The punchline in today’s Darths & Droids is painfully good. And the screencap works perfectly.

One of the other students in my reading class has a habit of typing in his material really small with no space between lines, in a gothic kanji font. His vocabulary lists are done the same way, and have some other formatting quirks as well.

Several weeks ago, he brought one in that runs to a page and a half of small print, plus an equal amount of vocabulary, and he’s showing signs of becoming a bit cranky that we keep passing it over in favor of other material. He’s a nice guy, if a bit intense, so I figured I’d take a stab at it this weekend, so I’d be ready to read the first few paragraphs out loud at the next session.

Yeah, well, screw that idea. With no room to write in notes or furigana, reading the old-fashioned language of a classic fairy tale was just not worth it. So I went looking for an online version that I could print out in a more useful format.

The story is “Tengu no Kakuremino” (“The Goblin’s Invisibility Cloak”), and I found at least a dozen versions of it, from the modernized to the dumbed-down, but only one seemed like a very close match. Problem was, the hosting site just wouldn’t let me read it.

The site is bunko.channel.or.jp, and it’s not available outside of Japan. It’s apparently a free e-book site for cellphone users, and while they let Google in for indexing, their PHP code rejects attempts to retrieve the complete page. No problem, says I, clicking on the ‘cached’ button, but they had a surprise in store for me: Google’s cache won’t show me the second page.

I know they’ve got it, because I can search for text that appears only on the second page, and see it highlighted with a sentence or so of context. Hmm…

So I’m extracting it a sentence at a time with carefully defined searches. This is still faster and easier than trying to read my classmate’s tinyfonts version and type it back in. And I’ve already caught four errors in his version, so now we have another good reason not to read it this week…

[Update: my classmate got his version from japanesepod101.com, a for-pay podcast, and apparently they never noticed the mistakes when they were recording the story.]

[Update: this story is most definitely in the public domain, so there’s no reason for me not to post the reassembled text below the fold… (formatting will be cleaned up later)]

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Seriously, where are you getting these associations?

Now that I know what the title means, it’s time to take a stab at translating the lyrics. There’s at least one line I have little faith in, and four that simply can’t be translated in a way that preserves the line breaks from the original. And, of course, there’s the subtitle.

From That Sky ～替え玉は硬メンで～

From that sky – “Hey ramen vendor, put some more noodles in this!”

歌詞：つんく 作曲：つんく 編曲：鈴木俊介

買い物行ったら定休日
しょんぼりしてたら
電話がかかってきて
デートが大決定

When I went shopping the store was closed. I was feeling down-hearted, when I got a phone call. Dating is a big decision.

スカートボタンがとまらない
がっくりきてたら
電話がかかってきて
バイキングの誘い
あらま　どうしましょう

The skirt button that won’t stay put was breaking my heart, when I got a phone call, inviting me out for smorgasbord. Oh, no, what shall I do?

想像してたのと
なんか違う２１世紀
空飛ぶ車よりほら
やっぱKISSでしょうね

The 21st Century is somehow different than I’d imagined. Hey! If we can’t have flying cars, at least there’s kissing, right?

From That Sky　羽ばたけ
自由な発想で

From that sky, flap your wings with the idea of freedom!

From That Sky　彼方へ
勝利の女神さ
私が女神さ

From that sky, to beyond, the goddess of victory! I’m the goddess!

サウナに行ったら風邪引いた
ゾクッとしてたら
あいつが来てくれた
やばい！スッピンだわ
眉毛　描かなくちゃ

When I went to the sauna, I caught a cold. When I had the chills, he came to see me. Awful! I wasn’t wearing makeup. My eyebrows weren’t drawn!

想像してたより
のんびり２１世紀
並んででも食べたいのよ
有名ラーメン

The 21st Century is more easy-going than I’d imagined. Famous ramen that I want to eat, even though there’s a line.

From That Sky　轟け
未来の恋人へ

From that sky, roar [like thunder] toward a future lover!

From That Sky　恋する
勝利の女神さ
私が女神さ

From that sky, the goddess of romantic victory! I’m the goddess!

From That Sky　羽ばたけ
自由な発想で

From that sky, flap your wings with the idea of freedom!

From That Sky　彼方へ
勝利の女神さ

From that sky, to beyond, the goddess of victory!

From That Sky　轟け
未来の恋人へ

From that sky, roar [like thunder] toward a future lover.

From That Sky　恋する
勝利の女神さ

From that sky, the goddess of romantic victory!

From That Sky　轟け
未来の恋人へ

From that sky, roar [like thunder] toward a future lover!

From That Sky　恋する
勝利の女神さ 私が女神さ

From that sky, the goddess of romantic victory! I’m the goddess!

In the mailbox: a hearts-and-flowers promotional mailer from my car dealership, offering a sweetheart savings on… replacing the cabin air filter.

In email: a web-bug-filled promo from Asus that says: “Spread the Love. Give the Eee PC. “

If I open my front door, will I find a door tag from the local pest-control company, telling me that the best way to show my love is to get sprayed?

The opening song on the Aya The Witch concert dvd is pretty darn good. It’s the sort of rock song that Aya Matsuura wasn’t really capable of when she recorded it at age 16 (iTunes preview), but pulls off very nicely at 21 (Youtube) (updated many years later to a still-valid link).

But what the hell does it mean? It’s one of the many that’s missing a translation at the Project Hello lyrics site, and their quick attempt to translate the title was obviously wrong.

From That Sky～替え玉は硬メンで～

"From That Sky -- The Substitute Is Rigid"

Romanized, the subtitle is “kaedama wa kata-men de”, where most dictionaries will tell you that kaedama means “substitute, stand-in”, kata means “hard”, and the most plausible choices for the phonetically written “men” are either 面 = “face; mask; surface” or, well, “men”. Someone associated with the site gave it their best shot and gave up.

JMdict has an obscure second meaning for kaedama, though, and when I saw it, I understood:

second serving (ball) of noodles (to add to previously purchased ramen)

While ramen is often thought of as typical Japanese food, it’s a Chinese import, and the name is always spelled phonetically as ラーメン. And as any poor college student knows, the noodles are often sold dried. Hard, that is. Shortened to four syllables in the usual way, 硬いラーメン becomes 硬メン.

So does it really mean “a second helping of dried ramen”, or is that just as nonsensical as the original attempt? The answer lies in the rest of the song, which starts off with the singer’s phone ringing with an invitation to go out for baikingu (one of my favorite loanwords), and later mentions standing in line for… famous ramen. Ta-da.

Do a Google Image Search for 硬メン, and you’ll find two things: bowls of ramen, and the cover of Aya’s second album.

I’m just not seeing the connection here.

(from Duke, via Marginal Revolution)

For most of us, it is hard to fathom the rationale for a market in burnt-out light bulbs. But in the scarcity-driven Soviet economy, the market was entirely reasonable. Light bulbs were rarely available to individual consumers, but were obtainable for state-sponsored activities. Thus, it would be difficult to purchase a light bulb for a new lamp in one's home, while burnt-out bulbs in state-run offices or factories were routinely replaced. So if someone purchased a new lamp and needed a bulb, he would buy a used light bulb for a small fee and replace a functioning bulb at work with the dud. He would then take the functioning bulb home for the new lamp, while the burnt-out bulb at the office/factory would be replaced with a new functioning bulb. Meanwhile, the maintenance person at the office/factory would take the used bulb and sell it on the used light bulb market.