Tag Archive culture

ByGD

Book Report: Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation book coverLately I’ve been receiving a lot of review copies of novelty books. I wanted to review Crap Taxidermy, a self-explanatory photo book based on a Tumblr, but it depressed me too much. Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World is much more my style, although it too has a Tumblr feel about it, and my feelings on bloggy books are mixed. Unrelated to the movie of the same name, Lost in Translation is a collection of foreign words that have no equivalent in English.

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Crowded Little Rock

rock in ThingvellirA rock theme seems to be emerging here. I guess geology is a little hard to ignore in Iceland. I’m trying to break up the tourist posts with a little bit of reflection, and today I’m thinking about crowded little rocks. I’ve always had a fascination with isolated island nations, and have over the years been infatuated with Japan (before it was popular), Sri Lanka, and now, Iceland. Developed almost in a vacuum, external influences on these places can become disproportionately significant, transformed beyond recognition. Read More