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4/9/03 15:46![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eredienMy God, these people are geniuses. Look at their design.
Look at what they do with it.
Translation:
Playbomж, June 2003.
Forty-five photographs of Moscow bums.
1. Dreams
2. Photos
3. Info
1. Dreams
Lexa: I dreamed that I rode to Egypt.
Bandit: I wanted to be a pilot.
Kat: I wanted to sail on a battleship.
Delphin: Dreamed of being a pedicatrician.
Lovey Petya: the professional stripteaser.
King Kong and Sveta: ... we only want to get out.
2. Photos
Lovey Petya.
Valery Ivanovich.
Was a literature teacher but gave up "the corrupting influcences of materialism".
Lidya Sergeevna had problems with her apartment.
Natasha, who left her husband.
Worked as a secretary at a supermarket.
Lelik.
Lelik has been on the lam for about 15 years but is still pretty sharp, very erudite and polite.
Bandit.
Bandit, as a child, dreamed of being a pilot (we profiled him in our "dreams" section) but failed the exams at flying school. Now he works at train station loading dock three.
Kat, Bandit's friend.
Kat dreamed of being a sailor as a kid. But he only served during the war at hotpoints.
Vladimir Pavlovich.
20 years ago Vladimir Pavlovich worked in a state-run factory as an engineer.
Delphin.
Delphin started planning his career when he was still in elementary school, wanting to be a swimmer. His results were good, and so on the recommendation of a trainer he was allowed to become a member of the olympic water polo team. He was a master of the sport, within the USSR, in the olympics, one of the best in the world...after the games he was appointed a trainer, but then the bottom fell out of the finances of the sport world and he started to look for another job...then 10 years of currency fluctuations hit. He's been meditating and reading books since then, so that after his exit he has become one of the most kind and intelligent waterpolo players. Strangely, however, in childhood he dreamed of becoming a pediatrician in the children's hospital.
Felix.
Lenin.
Lenin dreamed of being an architect, and then became one!
Tyson.
He wants to become a better and kinder person.
Artist: A well-known personality who hangs around the Arbat [a famous shopping street in Moscow]. He thinks this kind of life suits him, because he doesn't need to think about money and always gets to meet up with interesting people. He himself says that only an idiot couldn't manage to fend for themselves, on the Arbat.
...
We didn't find out a lot about this guy (only that he wanted to be a machinist on a train), but we gave him two hotdogs and a coke.
Natasha.
We learned that Natasha, who left her husband, dreamed of being a speologist [geologist who specaizes in caves], studying stalagmites and stalactites!
Live out your dreams!
The End!
yr. 2000-2003.
3. Info
Talking about the project in general, how these are all photos of people without material posessions or who have had a hard life, etc.
Notes:
The title of the exhibit, I think, is supposed to be a pun in two languages. Both languages. Whatever. It's obviously a pun on the 'playboy' image; but in Russian it's also the vernacular for "bum" and I think it's making a pun on the English "bomb," as in when a joke falls flat: "that bombed."
The language throughout was a little shifty and a little vernacular, I think, so bear with me. I tried to translate stuff as I read it and understood it and would think an English-speaking audience would best get the intent.
1. Dreams
Kat: I spelled it this way because of artistic liscense. "Cat," like the animal, really, but I felt like naming yourself "Cat" in Russian was a little edgy or punkish, and wanted to try and bring that through to the English.
Delphin: I dunno if this is supposed to be "Dolphin" like the animal, or not. I don't have my good dictionary with me yet.
Petya: Petya a is a nickname for Peter. The word I translated as "Lovey" is an adjective in Russian formed from the root word for love. "Loving" isn't really its correct connotation in English. Especially seeing as how he's a stripper. I didn't finish translating the whole story because like I said, no good dictionary.
Sveta: Svet means "light" in Russian.
2. Photos
Valery was a teacher, not a professor. This difference is always clear in Russian. I think it says that he went a bit nuts, but have to drag out my dictionary to make sure (because the word for "going insane" is a bit long and translates as "took leave of/exited his senses" literally). It might have been there, but I couldn't remember correctly and so didn't want to chance it.
