Feeling very meta today.
Apr. 24th, 2006 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arkster"The word 'fandom' needs to stop existing."
It doesn't really matter where I got this. It's quite likely I'll never cross internet paths with the person who wrote it in my entire online career. I still feel like writing about it.
One of the many things I've learned from translating is that the individual word is not important. It's a front, an often imperfect representation of a broader concept. The act of translation, so far as I can tell, is to deconstruct words into their base concepts, and then to reconstruct that concept in the destination language. More pertinent to this discussion: the act of understanding is simply that first step, the deconstruction of words into nebulous internal concepts.
If this is true, then writing about any particular concept by definition is a reconstruction of the concept back into words. Sometimes I think the definition of skillful writing is a series of words that hints around a concept, bringing the reader's mind to approximate the same concept going through the writer's without the benefit of direct telepathy.
Oh yes. I was going to talk about fandom, before the idea that the erasure of a single word from the common lexicon would be at all effective managed to distract me.
I made a new friend the other day. (=D) She added me on last.fm some time ago, based on our common interest in Final Fantasy music. I was of course perfectly happy to add her back, but didn't think much of it as I don't actually use that site more than twice a month. Last week, though, she commented on a friend's journal and I recognized the screenname. Curious, I checked out her journal- and discovered some of the most consistently excellent and original FF6 artwork I'd ever seen. Icyites, you've seen it too. Hot shit. I ask her "Have you ever been to Icy's? We do arts!"
She responds "I go to Icy's for the translation."
First of all, XD <3 ♥ with an omg on top. But once I had finished blushing like a schoolgirl, I thought to myself, this is fandom.
And I like it here.
Aaaand that's probably ten times more thought than was put into the original remark! Go me.
...Also, I failed at boiled eggs today. Somebody revoke my cooking license.
It doesn't really matter where I got this. It's quite likely I'll never cross internet paths with the person who wrote it in my entire online career. I still feel like writing about it.
One of the many things I've learned from translating is that the individual word is not important. It's a front, an often imperfect representation of a broader concept. The act of translation, so far as I can tell, is to deconstruct words into their base concepts, and then to reconstruct that concept in the destination language. More pertinent to this discussion: the act of understanding is simply that first step, the deconstruction of words into nebulous internal concepts.
If this is true, then writing about any particular concept by definition is a reconstruction of the concept back into words. Sometimes I think the definition of skillful writing is a series of words that hints around a concept, bringing the reader's mind to approximate the same concept going through the writer's without the benefit of direct telepathy.
Oh yes. I was going to talk about fandom, before the idea that the erasure of a single word from the common lexicon would be at all effective managed to distract me.
I made a new friend the other day. (=D) She added me on last.fm some time ago, based on our common interest in Final Fantasy music. I was of course perfectly happy to add her back, but didn't think much of it as I don't actually use that site more than twice a month. Last week, though, she commented on a friend's journal and I recognized the screenname. Curious, I checked out her journal- and discovered some of the most consistently excellent and original FF6 artwork I'd ever seen. Icyites, you've seen it too. Hot shit. I ask her "Have you ever been to Icy's? We do arts!"
She responds "I go to Icy's for the translation."
First of all, XD <3 ♥ with an omg on top. But once I had finished blushing like a schoolgirl, I thought to myself, this is fandom.
And I like it here.
Aaaand that's probably ten times more thought than was put into the original remark! Go me.
...Also, I failed at boiled eggs today. Somebody revoke my cooking license.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-26 03:33 am (UTC)