be put on the market.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Is poly-ribbon another term for that ribbon used to connect hard drives and floppy drives to motherboards?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
For fuck's sake Simon, get a normal hobby. This is just getting pathetic now.
Posted by Captain... Mike (Member # 709) on :
hey i bought some of that to re-captain stripe my mustard tunic!
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
I'm impressed... As for "secondhand" - the chapter takes place inside of a huge cardboard box (where homeless people live in Tokio). I should have mentioned it earlier. Sorry.
Here we go...
The beggar has wrapped his legs and feet in brown paper tape, and the effect is startlingly medieval, as though someone has partially sculpted a knight from office materials. The trim calves, the tapered toes, an elegance calling out for ribbons. ??? calling out for ribbons
She swayed expertly on her stacked heels, fishing a box of Russian Marlboros from her pink patent purse. ??? stacked heels
- speaking of the Bridge in San Francisco: He asks to be taken to the bridge. The cab draws up before a rain-stained tumble of concrete tank traps, huge rhomboids streaked with rust, covered with the stylized initials of forgotten lovers. ???tank traps
AND – for those being from California (but not only for them, of course) – in Virtual Light, Idoru and ATP Gibson mentions NoCal and SoCal (officialy separated as two different countries) – is it invented by him or is NoCal and SoCal common name? I mean – would the proper translation be the Czech equivalents for “Northern California etc.” or is it better to use “NoCal” as to stress the independence?
And special thanks to Sol System for Poly ribbon!!!
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
"Elegance calling out for ribbons" suggests that the outfit was so elegant that ribbons should be added.
Tank traps are blocks of concrete meant to be an obstacle to tanks and other vehicles. A defensive military structure.
Stacked heels are heels (of shoes) made from thin pieces of leather or wood stacked up and glued together, then cut to shape. They can be either low or high, but are usually wider than heels made of a single piece of wood. The context here (swaying) suggests they are high and make the wearer stand unsteadily.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
If the Czech words for Northern and Southern blend into "Cal" (or, uh, "Kal," and here I express ignorance about the Czech spelling of "California") in a relatively cool way, I say go with that. Otherwise, I think the English is passable.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Captain... Mike: hey i bought some of that to re-captain stripe my mustard tunic!
What I just said to Simon times two.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
Those who have read ATP - can you imagine tank traps looking like this http://www.tostreams.org/SteelJ.htm#2 under the San Francisco bridge? And can they be described as "huge rhomboids"? And why are they there? Because of the first invasion of homeless people on the bridge? I am not being ironic, I am just asking...
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
Ok, here's some more:
The last time he'd heard from Yamazaki, he'd wanted Rydell to find him a netrunner, and Rydell had sent him this guy named Laney, a quantitative researcher who'd just quit Slitscan, and had been moping around the Chateau, running up a big bill. ??? running up a big bill
'We have profiles," the man with the scarf says, off-camera, the face of the corpse thrown across Laney's cardboard wall, the melon blanket. 'We have a full forensic psych run-up. But you ignore them! ???run-up
Yamazaki sees that the cardboard there is shingled with tiny self-adhesive printouts, dozens of different images of a bland-looking man, oddly familiar. ??? bland-looking
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The "big bill" is no doubt a credit card bill or something of that type. The use of "running" is just idiomatic. Basically, it means he's spending a lot of money (though on credit, so he's really not paying yet).
I'm not certain about "run-up" but it sounds like they're talking about a psychological profile.
"Bland-looking" means the person is rather plain and uninteresting in appearance.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Are you sure that "full forensic psych run-up" isn't actually "full forensic psych work-up"? That's the word I would use. "Work-up" means assessment, examination, or evaluation.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Re: NoCal vs SoCal
These are pretty common shortenings of Northern California and Southern California. I hadn't really thought about NoCal as being like 'Not California' and SoCal as being 'So Very California'. Only it would probably be the other way around. The thing is there's a bit of tension between LA and the rest of California. Los Angeles is a bit shit and it was built on a desert so there's this aquaduct which shunts NoCal water to Southern California. They also consume a disproportionately large amount of food, fossil fuels, etc. In return they produce a lot of movies and television. People North of the San Francisco Bay area think we're all a bunch of fruitcakes and that LA is filled with money grubbing idolaters out to homogenize the world one crappy television series at a time. It's way more more conservative than most people generally associate with California. At one point Northern California (actually separated above San Francisco) wanted to be a separate state. California has something like the world's fifth largest global economy so I mean it isn't all that far-fetched. There's this backlash against LA since it's a pretty ugly sprawl and they have way more money, people and political influence (They do pay like 20 cents less per gallon of gas than SF Bay area which pisses me off since the refineries are mostly across the bay in Richmond, but that's neither here nor there). Anyway so the idea was to levy more tax against SoCal for the plundering of our resources. It never happened and barring any major upheaval I doubt that it ever would. If for no other reason than we could never decide where exactly to cut off LA. There's a kind of symbiosis where NoCal needs SoCal money and political clout and SoCal needs NoCal resources and ideas. In truth I think the state is more ideologically differentiated west to east than north to south, but what do I know. EaCAL and WeCal sounds stupid.
