savetheearth | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Who: Siegfried and anyone at the library
What: Quality time with books in the comfort of air conditioning.
When: 7/5
Where: Locke City Public Library

Siegfried had come to the library to work on a research paper for his art history summer class, but as often was his way, had wound up with far more books on his own personal interests, so while there were a few books on medieval painting, there were quite a few more anthologies of rare fairy tales from across the globe, a few bird watcher guides, a tree identification key, a German/English dictionary and a study on European castles. His note pad was mostly empty, school work utterly forgotten as he became lost in the pages of the borrowed books. The fact that he had been there the entire day, barely moving and forgoing lunch seemed to have utterly escaped his notice as well...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's someone else at the library who needs the German/English dictionary. She's been working on an English translation of Judith Hermann's Nichts Als Gespenster as a means to make some extra cash, but she's been having some difficulties. Translating is always incredibly difficult, but there are other problems besides finding the proper words. Julia's stuck on issues like conveying the proper attitude, correctly evoking nostalgia, or finding the proper word for Turnschuhe.

She notices his dictionary and approaches him.

"Um, hello, yes. I am very sorry, but I must ask you thing?" She's embarrassed by her German accent, so she speaks ridiculously soft.

Siegfried looked up, blinking a few times as if coming back to himself from being far too deep in his reading. "...Yes?"

She offers a sheepish smile-- another apology for interrupting.

"I, ah... This may seem strange; however, I am making translation work, and I need to understand...." She moves her hands about, hoping that she can convey what she's thinking through hand motion alone. She is wildly unsuccessful in this.

"Um, the shoes that peoples wears, when peoples is sporty? How do you say that?"

He blinks again, looking at her a touch curiously.

"...Sneakers....?"

"Ah! Thank you, many times thanks! One more question, please. Is there any other synonyms?"

"...it would depend on what area you were from. Some places call them tennis shoes, others trainers or runners."

He closed his book, shifting to look more closely at her. "What are you translating that you need different words for sneakers...?"

Hold on, give her a sec, she's writing the "trainers," "tennis shoes," and "runners" down. goddamnit why are there so many words for the same thing this isn't even fair.

"It's... It's a very big Importance in a book that I translate. A man speaks to the Heroine and says that buying "Turnschuhe," or sneakers, for children is emotional. She feels overwhelm by this tale, and that is what makes her wish to have a child." Her language becomes significantly more fluid when she speaks about things she's interested in, despite her failed grammar (and totally forgetting that English uses the past tense a lot).

"It is difficult... To, um, express? Yes, express. It is difficult to express the importance of the moment."

There was an utter blank look in Siegfried's face. It wasn't that he didn't understand what she was saying, but the motivations of the characters that baffled him.

"That's a strange reason to what to have a child... Were they enchanted shoes...?"

"No, no! Oh, no." She waves her hands around, again trying to articulate shit without actually using the proper words.

"It's...Ahh... Um. Not enchanting shoes, but... She hears him talk over the feeling of buying the shoes, and it is like the feeling of... Um... Buying thing for peoples you feel love to? As he speaked about the sneakers, she hears the love he feels to his kid. Do that make sense?"

Blink. Blink blink.

"...not really..."

"Schade!" Said under her breath. Because oh God, rising feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment, this is just a huge part of the book, and she can't even articulate it to this kid, and oh god she'll never learn english properly, she should just give up and uhurhgurhughrughsrushguhsgufhjhhahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhurhuhgurgr--

Wait, okay, still having a conversation, smile Julia come on smile.

She smiles.

"Ah, well, then I must make more work on translation! Thank you for the help!"

Another blink. "If the story doesn't make sense, the translation shouldn't matter..." Siegfried pointed out before blinking once more.

"Translating from German?" he asked, switching to the language. His command of it was very... high school. He had done well in his 4 years of study, but with no practical application, it was very wooden and poorly accented, sounding much like how her English did. If not worse.

Oh! She brightens up considerably at hearing the German. She responds in German, speaking very slowly and with special emphasis on articulating the words as precisely as possible.

"Yes, that's correct. I'm from southern Germany, but I'm here for the next few years to study English."

And now he gets to use awkward phrasing instead, huzzah~:D

princenopants - 2013-07-07 03:01 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

teuton - 2013-07-07 04:08 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

princenopants - 2013-07-07 12:59 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

teuton - 2013-07-07 20:15 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

princenopants - 2013-07-07 20:24 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

teuton - 2013-07-07 20:30 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

princenopants - 2013-07-07 20:32 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

teuton - 2013-07-07 20:34 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

princenopants - 2013-07-07 20:35 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

teuton - 2013-07-07 20:41 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

princenopants - 2013-07-07 20:49 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

teuton - 2013-07-07 21:56 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

princenopants - 2013-07-07 22:08 (UTC) - Expand

Banagher's passed by this particular section of tables a few times in his continuous trek back and forth across the library's spacious first floor. The day had been largely uneventful — a quiet morning now giving way to the lengthening shadows of late afternoon. The one constant has been the presence of a blond boy who never actually seemed to move everytime he went past, but still somehow managed to accrue a really impressive pile of books regardless.

