![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Pressing on...
Aug. 25th, 2005 08:38 pmI was fortunate to have gotten a couple of hours of sleep in the late afternoon yesterday before the prop team party, not because I partied hard but because there was so much work to do.
Compared to the party after prop load during the Intelsat 10-02 campaign, this was a staid affair (and that's probably a good thing, considering the shenanigans during that soiree). The menu featured quasi-Georgian food (shashlyk and chicken in a marvelous sauce), and there was plenty of both food and drink to go around, as usual.
Also as usual, management took the opportunity to say a few - nay, quite a number - of well-chosen words. As Vladimir was again assigned the position of tamada, I deferred when Dr. B. got up to propose a toast.
As it turns out, it was perhaps the right move. I was saved the ignominy of being in the situation where the speaker exhibits a deeper knowledge of some subject than the interpreter. (This is never supposed to happen; interpreters are supposed to Know Everything™.) This occurred when Dr. B. prefaced the main part of his toast with a reference from Shakespeare - "прервала связь времен" - referring to a disturbance in the fabric of time (which is how I probably would have interpreted it, without trying to recall whether the Russian corresponded to any of the little Shakespeare that has burned its way into my neuronal paths; you don't get to pause and look up things while interpreting).
(I say "perhaps," because Vladimir didn't know the English version either, but spent some time explaining that the quote was not familiar to him; I would have conveyed the sense and pressed on. No matter...)
As the evening progressed, I thought Dr. B.'s citation might be from Hamlet, when the prince says "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite,/That ever I was born to set it right" (Act 1, Scene 5). When I asked afterward, though, Dr. B. was pretty sure the phrase was from King Lear.
Being the geek that I am, I googled for the Russian phrase earlier today, but had to give up the search after a few minutes without success (it was a crazy day at the office). I again took up the challenge a few minutes ago, but could not find anything except a couple of pointers to an essay that also references Ray Bradbury.
I then tried simply to look for the last two words "связь времен" (which is a much less common colocation than the first pair of words, which basically denotes an interruption of some kind of communication, e.g., a phone call, and therefore would result in many search hits). Up pops a reference to "пала связь времен" from, ahem, Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5).
(The query also turned up a reference to a visit by Yul Brynner's son to Vladivostok in 2003 to "восстановить разорванную связь времен" ("restore the torn bonds of time"), and although those words are quoted in the article, I get the feeling they are those of Brynner's son and not a reference to classical literature.)
In the final analysis, there is no final analysis, except to know that my guess of "the time is out of joint...," would have very likely have been the right call, had I been interpreting and had it occurred to me, you should pardon the expression, in time.
After the formal toasts, I ended up interpreting for a number of people and for a variety of purposes. By the time I left, a little after 11 pm, I had a roaring sore throat from running my mouth for so long. Despite that, I had a pretty good time.
* * * As it turned out, Vladimir was under the weather this morning, so I got a call to come in early in his stead. As it turned out, I interpreted for a very long, involved, and "meaty" morning meeting, after which I pulled some easy duty supporting some engineers from SAAB who are here to do their magic with the marvelously strong clamp band that holds the satellite to the adapter until the latter is no longer required.
Earlier this evening, I dropped over to the Khrunichev Telecom office, where I asked to borrow a soldering iron so I could manufacture a cable intended to provide a USB connection to my CVS one-time video camera. I brought along everything except what will now probably be the most important tool for close work: a set of reading glasses. One of the guys there helped me out tremendously and did a better job of soldering the connector onto the cable than I could probably have done on the best of days.
The French are off in town visiting the Luna and if my eavesdropping skills have not degraded, a number of the ILS folks are off watching Dr. Strangelove. I think I will go for a walk, or just sit out in front of the hotel for a while.
Cheers...
Compared to the party after prop load during the Intelsat 10-02 campaign, this was a staid affair (and that's probably a good thing, considering the shenanigans during that soiree). The menu featured quasi-Georgian food (shashlyk and chicken in a marvelous sauce), and there was plenty of both food and drink to go around, as usual.
Also as usual, management took the opportunity to say a few - nay, quite a number - of well-chosen words. As Vladimir was again assigned the position of tamada, I deferred when Dr. B. got up to propose a toast.
As it turns out, it was perhaps the right move. I was saved the ignominy of being in the situation where the speaker exhibits a deeper knowledge of some subject than the interpreter. (This is never supposed to happen; interpreters are supposed to Know Everything™.) This occurred when Dr. B. prefaced the main part of his toast with a reference from Shakespeare - "прервала связь времен" - referring to a disturbance in the fabric of time (which is how I probably would have interpreted it, without trying to recall whether the Russian corresponded to any of the little Shakespeare that has burned its way into my neuronal paths; you don't get to pause and look up things while interpreting).
(I say "perhaps," because Vladimir didn't know the English version either, but spent some time explaining that the quote was not familiar to him; I would have conveyed the sense and pressed on. No matter...)
As the evening progressed, I thought Dr. B.'s citation might be from Hamlet, when the prince says "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite,/That ever I was born to set it right" (Act 1, Scene 5). When I asked afterward, though, Dr. B. was pretty sure the phrase was from King Lear.
Being the geek that I am, I googled for the Russian phrase earlier today, but had to give up the search after a few minutes without success (it was a crazy day at the office). I again took up the challenge a few minutes ago, but could not find anything except a couple of pointers to an essay that also references Ray Bradbury.
I then tried simply to look for the last two words "связь времен" (which is a much less common colocation than the first pair of words, which basically denotes an interruption of some kind of communication, e.g., a phone call, and therefore would result in many search hits). Up pops a reference to "пала связь времен" from, ahem, Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5).
(The query also turned up a reference to a visit by Yul Brynner's son to Vladivostok in 2003 to "восстановить разорванную связь времен" ("restore the torn bonds of time"), and although those words are quoted in the article, I get the feeling they are those of Brynner's son and not a reference to classical literature.)
In the final analysis, there is no final analysis, except to know that my guess of "the time is out of joint...," would have very likely have been the right call, had I been interpreting and had it occurred to me, you should pardon the expression, in time.
After the formal toasts, I ended up interpreting for a number of people and for a variety of purposes. By the time I left, a little after 11 pm, I had a roaring sore throat from running my mouth for so long. Despite that, I had a pretty good time.
Earlier this evening, I dropped over to the Khrunichev Telecom office, where I asked to borrow a soldering iron so I could manufacture a cable intended to provide a USB connection to my CVS one-time video camera. I brought along everything except what will now probably be the most important tool for close work: a set of reading glasses. One of the guys there helped me out tremendously and did a better job of soldering the connector onto the cable than I could probably have done on the best of days.
The French are off in town visiting the Luna and if my eavesdropping skills have not degraded, a number of the ILS folks are off watching Dr. Strangelove. I think I will go for a walk, or just sit out in front of the hotel for a while.
Cheers...