Re: Tank Traps
He might be refering to a little pet name we had for our ugly but safe guardrails near the bridge.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Maybe the tank traps were placed by the people living on the bridge to prevent the police from driving in an evicting them? (I read ATP a few years ago, but don't remember the details so well.)
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Wait a minute! How can these tank traps be streaked with rust if they're made of concrete?
And if they are made of concrete, I have an idea about what they are: in several ports around the world, I've seen moulded-concrete geometric forms, that might pass as tank-traps, used to construct artificial banks between concrete piers - and bridge pylons - and the sea.
Posted by Nim Pim Pim (Member # 205) on :
Concrete blocks have a skeleton of steel bars to increase structural integrity (damn you for making me used that word), on many blocks these bars protrude and rust in the rain, making long red-brown-black stains on the concrete.
The idea of homeless people having the resources, in effect forklifts, to systematically keep out the police with these things, when the government can just as easily remove the blocks again, does not sound like a strong theory to me.
It's possible the "tank traps" in this context are just a collective name for blocks that are placed to keep vehicles from passing but to allow for pedestrians, that means people who walk on so much street.
I like William Gibson, I am going to buy the first novel "Neuromancer" soon, but in english hardcover this time. I read it in swedish pocket but now I'm hungry for the author's original wording. Everytime I re-read a book in english that I had only read in translation it feels like a "Director's Cut". Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I'd imagine that the quality of translations (like dubbing) varies greatly. Do they retranslate books? And if so, how many times has Lord of the Rings been done (considering the number of times it was revised over).
I was flicking through Harry Potter with a girl who spoke French, and was amazed at the stuff that was taken out. Usually, paragraph for parapraph it was the same, but then they'd just skip a huge block of text, for no apparent reason. Except maybe that the tranlator was a bit lazy.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
I think that they usually only translate a book once (or at least only once per publisher ). As for Tolkien's book, his family is very very VERY strict on translations. I remember reading somewhere that the Dutch translator had quite some trouble with the family (or ol' JRR himself) about him translating the Hobbit names.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
Thanks... Masao: I would use this word too (I think "run-up" has the same meaning in this...
Here we go...
The waitress was a distracted-looking woman of indeterminate ancestry, acne scars sprinkled across her cheekbones, and she poured his coffee and took his order without actually indicating she understood English. Like the whole operation could be basically phonetic, he thought, and she'd have learned the sound of "two eggs over easy" and the rest. ??? two eggs over easy
Back in his room over Mrs. Siekevitz's garage, six blocks away and just below Sunset, Rydell had stretched out on his narrow bed and tried to get the radio in the glasses to work. All he'd been able to get, though, was static, faintly inflected with what might have been mariachi music. He'd done a little better with the GPS, which had a rocker keypad built into the right temple. ???rocker keypad
"I'm in the music business myself," Maryalice said. "My ex and I operated one of the most successful country music venues in Tokyo. But I felt the need to get back to my roots. To God's country, Mr. Rydell." ???venues
Chevette stands up, stretches, seeing the old man, Skinner, in memory, sitting up in his bed in the room atop the cable tower. What dancer she'd gotten off Creedmore has long since worn off, leaving an edge of tiredness. Long day. Very long day. "We're sleeping in a van down the foot of Folsom," she says. ??? foot of Folsom – the beginning of the Folsom Street? see also: - Carson wasn't too likely to come sniffing around the foot of Folsom, and if he did he was liable to run into the kind of people who'd take him for easy meat. … - That meant, she thought, that Tessa had gotten someone to drive her back to the foot of Folsom. Then either she'd driven back or gotten a lift.
Thank you all for doing this...
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
"Two eggs over easy" are 2 eggs cooked on both sides without breaking the yolk.
A "rocker keypad" would be like the directional pad of a video game controller.
A venue is the scene or locale of any event. In this case & in most usage, it pertains to a club or amphitheater where a performance--musical or otherwise--is being put on.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
I don't know the geography so well, but I'm guessing that "foot of Folsom" may refer to Folsom street where it starts up a hill or at the base of a hill. This is San Franciso, right? I've never heard the "foot of.." to refer to the start of a street.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Two eggs over easy refers to how they were cooked. For more than that, you'll have to find someone who eats things that don't go in the microwave.
"venues" are locations, usually where concerts (gigs) are performed. In this case, it would be locations that have country music shows.
Rocker keypad sounds like termonology invented for the book.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
OK, I got everything so far...
next:
Chevette pointed at a thin black child with dusty dreadlocks to his waist. "You. What's your name?" "What's it to you?" "Pay you watch this van. We come back, chip you fifty. Fair?" The boy regarded her evenly. "Name Boomzilla," he said. "Boomzilla," Chevette said, "you take care of this van?" "Deal," he said. "Deal," Chevette said to Tessa. - "Lady," Boomzilla said, pointing up at God's Little Toy, "I want that." "Stick around," Tessa said. "We'll need a grip." ??? "Stick around," … ???"We'll need a grip."
