A day hawking the mail...

Staying up late was not in the picture yesterday, but Drew tells me that there was no broadcast of The X Files last night, which would make sense. If the premiere had to be screened at some late hour to accommodate the World Series, then some serious fraction of viewers would not get to see it, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of a premiere.

I spent pretty much the whole day at the store, reconciling our receivables and printing out statements in between serving customers. As a result, I am pretty dead tired.

I finished the Cussler book earlier this evening. It made for a good read, and it's nice to see that Cussler hasn't lost his touch, even if he has started to insert himself into the action in a cameo role, à la Hitchcock.

* * *The keynote speaker at the ATA's kickoff session was John Felstiner, a literary translator who works from Spanish into English. His remarks were so captivating, that I decided to pick up a book on sale by one of the exhibitor-booksellers at the conference, titled Literary Translation, written by a polysci professor from I-forget-where. I also picked up Felstiner's book Translating Neruda: The Way to Macchu Picchu, primarily on the strength of his remarks.

The book on literary translation, which was on sale at $10 off its list price, is billed as looking at the craft from a practical instead of theoretical perspective, and I'm still in "browse" mode with it, opening it at random to read a few paragraphs before putting it down to do something else. I like what I've read, so far. Most certainly, it lives up to its description as a practical guide to literary translation, and I've learned something with every "dip" into the text so far.

* * *I have a load of contacts to catch up on, and with any luck, will do so tomorrow. I've put a hold on my own travel for the rest of the year, as we have to gear the shop up for the Christmas season (and work the Christmas season, too). However, I'd also like to build some serious momentum toward getting some translation business flowing my way so I don't have to go traipsing to far-off climes to pay the bills (okay, so Houston is not that far off, still...).

Time to go relax a bit and go to bed. I think I'll go dip into the translation book.

Cheers...