Perfection

I just spent the last few hours reading blogs about translations and translators; a great way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon. A great way to spend time, period. I hadn't realized that there were so many out there and I didn't know how good they were. Informative and entertaining and illuminating and interesting and fascinating .... But still I wondered if these translation bloggers didn't ever have to deal with imperfection, i.e. their own imperfection? It's so fun dealing with everybody else's imperfections, especially if you're a translator, language is such a perfect object of projection.

So instead of including an imperfect translation of mine - of which there are many - I decided to include an "imperfect" bracelet. I discovered the design for it in a book about beading and I thought it looked lovely and fairly simple to make. Wrong. I spent hours trying to figure out how to interpret the instructions and then hours doing it; I ordered the wrong shapes and sizes and colors of the beads, and I never did figure out what I did wrong and what I could have done to improve it. (Actually it was my second attempt, the first one was even worse). Still, it ended up a bracelet that looks pretty from a distance (at least I think so). And now try double-clicking on it. If you do, all of its flaws and irregularities look pretty glaring.

And so I am continually amazed that I read so little about "imperfection" in language and writing blogs. I've been in the translation business for more than twenty-five years now, and I continue to be overwhelmed by the endless potential pitfalls.

Jewelry and beading blogs are different. In fact, beaders are pretty fascinating that way. Especially beaders who make their own glass beads. They show you this solutely perfect bead they've just completed, and you say "wow", and they say "oh no, look at all these flaws ... here here and here".

Unfortunately, in all my imperfection, I have to open up a new post to be able to attach a picture (that is why yesterday's Porsche logo is mixed in with jewelry, in case you were wondering), so that I will wait until tomorrow to post what I think is a "perfect" bead, and a "perfect" precious metal clay pendant, made by one of my favorite bead artists, Danny Lennertz.