You'd get these strange mergers, a hair place and an oyster bar deciding to become a bigger place that cut hair and sold oysters. Sometimes it worked: one of the longest-running places on the San Francisco end was an old-style, manual tattoo parlor that served breakfast. You could sit there over a plate of eggs and bacon and watch somebody get needled with some kind of hand-drawn flash. ??? get needled with some kind of hand-drawn flash.
"He beat you up. He's got eight hundred square feet of strata-title loft. He's got a job. He beats you up, you don't automatically order a surgical strike; you're not middle class." ??? surgical strike ??? strata-title loft
He closes his eyes against the burning of the soap and sees the watches arrayed beneath greenish, randomly abraded glass, like fish from some warmer season frozen hard in lake ice. Bright highlights off steel and gold. He has been colonized by an order uncomprehended: the multifold fact of these potent objects, their endless differentiation, their individual specificities. ??? multifold fact
It was one of those voices that they fake up from found audio: speech cobbled from wind down skyscraper canyons, the creaking of Great Lakes ice, tree frogs clanging in the Southern night. ??? cobbled from wind down skyscraper canyons
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
"Stick around," as in, "Stay here for a while."
"get needled with some kind of hand-drawn flash," as in "have a tattoo applied by hand with the needle (the machine) in a fancy manner."
"surgical strike," as in those fun little precision attacks the US is so fond of lobbing on nations with brown people. Y'know, blow up a single builidng with a laser-guided bomb & all that shit.
"cobbled from wind down skyscraper canyons," as in the speech pattern of the voices was artificially created by recording the sound of wind blowing hard down through the spaces between skyscrapers & mixing them together in ways to form voices."
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
On film sets, a grip is a stagehand who moves props and scenery and stuff around. I'm guesing this is the sense of the term being used. They'll need someone to help them out, perhaps w/ manual labor or something.
I don't know what "strata-title" is supposed to mean, but a loft is an apartment (or a flat, if you prefer British English) located in the upper story of a building in which the lower story is used for something else (usually a business or something of the sort).
"Multifold" basically means that something has various different parts or qualities. So, it pretty much means the same thing as what the rest of the sentence says.
Posted by Nim Pim Pim (Member # 205) on :
Tori, are you working professionally in a publishing house as a translator or are you doing this in your own spare time?
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
I'm trying to do this for a living, why?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Tim is incorrect about something! YES!
In British English, a loft is not this crazy seperate building flat type thing madness! It's what we call "attics".
Basements are cellars.
Yes! Again!
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Erm... I didn't say anything about the British definition of "loft". I was saying that you call apartments "flats".
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
OK, here we go again:
Chevette remembers Bunny Malatesta, her dispatcher when she rode here, how he'd say "and what part of 'no' is it that you don't understand?" But Bunny could deliver lines like that as though he were a force of nature, and Chevette knows she can't, that she lacks Bunny's gravity, the sheer crunch required to get it across. ??? the sheer crunch
So when Rydell turned up back in LA with a story to tell, and Chevette on his arm, Cops in Trouble had perked right up. They were moving into a phase where they tried to spin individual segments off into series for niche markets, and the demographics people liked it that Rydell was male, not too young, not too educated, and from the South. They also liked it that he wasn't racist, and they really liked it that he was with this really cute alt-dot kind of girl, one who looked like she could crush walnuts between her thighs. ???alt-dot – like the discussion groups?
The suite was like a little apartment, with its own kitchen and a gas fire, and they'd roll around at night on a blanket on the floor, in front of the fire, with the windows open and the lights out, blue flame flickering low and LAPD gunships drumming overhead ???gas fire – was it like the gas stove or a fireplace?
But she'd kept suggesting he try working out more. Why not go with that girlfriend of yours, she'd say, she's so buff, it hurts. But Chevette had never seen the inside of a gym in her life; she owed her buffness to her genes and a few years she'd spent pounding up and down San Francisco hills on a competition-grade mountain bike, its frame rolled from epoxy and Japanese constriction paper. ???buff, buffness
Lucky Dragon had some units on prime tourist real estate, and Rydell knew that from watching the Global Interactive Video Column back in LA; there was one in the mall under Red Square, that fancy K-Dam branch in Berlin, the big-ass one in Piccadilly, London, but putting one here struck him as a strange, or strangely deliberate, move. ???fancy K-Dam
The bridge was a dodgy place, safe enough but not "tourist safe." There was a walk-on tourist contingent, sure, and a big one, particularly on this end of the bridge, but no tours, no guides. If you went, you went on your own. Chevette had told him how they repelled evangelicals, and the Salvation Army and any other organized entity, in no uncertain terms. ???in no uncertain terms
Posted by Colorful Cartman (Member # 256) on :
The sheer crunch : strength, impact, character
alt-dot : as in alt.fan.startrek -- similar to dotcoms (e-businesses) -- in this case, refers to a girl Rydell picked up that matches a sterotype
gas fire : a fireplace powered by gas
buff : muscular, well-built
fancy K-Dam : tourist area in Berlin
in no uncertain terms : strong, hard language
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The literal meaning of "crunch" is the sort of sound you get when, say, you walk on gravel or chew on something hard and brittle (obviously there are many other sources of similar sounds). In this case it's being used metaphorically. I'd say it means something along the lines of what Cartman said.
