as a translator who’s worked with ‘em: their taste is fine, their treatment of translators far less so. give your money to presses that don’t short the folks they depend on for numerous months.

love,
a translator who knows better than to buy into the hype

In food history, we notice how super-refined foods--gelatin, vienna sausage, white bread--lose class and become horrifying once they become industrialized. Suddenly, fingermarks in bread dough demonstrate skill, not clumsiness.

Post-chatGPT, I'm feeling this about writing. Smoothness feels gross.

🇦🇺Australian doctor Nada Abu Alrub volunteering in Gaza City writes:

“Today’s shift cannot be written down; not even in a hundred years could words capture how horrific it was; not even in the worst imagination of any human being. So, I’ll only write this: This Was The Worst Day Of The Genocide...

If being anti-fascist is "antiamerican" then supporting America is __________?

When they say ai is a time saver what that often means is that it’s a tool that makes it easier for you to waste someone else’s time.

Apropos of nothing, in 1934 the Times wrote about ‘Gleichschaltung’, the process by the newly empowered Nazi government to bring all aspects of German society under their control.

Such a weird feeling to know that On the Calculation of Volume 6 just came out in Danish a month ago—and NOT want to know anything about it

Huge HUGE thanks to YZ Chin for helping to plan all this and the @catranslation.org for all the technological and logistical heavy lifting... and to the NEA's former Literary Arts staffers who held their ground as long as they could to support the arts in the USA. Do tune in and see the magic!

Starting next Friday! Join me and the other incredible 2025 NEA Translation Fellows as we share a glimpse of our projects across five Friday Zooms. Register here to tune into the whole series: www.catranslation.org/event/works-...

More than 50,000 Palestinians have been left homeless in less than a week due to “large-scale destruction” caused by Israeli attacks across Gaza City, according to Gaza’s Civil Defence.

🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/eb39up

Aww, this makes my heart so full! JELLYFISH HAVE NO EARS has been longlisted for @littranslate.bsky.social's National Translation Award! literarytranslators.org/awards/2025-...

@jeremytiang.bsky.social: "It’s not an either/or. I commend you, Jacques, for paying your translators well, but you could do that and put our names on the front cover." —On Translation: Como Conversazione VI (Passing Judgment)

Authors: If you found out that your publisher(s) failed to register with the U.S. Copyright Office, we can help. We provide ongoing legal assistance to our members and advocate for their work, particularly in the face of ongoing AI-related theft.

"All of the translators in this conversation, for reasons of temperament and structure, seem to have a masochistic relationship to their work. But as in masochism, the pain is a kind of pleasure, too." —On Translation: Como Conversazione III (Shame, Seams, Scars)

This is what happens when you order delivery in DC right now.

This feels like a spot of good news

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

I'm starting a movement. Every time you, or someone you know, gives AI agency, replace it with "Big Tech". See for example:

"Big Tech" is killing my job.
"Big Tech" is reading my CT scan.
"Big Tech" is writing my paper.
I asked "Big Tech" to be my girlfriend.

Maybe that will speed up regulation.

Just finished ANIMA FATUA by Ana Lidia Vega Serova, tr. @robmunb.bsky.social and pub. @amaurea-press.bsky.social 🕊️

I’ve never read a book like this: it traces the story of a young Cuban-Russian girl growing up in the USSR. Brutal, tender & utterly memorable. Wonderful translation, Robin!
🪆🪆🪆

Do you think Medusa could stay underwater forever if she used her hair like little snake snorkels? My guess is that each hair snake would probably have its own little respiratory system and it wouldn’t be enough to oxygenate a full Medusa, but this is an important conversation to have

with alt text

CIA approved tactics for populations under hostile occupation

In 2016, before Trump secured the GOP nomination, the Boston Globe made a fictional dystopian front page of what a nightmare world it would be if Trump won. And those just pretty much are our actual headlines now.

A friend recently said "I used ChatGPT to look up (I forget what exactly)." My look of disbelief followed by my "You did what?" completely caught them off guard. Like, people just think "well, it's there so that's what we're supposed to use."

Kat hit it here. The sycophantic sentience is the drug.

Few if any experts know more about the deliberate use of starvation as a war crime than Alex de Waal. If he says it's happening, it's so.

il n'est d'idées que dans les choses