January retroblog roundup

I am getting better at posting content, although of course the date-stamps and quality of the content remain quite variable. Bah! humbug. This activity is for me anyway; I'm not making any ad revenue, I'm not getting any writing contracts, I'm just participating in the social media-o-drome (alternately: blagoweb) by sharing some content. I am the worldwide expert at me, so this is your best site for on-the-ground reportage from my real life.

Welcome, internet.

This month, we relived these exciting moments of the past:

• Wolf on a wharf
• Portland picturesque sunset
• A beautiful prospect
• Cue the pipe organ
• Austin dawn
• Traced against the sky
• Bizarre expressionless mannequins
• Fruit
• City on fire[works]
• Statuary at the Victoria & Albert (extended bonus edition: whale skeleton scaffolding!)

And also we revisited this media, consumed and now mulled over for some time:

• Inside Out
• Star Wars: n+1 (again)
• The End of the Sentence

I also declared personal book-blogging bankruptcy, and so I'm now only trying to blog things I've read since 2016 began, but right when I finish them (plus sometimes a day or so to think about it). I'm using Beeminder to help with this. We'll see how it goes.


This post's theme word has been sitting in my theme-words queue for awhile: gamp, "a large umbrella." There goes that tramp with a gamp!

Dark Vador

Some translations are inexplicable. I thought, foolishly I now see, that Darth Vader was a fictional character whose two-word referent was... entirely invented. Apparently not, since it was translated in the French version of all Star Wars stuff as "Dark Vador."

The venerable Louvre is graced with this poster... and exhibit!
"Mythes fondateurs: D'Hercule à Dark Vador"

Darth --> Dark? "Dark" is a word in English, so the fact that this is the French translation of "Darth" is especially backwards. Also, I thought "Darth" was a sort of honorific or title; "Dark" is neither of those things.

Vader --> Vador? I guess the vowel swap makes it easier to pronounce in French. This is now my preferred pronunciation, heavy on the final rolled 'r'.

This post's theme word is ullage, "the amount of liquor by which a cask or bottle falls short of being quite full." There's a certain intangible ullage in that translation.