It seems to me, also, that "alt-dot" should refer to the Usenet alt groups, but I don't know why anyone would stereotype those sorts of people as being able to crush a walnut between their thighs. Unless they're saying she's the sort of person you'd see a picture of in an alt group, which could mean just about anything.
A gas fireplace is one that has a fake (ceramic, maybe?) log or logs in it containing pipes through which natural gas is pumped and ignited. It looks like an actual wood fire (if you don't look to closely), but it's usually smaller and not as hot. It more for decoration than for actually heating a room.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
As Cartman says, K-dam is short for Berlin's Kurfurstendam, which is a shopping area equivalent to NY's Fifth Avenue or Tokyo's Ginza.
alt.dot might refer to Chevette having looks that are not quite mainstream but would appeal to a certain small segment of the population (ie, a niche market).
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
Thanks for the tips, I got the idea...
here's more:
(Ch. 22)Her green eyes widen in furious emphasis, a green pale as drift glass, DNA-echo of some British soldier, Fontaine has often surmised, on some chose Kingston night, these several generations distant. ??? drift glass
(Ch. 24)They found a dark place that felt as though it hung out beyond where the bridge's handrails would've been. Not a very deep space, but long, the bar along the bridge side and the opposite all mismatched windows, looking south, past the piers, to China Basin. ???piers
Ch 24 (p. 101) Now Shoats, absently, produced what looked like the top of an old-fashioned tube of lipstick from his shirt pocket and began to play, using the gold metal tube as a slide. The sounds he coaxed from the guitar caught Rydell in the pit of his stomach, as surely as Creedmore had sucker-punched that security man: they sounded the way rosin feels on your fingers in a poolroom and made Rydell think of tricks with glass rods and the skins of cats. Somewhere inside the fat looping slack of that sound, something gorgeously, nastily tight was being figured out. ???rosin (the only rosin I know is used for violin bows – so what is that about poolroom? Is poolroom the place where the pool is played?)
Posted by Colorful Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Drift glass : glass that has literally been adrift (after having been thrown into the ocean, for instance) and eventually washes up to shore, discolored by algae and the like
Piers : intermediate structural supports (pillars) for bridges, also buildings that extent into navigable water (for use as a landing place, etc)
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The rosin is the same stuff as used w/ violins. It's used on the hands when playing pool in order to better handle the cue. I could be wrong about this part, but I think it's used so tat he cue slides across the fingers of the hand that's on the table without sticking.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
thanks...
(Ch 1 – p. 1) He winces, violently, as a fashionable young matron, features swathed in Chanel micropore, rolls over his toes with an expensive three-wheeled stroller. Blurting a convulsive apology, Yamazaki glimpses the infant passenger through flexible curtains of some pink-tinted plastic, the glow of a video display winking as its mother trundles determinedly away. ???did she have a micropore mask or a sort of micropore bandage (made by Chanel) wrapped around her face?
p. 1. Yamazaki sighs, unheard, and limps toward the cardboard shelters. He wonders briefly what the passing commuters will think, to see him enter the carton fifth from the left. It is scarcely the height of his chest, longer than the others, vaguely coffin-like, a flap of thumb-smudged white corrugate serving as its door. ??? corrugate – was it plastic? or cardboard? or what?
31 Tessa was Australian, a media sciences student at USC and the reason Chevette was out here now, couching it. ???couching it
34 - No light here now but a couple of telltales and the methodical flicker as the security system flipped from one external night-vision camera to the next. ???telltales
ch4 p16 - The blade's angled tip, recalling a wood carver's chisel, inclines toward the dark arterial pulse in the pit of his arm, as if reminding him that he too is only ever inches from that place the drowned girl went, so long ago, that timelessness. That other country, waiting. He is by trade a keeper of the door to that country. ??? by trade – like: his business is to be a keeper of …?
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
I'm thinking the "micropore" was a shawl or scarf.
"Corrugate" probably refers to the cardboard of the cardboard shelters mentioned a few lines up. Corrugated cardboard is a common material to make boxes out of.
I'm not sure if "couching it" has some meaning I'm not aware of in context, but I would assume it means, "sleeping on the couch."
"Telltales" are indicator lights, in this case, LEDs that show that a camera is operational.