Lelik's story is a bit confusing, more dictionary needed there. One of the translations got for the word I translated as "on the lam" means "fermenting," I think. Which may or may not mean he's the town (city?) drunk. Perhaps "stewing" is more appropriate?
Bandit: for the word "three" they used an incredibly archaic form of the word, which you don't see often even in 19th c. Russian novels, and which we only went over for about a day in class, so I can't decide if he works on three seperate loading docks, or only on loading dock number three, or on the third loading dock of the train station.
Kat: hotpoints is literally the translation. "Flashpoints," maybe? Although that sounds too CNN. I think they're talking about the never-ending Chechen war. They pay their soldiers something like 15 cents a month, when they get paid at all, and the war is very unpopular both with the Chechens and the Russian forces at this point.
Delphin: "but then the bottom fell out of the finances of the sport world and he started to look for another job...then 10 years of currency fluctuations hit." I took a lot of liberties here. Basically as the USSR's economy began tanking, they began to stop financially supporting the atheletes. But that sounded awkward in English and the Russian is much more colloquial and flows better. "Fluctuations" can also be translated as "mechanizations" or "manipulations." Remember when they kept trying to prop up the ruble in the mid-90's?
Lenin: possibly his parents were one of the last generation of people who really believed in the Revolution. I think that Russians would find it darkly funny that he got what he wanted and is now homeless. A Russian architect, like a Russian doctor, probably has lots of prestige and the admiration of the citizenry, but nothing to eat.
Artist: It's not the world for "Artist" in Russian, it's transliterated from English. A nickname. The word "fend" is somehow more vulgar in Russian. "Suckle or feed." Another translation I considered is "Only an idiot wouldn't be able to feed off the Arbat." But he was specifically implying that the Arbat, and no other street, was the place that you'd have to be an idiot on not to be able to make it...apparently, other streets would not be so kind to idiots.
Live out your dreams: In the imperative.
3. Info
Does anyone want the full translation? I was lazy and it used big long words.
Look at what they do with it.
Translation:
Playbomж, June 2003.
Forty-five photographs of Moscow bums.
1. Dreams
2. Photos
3. Info
1. Dreams
Lexa: I dreamed that I rode to Egypt.
Bandit: I wanted to be a pilot.
Kat: I wanted to sail on a battleship.
Delphin: Dreamed of being a pedicatrician.
Lovey Petya: the professional stripteaser.
King Kong and Sveta: ... we only want to get out.
2. Photos
Lovey Petya.
Valery Ivanovich.
Was a literature teacher but gave up "the corrupting influcences of materialism".
Lidya Sergeevna had problems with her apartment.
Natasha, who left her husband.
Worked as a secretary at a supermarket.
Lelik.
Lelik has been on the lam for about 15 years but is still pretty sharp, very erudite and polite.
Bandit.
Bandit, as a child, dreamed of being a pilot (we profiled him in our "dreams" section) but failed the exams at flying school. Now he works at train station loading dock three.
Kat, Bandit's friend.
Kat dreamed of being a sailor as a kid. But he only served during the war at hotpoints.
Vladimir Pavlovich.
20 years ago Vladimir Pavlovich worked in a state-run factory as an engineer.
Delphin.
Delphin started planning his career when he was still in elementary school, wanting to be a swimmer. His results were good, and so on the recommendation of a trainer he was allowed to become a member of the olympic water polo team. He was a master of the sport, within the USSR, in the olympics, one of the best in the world...after the games he was appointed a trainer, but then the bottom fell out of the finances of the sport world and he started to look for another job...then 10 years of currency fluctuations hit. He's been meditating and reading books since then, so that after his exit he has become one of the most kind and intelligent waterpolo players. Strangely, however, in childhood he dreamed of becoming a pediatrician in the children's hospital.
Felix.
Lenin.
Lenin dreamed of being an architect, and then became one!
Tyson.
He wants to become a better and kinder person.
