Gilbert Mack

            On Sunday morning I knew that the time had moved back an hour but I hadn’t changed the alarm before going to bed. I often wake up before my alarm goes off and so I thought I’d be able to get up without the alarm this time, but I woke up at 5:15. I rushed through yoga again and by the time I’d finished and sat down at the computer to work out the chords to one of my songs I was only four minutes behind. I decided not to work out the chords this morning but just to separate the lines so they’d be ready to start adding the chords on Monday. 

            I finally published “Arthur, où t'as mis le corps?” (Arthur, Where’d You Put the Corpse?) by Boris Vian on Christian’s Translations but I still need to post my translation on Facebook before moving on to learning his next song. I’ll do that on Monday. 

            I finished singing and playing my translation of “Baby Boum” by Serge Gainsbourg and had time to upload it to Christian’s Translations, edit it, and publish it. I’ll post my translation for that on Facebook tomorrow as well. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I still hadn’t heard back from my instructor about the correctness of the structure of the annotated bibliography that I put together for my essay proposal. I have a day and a half before it needs to be handed in so hopefully, she won’t wait until the last minute to respond.

            I read more of “Combined and Uneven Development.” It seems to be saying that the modernity that modernism responds to is really just capitalism. I fell asleep a few times while reading it and had to get up and stick my head out the window to wake up. 

            For lunch, I had plantain chips with mashed avocado and salsa and my last glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            In the afternoon it was snowing a little too much to take a bike ride. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos at 17:45. 

            I finished reading “Combined and Uneven Development.” There was a quote from a very good argument supporting translation as an art form: 

            Andrés Neuman's novel Traveller of the Century features an extended discussion of translation …'1 think being faithful is a contradiction, because the moment another text emerges, faithfulness is no longer achievable, the poem has been transformed, it has become a different poem. We have to take as a given the impossibility of rewriting anything literally, not even a single word. Some translators are wary of this transformation, seeing it as a betrayal rather than a variation. But if it is well done, if the job of interpretation gives the right result, the text may even be improved, or at least become a poem as wor-thy as its predecessor ... 1 think it is the translator's duty to offer the reader an authentic poem in his own language precisely to remain faithful to the poetic nature of the original … Let us not deceive our-selves - even an original poem has no single interpretation, to read a poem is also to translate it, we can never be completely sure of what a poem is saying even in our own language. As 1 see it, a translation is not made of an authorial voice and one that obeys it, rather it is more akin to a meeting of two literary wills. In the end, there is always a third person … who is a third discordant voice, which turns out to be that of the reader. A work doesn't begin and end with its author, it forms part of a much broader group, a kind of writing collective that includes translators. A translation is neither a betrayal nor a substitute, it is another contribution, a further push to something that is already in motion … No good translation can ever distort the translated work … 

            I made soup with sauteed onions, black jalapenos, the rest of my chicken drippings, potatoes, lima beans, and broccoli. I had a bowl of it while watching an episode of Astro Boy. 

            This story was much more sophisticated than the previous ones. The first commercial space flight to the Moon is about to launch and we see certain passengers board who will figure prominently in the story. A criminal named Lucky Louis mugs a passenger and ties him up, then he steals his ticket and puts his own picture on the man’s passport. A little girl named Marble who is going to the Moon to see her father is being seen off by her aunt. Very uncharacteristic of modern times, the aunt asks Louis, a man she’s never seen before, to look after her niece. A rich and very greedy businessman named Rocko Gibraltar is boarding and a beautiful lady named Mona Toujours is being seen off by several wealthy suitors. Just before the Taurus is about to take off, authorities learn that Louis is on board. They can’t stop the launch and so Astro Boy flies on to nab him. But the ship takes off and so Astro Boy has to stay for the flight. He finds Louis sharing a cabin with Marble. Astro disarms Louis and takes him into custody but the three have to share a cabin on the way to the Moon. Marble thinks Louis is very nice and he starts to show that he is. On the way to the Moon, the ship is hit by a meteor and Astro, Marble, Louis, Mona, and Rocko have to share a space lifeboat. But the lifeboat goes off course and by the time Astro fixes it they are low on fuel. They have to land on an asteroid halfway to Mars. At first it seems there is no air or life on the asteroid but then Astro Boy discovers that the air is frozen and during the day the ice evaporates and becomes breathable. There are also tall, fast-growing trees that grow during the day but die at night. Astro Boy goes exploring and thinks he sees a monster. When he returns to the lifeboat the others are gone and Marble is unconscious. She says they saw a monster and the others ran but she fainted. While looking for the others, Astro finds an old-style rocket ship. On board he listens to a tape recording made by the pilot, Margo Pogo. She tells the story of how she was stranded with her giant servant robot Chris Crinkle. With his help she survived. She later discovered that the asteroid was rich in diamonds. After three years Margo got sick and died. But Chris remains and since he is programmed to be a nurse, he keeps trying to put Astro Boy to bed so he can care for him. It takes several tries for Astro to escape. Astro discovers that Margo’s wrecked ship still has plenty of fuel and so he transfers it to the lifeboat. Astro Boy calculates that the asteroid will orbit closest to earth in two days and that’s when they’ll have to leave. But close to launch time the others, except for Marble, go looking for diamonds. Astro Boy goes after them but loses power and collapses. Rocko wants to leave Astro Boy behind but Louis risks his own life and goes out to bring him fuel even though night is coming on and he might freeze. Astro Boy saves them all but Rocko sneaks away to Margo’s ship to find diamonds. He finds them but Chris Crinkle won’t let him leave as he insists on putting him to bed and caring for him. The others have to leave him behind. 

            This was apparently somewhat inspired by the John Wayne movie Stagecoach in which the bad guy turns out to be a good guy and vice versa. Louis seems to be based on John Wayne’s Ringo Kid from the movie. 

            Rocko was played by Gilbert Mack, who was part of a troupe of three actors that dubbed most of the voices for the Astro Boy series as well as for several other animated Japanese movies and shows. He was the lead voice in Puss in Boots.