And yes, "by trade" means "by trained profession." It usually implies a skill, rather than any old job.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
I think that Chanel micropore probably refers to an entire outfit rather than just a scarf. Swathe means to envelop or to wrap. A big shawl, maybe, or some kind of cape-like thing, sort of like those "futuristic" Japanese parachute material fashions from the 1980s.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
OK, thanks...
p42 The boy reaches out. Two fingers touch the watch the man wears on his left wrist. He opens his mouth as if to speak. "The time?" Something moves in the affectless brown depths of the boy's eyes. The watch is very old, purchased from a specialist dealer in a fortified arcade in Singapore. It is military ordnance. It speaks to the man of battles fought in another day. It reminds him that every battle will one day be as obscure, and that only the moment matters, matters absolutely. ??? – literally some shopping arcade that was fortified?
p44 It was an old building, in the kind of area where buildings like that were usually converted to residential, but the frequency of razor wire suggested that this was not yet gentrified territory. There were a couple of Universal square badges controlling entry, a firm that mostly did low-level industrial security. They were set up in an office by the gate, watching Real One on a flatscreen propped up on a big steel desk that looked like someone had gone over every square inch of it with a ball peen hammer. Cups of take-out coffee and white foam food containers. It all felt kind of homey to Rydell, who figured they'd be going off shift soon, seven in the morning. Wouldn't be a bad job, as bad jobs went. "Delivering a drive-away," Rydell told them. ???square badge ???ball peen – typo? Should have read “ball pen hammer” meaning very small hammer? ???drive-away
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I think a fortified arcade means one completely enclosed. Ie, a shopping mall. But I'm not sure.
No idea about the others. "Square Badge" I thought could mean a swipe card, but it seems to be referring to actual people. And drive-away too confuses me. Could it possibly be "take-away", as in food being delivered?
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
drive-away - speaking of a car (forgot to point this out).
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Hmm. Could it be slang for "getaway car"? The car used to escape from the scene of a crime?
Posted by Colorful Cartman (Member # 256) on :
A drive-away is a service where, in exchange for delivering a vehicle someplace, the driver gets free transportation. Useful if you've totalled your car and need a quick ride.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
What, we're only up to page 44?! Y'know, I've heard of teaching English as a foreign language, but translating it?! 8)
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
We'd better get acknowledgments. Or some form of lady.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
CC: thanks, that's what I thought... And just for the record (and for funny people like Vogon Poet) - the book is almost finished...
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
A ball peen hammer is a type of hammer with a ball (instead of a claw for pulling nails) opposite the face which is used to shape metal, etc. So, this desk is old and covered with small, round indentations.
A fortified arcade is what you guessed, a shopping mall that's fortified (with guards and fences) to keep out undesirable people. Sort of like the "gated communities" where rich people live.
A "square badge" seems to refer both to the standard ID/security badges and, in this case, to the security guards themselves. (In a similar way, the girl in Idoru refers to people as "mesh-backs" because of the cheap giveaway mesh-back baseball caps they wear.)
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
OK, thanks everyone, I moved my questions to the alt.cyberpunk news. (In case anyone is interested...) Thank you all for your hints.
T.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Aww. I was enjoying this.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Indeed. It was one of the very very very few threads around here to actually serve some real purpose.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
No kidding? I thought I was pissing you guys off... The problem was that I thought it is difficult for you to answer because you haven't read the book recently and the things may mean a lot of things. But if you enjoyed this, I can carry on. (But you can still check the alt.cyberpunk news if you want to...)
here we go then...
273 IN the cab to Transamerica he closes his eyes, seeing the watch he gave the boy, where time arcs in one direction only across a black face, interior time gone rudderless now, unmoored by a stranger's reconstruction of Lise's face. The hands of the watch trace a radium orbit, moments back-to-back. He senses some spiral of unleashed possibility in the morning, though not for him. ??? interior time gone rudderless now
275 As he comes up to the shop he hears the sound of someone sweeping broken glass, and sees that it is the boy, flatfooted in his big white shoes, and sees that the kid's done quite a good job of it, really, down to rearranging things on the surviving shelves. That silver piece of hardware, like an oversized cocktail shaker, enjoys pride of place, up behind the glassless frame of Fontaine's counter, between lead soldiers and a pair of trench-art vases beaten from the Kaiser's cannon casings. ??? trench-art ???Kaiser - is it a tank or something? http://www.advancenet.net/~rkeller/Mecha/Kaiser.html - I found just this one link - isn't it made up?
277 Silencio peers through his loupe at the damp biscuit of metal. He scores the rust with a diamond scribe. "Stainless," he admits, knowing the boy will know that that is good, though not good as gold. Worth the price of a meal. ??? diamond - diamond-shaped or made from diamond?
Silencio places the watch on the bed. They watch as it rises smoothly on edge, as if of its own accord, and then seems to sink, impossibly, as if through the shallow bed and the glass beneath. Vanishing like a coin set into soft mud... ??? ... as it rises smoothly on edge - so the watches tilted and sank into the resetoration bed, right? (I mean the edge was the edge of the watches, wasn't it?)
146 Fontaine looked over his shoulder and saw the boy, still seated on the floor, down his third iced-guava smoothie. ??? guava smoothie
It's good to know I am not so much of a bother...