Artist: A well-known personality who hangs around the Arbat [a famous shopping street in Moscow]. He thinks this kind of life suits him, because he doesn't need to think about money and always gets to meet up with interesting people. He himself says that only an idiot couldn't manage to fend for themselves, on the Arbat.
...
We didn't find out a lot about this guy (only that he wanted to be a machinist on a train), but we gave him two hotdogs and a coke.
Natasha.
We learned that Natasha, who left her husband, dreamed of being a speologist [geologist who specaizes in caves], studying stalagmites and stalactites!
Live out your dreams!
The End!
yr. 2000-2003.
3. Info
Talking about the project in general, how these are all photos of people without material posessions or who have had a hard life, etc.
Notes:
The title of the exhibit, I think, is supposed to be a pun in two languages. Both languages. Whatever. It's obviously a pun on the 'playboy' image; but in Russian it's also the vernacular for "bum" and I think it's making a pun on the English "bomb," as in when a joke falls flat: "that bombed."
The language throughout was a little shifty and a little vernacular, I think, so bear with me. I tried to translate stuff as I read it and understood it and would think an English-speaking audience would best get the intent.
1. Dreams
Kat: I spelled it this way because of artistic liscense. "Cat," like the animal, really, but I felt like naming yourself "Cat" in Russian was a little edgy or punkish, and wanted to try and bring that through to the English.
Delphin: I dunno if this is supposed to be "Dolphin" like the animal, or not. I don't have my good dictionary with me yet.
Petya: Petya a is a nickname for Peter. The word I translated as "Lovey" is an adjective in Russian formed from the root word for love. "Loving" isn't really its correct connotation in English. Especially seeing as how he's a stripper. I didn't finish translating the whole story because like I said, no good dictionary.
Sveta: Svet means "light" in Russian.
2. Photos
Valery was a teacher, not a professor. This difference is always clear in Russian. I think it says that he went a bit nuts, but have to drag out my dictionary to make sure (because the word for "going insane" is a bit long and translates as "took leave of/exited his senses" literally). It might have been there, but I couldn't remember correctly and so didn't want to chance it.
Lelik's story is a bit confusing, more dictionary needed there. One of the translations got for the word I translated as "on the lam" means "fermenting," I think. Which may or may not mean he's the town (city?) drunk. Perhaps "stewing" is more appropriate?
Bandit: for the word "three" they used an incredibly archaic form of the word, which you don't see often even in 19th c. Russian novels, and which we only went over for about a day in class, so I can't decide if he works on three seperate loading docks, or only on loading dock number three, or on the third loading dock of the train station.
Kat: hotpoints is literally the translation. "Flashpoints," maybe? Although that sounds too CNN. I think they're talking about the never-ending Chechen war. They pay their soldiers something like 15 cents a month, when they get paid at all, and the war is very unpopular both with the Chechens and the Russian forces at this point.
Delphin: "but then the bottom fell out of the finances of the sport world and he started to look for another job...then 10 years of currency fluctuations hit." I took a lot of liberties here. Basically as the USSR's economy began tanking, they began to stop financially supporting the atheletes. But that sounded awkward in English and the Russian is much more colloquial and flows better. "Fluctuations" can also be translated as "mechanizations" or "manipulations." Remember when they kept trying to prop up the ruble in the mid-90's?
Lenin: possibly his parents were one of the last generation of people who really believed in the Revolution. I think that Russians would find it darkly funny that he got what he wanted and is now homeless. A Russian architect, like a Russian doctor, probably has lots of prestige and the admiration of the citizenry, but nothing to eat.
Artist: It's not the world for "Artist" in Russian, it's transliterated from English. A nickname. The word "fend" is somehow more vulgar in Russian. "Suckle or feed." Another translation I considered is "Only an idiot wouldn't be able to feed off the Arbat." But he was specifically implying that the Arbat, and no other street, was the place that you'd have to be an idiot on not to be able to make it...apparently, other streets would not be so kind to idiots.
Live out your dreams: In the imperative.
3. Info
Does anyone want the full translation? I was lazy and it used big long words.