Eventually, when he finds himself with a bit of free time, Banagher can't help but approach, not only curious, but a bit perplexed about how he could sit still for so long. In the time he's noticed him sitting there, he's already put away two trolleys, organized mythology, and scarfed a granola bar!

"Um," he starts when he's within earshot, though it's not exactly the most eloquent form of a greeting. "Were you having trouble finding something?"

Edited 2013-07-06 11:25 (UTC)

The teen blinked as he looked up, looking almost as if he was coming out of a trance, having been so deeply involved in his reading, and it takes him a moment to focus. "...No..." he finally replied, finger resting on his spot on the page.

"Oh," he replies, blinking down at him. Carefully, he pulls up a seat, hoping he won't mind the intrusion too much. In truth, there was something that'd caught his eye in the spread of books laid out on the table.

"You've just been here all day, so I thought you might have needed some help."

Banagher's gaze lingers on the covers of the medieval art references, the rich reds and golds and silvers of cloaks and armor and banners, ladies with golden hair in white dresses. It was so, so similar. After a moment, he reaches out to gently tap the cover of one.

"Do you like stuff like this?"

Siegfried seemed to consider the question a moment. "I don't think it's going to be my concentration of study, but the class has been interesting so far... "

It wasn't... quite an answer, but to be honest, Siegfried wasn't sure if he liked it or not. It was a subject he was studying, like so many other things, but the other books on the table had caught his interest far more easily, which meant that while he was interested, he might not be interested enough to like it.

"So you take summer classes," Banagher infers. That explained the study materials, even if most of them had remained blank. "Sorry if that was a weird question, or if it came out of no where, I've just been looking for something that looks like this."

For emphasis, he points to the cover of one of the books that's packed to the brim with knights on white horses, waving banners lined with crescent moons.

"But I haven't been able to find the one I'm —" What? Remembering, when he's not supposed to? "...the one I remember seeing a long time ago."

Not a total lie, but still somewhat stilted sounding.

Siegfried slid the book closer, opening it. "Do you remember any of the elements of it? Most paintings in this period used very similar themes and copied greatly from each other... But there are specific choices and styles that individuals used that make it easier to tell what artist made it when..."

And in theory, he was supposed to be able to identify these things by the end of the semester...

"Elements," Banagher repeats thoughtfully, chewing on how he wants to put it. "It was huge. Way taller than I was. I feel like it took up a whole room! It was really bright red, and..."

He stares hard at the table, dredging up the details of the vision.

"There was a white unicorn, and a lion. I think there were lots of other animals too, but those were the ones that were important. They were guarding someone. At the top, it said something. To my one sole desire. But it's strange, because," he stops, having said it in English, but he pulls a small notepad from his pocket and scribbles something on it.

"I know what it means, but it was written like this."

On the pad is À mon seul désir.

Pages flipped effortly as Siegfried skipped through sections before smoothing the pages down on a double page spread titled "The Lady and the Unicorn." His finger tapped lightly on the sixth tapestry. "There's another book that goes more in depth on the series," he explained, sliding the book over so Banagher could look. "It's from a series of tapestries from the late 15th century that are considered one of the greatest pieces of art from the time period."

As soon as the pages split to reveal that stunning red, he's hooked.

"You found it so easily!" he says, awed when he accepts the book from him. "I didn't even have a clue that they were tapestries, and not a painting."

Righting the book in front of him, he slowly turns the pages over, drinking in the sight of people dwarfed by the scale of all of the panels lined up one by one.

"It almost doesn't even look real."

One of the benifits to a very expensive private school focusing on the arts was that while Siegfried continued to have a bit of a lack of understanding on the more practical side of life, he was very well versed in the artistic.

"It is. It's very impressive to see in person, the attention to detail and the scale is something you can't convey in a reproduction."

"I get that impression too," he replies, somewhat slowly, and a fair bit too honestly. "It's amazing." Mostly because he knows that. He knows what it's like to physically stand in front of those tapestries.

"But it doesn't look like they leave Paris, does it? Like if you wanted to see them, you'd have to go there." There's a blurb on one of the following pages about the museum that houses them in France. Not like anything really made sense in the first place, but he's sure that it wasn't a museum he'd seen them in.

"Once something like that is housed it tends not to be moved. Moving older pieces, especially large installments runs the risk of damaging something irreplaceable, so it's best to be minimized. Most pieces like this only are moved when the museum itself no longer becomes an ideal environment for it to be housed in."