Thanks
Tomas
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
7 Durius had finished sweeping up. He held the big industrial dustpan carefully, headed for the inbuilt hospital-style sharps container, the one with the barbed biohazard symbol. That was where they put the needles, when they found them. ??? sharps container
9 ALL that summer Rydell and Durius had been night security at the Lucky Dragon, a purpose-built module that had been coptered into this former car-rental lot on the Strip. ???coptered - delivered by a copter?
21 Yamazaki was deep, Rydell told himself. He'd never actually figured out what it was that Yamazaki did. Sort of a freelance Japanese anthropologist who studied Americans, as near as Rydell could tell. Maybe the Japanese equivalent of the Americans Lucky Dragon hired to tell them they needed a curb check. Good man, Yamazaki, but not easy to say where he was coming from. The last time he'd heard from Yamazaki, he'd wanted Rydell to find him a netrunner, and Rydell had sent him this guy named Laney, a quantitative researcher who'd just quit Slitscan, and had been moping around the Chateau, running up a big bill. ??? running up a big bill - does it mean he was drowning in debt or does it mean he was spending large amounts of money? (I know this has been answered already, just want to make sure - I ran into a different opinion)
20 (about Rydell having been dumped) "Bet that one burned your ass," Creedmore said, his eyes slit with spirits. He was a small man, lightly built, but roped with the sort of whipcord muscle that had never seen the inside of a gym. Ditchdigger muscle. What Rydell took to be several layers of artificial tan were wearing off over an inherent pallor. Bleached hair with dark roots was slicked straight back with some product that kept it looking like he'd just stepped out of a shower. He hadn't, though, and he was sweating in spite of the air-conditioning. "Well," Rydell said, "I figured it's her call." ??? Bet that one burned your ass, = "You must've been pissed about that."? ??? "I figured it's her call." = I said to myself it was up to her.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I'm not sure what "interior time" refers to (possibly the character's "internal clock", or something?), but "rudderless" is presumably a metaphor referring to boats. If a boat doesn't have a rudder, you can't steer it, and it will just go whichever way the water carries it.
"Trench art" was art pieces created by World War I soldiers while they were stuck in the trenches. The Kaiser in question is, of course, Kaiser Wilhelm, the ruler of Germany at that time.
I assume the "diamond scribe" is a pen that has a small diamond in the tip, rather than ink. They're used for writing on things like metal and such when you want to scratch the words or marks into it.
"On edge" appears to be referring to the watch's edge, yes.
A guava is a kind of fruit. A smoothie is a drink made out of fruit and ground-up ice.
A sharps container is exactly how it's described there. It's a plastic box, usually found in hospitals, used for disposing of sharp objects like needles.
You're right about "coptered".
The phrase "running up a big bill" by itself doesn't specify whether or not he actually had the money to pay the bill. It could be either, really.
You're correct about the meanings of those last two phrases, also.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
I don't believe smoothie's are normally made only with fruit and ice... isn't there usually a dairy component, like milk or yogurt?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Yes, or at least there is where I used to get them.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Hell if I know. I've never had one. Nor do I intend to. The name alone is disturbing enough.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
The only thing better than a smoothie (though I prefer a freeze myself, which at the location I frequented was like the smoothie only minus the yogurt) is the sweet embrace of oblivion, so you are missing out.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
What about "Profit & Lace"?
Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
Tim may not have "smoothies," but what else would you call those yummy glasses of frozen Lard and Butter he must enjoy? Chunkies?
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
I see you are big fans of smoothies. Good for you.
***
33 Chevette had found the trainer her second day here, and she'd ride two or three times a day or, like now, late at night. Nobody else seemed to be interested in it or ever to come into this little room off the garage, next to the laundry room, and that was fine with her. Living on the bridge, she'd been used to people being around, but everybody had always had something to do up there. The sharehouse was full of USC media sciences students, and they got on her nerves. They sat around accessing media all day and talking about it, and nothing ever seemed to get done. She felt sweat run between the headband of the interface visor and her forehead, then down the side of her nose. She was getting a good burn on now; she could feel groups of muscles working in her back, ones that didn't usually get it. ??? She was getting a good burn on now
142 She'd started on Creedmore's Redback out of boredom, when she spotted the singer himself headed their way. He had borrowed someone's meshbacked cap and pulled it on backward, over his weirdly wet-looking bleach-blonde hair. He was wearing an electric-blue cowboy shirt with the store creases still in it, horizontal across the chest, and the white pearlized snaps open halfway down the front, revealing a pale, white, decidedly concave chest that wasn't at all the color of his face, which she figured was painted on. He had what looked like tomato juice in each hand, in a tall glass with ice. "How do," he said. "Saw that Maryalice over here. Thought I'd bring the old girl a drink. I'm Buell Creedmore. You ladies enjoyin' your beer?" ??? decidedly concave chest
48 Fontaine leaves nothing of value in the window at night, but he dislikes the idea of an entirely empty display. He doesn't like to think of someone passing and glimpsing that vacancy. It makes him think of death. So each night he leaves out a few items of relatively little value, ostensibly to indicate the nature of the shop's stock, but really as a private act of propitiatory magic. ??? propitiatory magic
52 Fontaine picks up the watch, affords himself a quick squint through the loupe. 'Whistles in spite of himself. "Jaeger LeCoultre." He unsquints, checking; the boy hasn't moved. Squints again, this time at the ordnance markings on the caseback. "Royal Australian Air Force, 1953," he translates. "Where'd you steal this?" Nothing. "This is near mint." Fontaine feels, all at once, profoundly and unexpectedly lost. "This a redial?" Nothing. ??? translates – he is translating the markings and symbols into verbal language, right? (Because if it was verbal, it would have been in English…) ??? This a redial? – “has the dial been replaced?”
58 "Hard to get good help these days." Laney kills the projector and removes the massive eyephones. In the sudden gloom, his face is reduced to a child's drawing, smudged black eyeholes against a pallid smear. "The man who was taking that call-" "The one who spoke?" "He owns the world. Near as anyone does." ??? Near as anyone does = “If someone owns the world, it is him.”
66 "I've got three more in the car," Tessa said, pulling a sleazy-looking black control glove over her right hand. She experimented with the touch pads, revving the platform's miniature props and swinging it through a twenty-foot circle. ???sleazy-looking = apparently worn or heavily used?
69 "Camera loves you. You've got a body makes boys chew carpet." ???… makes boys chew carpet – is it a common expression (or an idiom) or would you recommend to translate this literally?
79 She'd watched the maker craft and braise a hilt of brass, rivet slabs of laminated circuit board and shape them on a belt grinder. ???braise
thanks
T.
Posted by Colorful Cartman (Member # 256) on :
She was getting a good burn on now ==>> a strong burning sensation in the muscles (from working out)
propitiatory magic ==>> I'm guessing he's trying to appease passants
he is translating the markings and symbols into verbal language, right? ==>> yep, I think so
redial ==>> fake (not sure though)
sleazy-looking = apparently worn or heavily used? ==>> right on
makes boys chew carpet; is it a common expression (or an idiom) or would you recommend to translate this literally? ==>> I'd use an expression, the equivalent of "she's a real looker" perhaps
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Decidedly" means something along the lines of "definitely". Basically, it means there's no question about it. "Concave" means his chest curves in rather than out.
I'm guessing the word "translate" was used because he wasn't actually reading the words off the watch. Presumably, the "ordnance markings" consisted of some sort of symbol, or maybe "RAAF", or something. So, whatever the actual marks were, he translated them into what he said.
"Near as anyone does" is pretty much what you thought. It means that, even though no-one actually owns the world, he's the closest thing you'll find to a world owner.
Braising is a way of cooking food. I have to assume it's being used as a metaphor here.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
148 The crystal-clear shot of Carson was eclipsed by a close-up of Tessa, eyes wide with amazement and about to burst out laughing, just as Creedmore found one of the nipples he was after, and Chevette, in pure reflex, let go of his neck with her left arm and punched him, as hard and as discreetly as possible, in the ribs, going in with all the knuckle she could leverage. ??? with all the knuckle she could leverage = with as many knuckles of her fist as possible?
149 Turning to see a face she knew, though she couldn't put a name to it. Ragged pale hair above a thin hard face, bad scar snaking his left cheek. A sometime messenger from her Allied days, not part of her crew but a face from parties. "Heron," the name came to her. "I thought you were gone," Heron said, displaying broken teeth. Maybe something broken in his head too, it struck her. Or maybe just some substance, tonight. ??? Ragged = cut unevenly ??? broken - I feel the resonance with the "broken" in the next sentence, I just want to be sure - it was "ragged" or "misaligned", right?
229 Rydell turned, hand pressed into his side. "Got any adhesive tape? The wide kind?" Fontaine did have a first-aid kit, but it never had anything anyone ever needed. He had a couple of crumbling wound compresses circa about 1978 in there and an elaborate industrial eye bandage with instructions in what looked like Finnish.
Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
with all the knuckle she could leverage= with as many knuckles of her fist as possible?
Probably moreso referring to generic strength, or effort. The more "knuckle," the more effort.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
??? decidedly concave chest This is also intended to imply that this person is physically weak or perhaps cowardly. It's bad posture, really, the slouched shoulders of these music icons.
???sleazy-looking = apparently worn or heavily used? You are right about it meaning worn or heavily used, but it can also imply a cheapness. That it is a product of shody workmanship.
???? makes boys chew carpet ? is it a common expression (or an idiom) or would you recommend to translate this literally? It's an idiom. It means she's got a totally incredible body. I don't know whether it would translate literally. You could change it to '...You've got a body makes boys cry.'
???braise The cooking procedure came from the real metal-craft thing. Braising is a process like welding or soldering. It's a process commonly used in plumbing, but here apparently in metal-working artisanship. You use a torch to melt brass to weld two pieces of metal together (or to coat a single piece of metal as I think is happening here.)
??? Ragged = cut unevenly ??? broken - I feel the resonance with the "broken" in the next sentence, I just want to be sure - it was "ragged" or "misaligned", right? The first instance is refering to actual jaggedly broken teeth. The second sentence I think is more referring to the person's state of mind. This person is 'broken' in the head or in an altered state of reality. Crazy or perhaps as she guesses he's on some sort of drug.
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
77 Tong's fake-classical theme cracked and hollowed, weird bass notes rumbling in just above the threshold of the subsonic. ???cracked and hollowed
80 And so far, she thinks, she's not seen a single face she knows from before, and no one has greeted her, and she finds herself imagining the bridge's entire population replaced in her absence. No, there went the bookstall woman, the one with the ivory chopsticks thrust into her dyed black bun, and she recognizes the Korean boy with the bad leg, rumbling his father's soup wagon along as though it should have brakes. ??? rumbling his father's soup wagon along as though it should have brakes = suggesting he was going so fast that he should have brakes?
80 Perfect for Tessa, she thinks: the bridge people maintaining their interstices. Doing their little things. But Chevette has seen them drunk. Has seen the drugged and the mad dive to their deaths in the gray and unforgiving chop. ??? chop
82 Shadowed where she remembers light, and she sees that the bulb, above, in this enclosed space, is missing. This is the lower end of Skinner's "funicular," the little junkyard elevator trolley, built for him by a black man named Fontaine, and it was here that she'd lock her bike in her messengering days, after shouldering it up another, less covert ladder. ??? junkyard elevator trolley
83 "Have you seen this girl?" Movie-looking white man, face painted dark like they do down the coast. How they dress when they had time to think about coming here, everything worn out just right. Leather jacket like he's left his old airplane around the corner. Blue jeans. Black T. ??? face painted dark
86 The store on Sunset had had a finish that ate graffiti. The gang kids would come and tag it; twenty minutes later these flat, dark, vaguely crab-like patches of dark blue would come gliding around the corner. Rydell had never understood how they worked and Durius said they'd been deve1oped in Singapore. They seemed to be embedded, a few millimeters down into the surface, which was a sort of non-glossy gel-coat affair, but able to move around under there. Smart material, he'd heard that called. And they'd glide up to the tag, whatever artfully abstract scrawl had been sprayed there to declare fealty or mark territory or swear revenge (Durius had been able to read these things and construct a narrative out of them) and start eating it. You couldn't actually see the crablegs move. They just sort of nuzzled in and gradually the tag started to unravel, de-rez, molecules of paint sucked down into the blue of the Lucky Dragon graffiti-eaters. ??? Durius had been able to read these things and construct a narrative out of them - narrative - like there was actually some story to tell? ??? de-rez - losing resolution
90 ... her parents' (Praisegod's) sect identified all things federal as aspects of Satan. ???aspects of Satan = impersonations of Satan?
91 Rydell was instantly engulfed in a fog of vodka and errant testosterone. He turned and saw Creedmore grinning fiercely, quite visibly free of the human condition. Behind him loomed a larger man, pale and fleshy, his dark eyes set close together. "You're drunk," snapped the security guard. "Get out." "Drunk?" Creedmore winced grotesquely, miming some crippling emotional pain. "Says I'm drunk..." Creedmore turned to the man behind him. "Randy, this motherfucker says I'm drunk." The corners of the large man's mouth... ???fleshy ???would you say the other man (Randy) was fat or tall or whatever?
97 THE apartment is large and has nothing in it that is not of practical use. Consequently, the dark hardwood floors are bare and quite meticulously swept. Seated in an expensive, semi-intelligent Swedish workstation chair, he is sharpening the knife. This is a task (he thinks of it as a function) requiring emptiness. ???function - which one of the following meanings fits? (http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=function)
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I would say you're correct about the brakes, the narrative, and "de-rez".
chop == waves, usually small but rough
"Face painted dark" might be literal, suggesting the guy's face is covered w/ some kind of dark makeup.
"Aspects" doesn't mean "impersonations". More like they're saying those institutions are actual manifestations of Satan on Earth. Basically, it means these people think anything federal is evil.
fleshy == fat
Posted by TORI (Member # 687) on :
194 "Whole new game here," Laney opens. "How so?" Klaus appears to suck his teeth. "Harwood's had 5-SB. And you know it too, because those chilango kids of yours just told me. How long have you known?" ???chilango kids (for those who have read ATP - "chilango kids" means Libia and Paco)
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
"Chilango" seems to be a slang word in Mexican Spanish meaning "someone from the city." I'm not sure if Mexico's stereotypical city kid is similar or not to the US stereotype.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
quote:Originally posted by TORI: ???function - which one of the following meanings fits? (http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=function)
#3, really, with the subtextual implication of 1 & 2. The idea being that this character does not percieve the sharpening of his knife as something which he must do out of obligation, but more of something he does as a symbolic or ritualistic act of respect.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)