Check this out – I saw this in my referral log and went to check it out. I have no idea but that looks like Russian to me? Again, no idea. When I saw it, I thought – hmmm, wonder if they are discussing this post of mine? Or this maybe? You know, because Russians only talk about Stalin. ?? But no, the link of mine that comes up is this – an excerpt from the Tennessee Williams play “Talk to me like the rain … and let me listen.” The first post on that forum says:
I am guessing here, but the ” seems to me to be the title of the play – and I would bet that this: is Tennessee Williams. I have no idea what they are saying. They could be saying, “I found a post by this really pompous bitch American woman about Tennessee Williams!” Who knows.
This is one of the things I love about the Internet – and about having certain posts really high up in the Google ratings. It gives a sense of the world being a small place. Also, I’ve said it before: I feel at home with actors anywhere. You sit down with actors from, oh, Belarus, or Mongolia … whatever other cultural differences you may have … there’s a larger similarity that binds us all together. My 2 Laurette Taylor posts are #1 and #2 now. They rank higher than her IMDB page, her Broadway database entry, and her wikipedia entry. Those posts now get the most traffic on my site, at least continuously … and when I think to check where the traffic is coming from, I see IP addresses from Vietnam, Brazil, England, Russia – seriously. And just knowing that … people out there know about Laurette Taylor – or are curious about her – and looking for more information – and that it’s a world-wide thing, not just localized to Americans, or even to New York – just seems so so awesome to me.
Good on ya, mate!!That’s really cool Sheila. If you have the right program…I think maybe even MS Word, you could cut and paste then translate the discussion.
It really does show that great writing, theater, movies , etc can cross any boundary. No matter what language it’s in.
If you’re interested in figuring out what, precisely, they’re saying about your post, John at =”http://tpwithpagenumbers.blog-city.com/”>tp with page numbers is fluent in Russian (he lived there for a time). He helped me out with much the same scenario, except I was linked on boards set up by furniture sellers. Still have no idea which post they were linking to, or why, but he at least helped me figure out the “who”.
I know I’ve seen him in the comments here, so maybe he’ll chime in sooner rather than later ;)
ahhh, crap. I fudged the hyperlink. Sorry!
Oh yeah, I know John! I figured eventually he would show up. :)
Yeah – in one of those Stalin links above – the one on Peter Belov – John was the one who introduced me to Belov, and sent me the article about him, as well as translating it. It was fantastic!!
A poor substitute for John but, well, you can try babelfish : http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr
Ищу пьесу Теннеси Уильямса “Говори со мной, словно дождь, и не мешай слушать…”. Буду рада любой информации!!!
seems to be:
I search for the play of Williams’s Tennesi “speak to me, as if rain, and do not interfere with listening to…”. I will be glad any information!!!
//do not interfere with listening to…”. //
awesome!!!
My favorite was the comment towards the end: “Please to svetlana… Thank you soooooo much!” Somehow that just made my whole afternoon!
I’ve gotten hits from odd places, too, despite my site being waaaay down on the traffic scales. What’s odd to me is more what it is they’re searching for. I had a run recently of people googling “Bill Simmons six worst refs” or similar language, and finding me – because it turns out that over a year ago I quoted that particular bit of a Sports Guy column. But some of them are like, how did MY site get onto the top ten of THAT search? Sometimes I use Blogger to search just my site for something I know I wrote, and can’t find it!
Arrrgh. I usually check this site every day, and the one day everyone’s taking my name in vain, I’m hard at work.
Babel Fish ias actually pretty good for once:
Ищу пьесу Теннеси Уильямса “Говори со мной, словно дождь, и не мешай слушать…”. Буду рада любой информации!!!
“I am looking for a Tennessee Williams play called “Speak with me, just like the rain, and don’t keep me from listening…” I would be thrilled with any information!!!”
The Russian has a slightly different connotation, not “let me to listen”, but “don’t prevent me, damn it”. Is that in keeping with the spirit of the play?
By the way, Svetlana promised to get it for him from the library, although it is in English.
John – wow, cool! I figured you would eventually show up. :)
Yeah, the play is about two sad suicidal characters in a room as rain falls. The one woman wants to dissolve into nothingness – and has stopped eating. So “don’t prevent me” is kind of in the spirit of what she wants, I guess!
And good for Svetlana for stepping up to the plate on this one!
Oh – and what is the name of the forum itself? Is it just a book forum, or a theatre forum?
Thanks, John. :) We were all waiting for you!
The actual referring link in that message chain just says “here’s something in English about that play”.
The message after that (refferring to the fact he’s read your post) says:
Спасибо огромное! на самом деле это необыкновенная пьеса, но почему-то ее очень сложно найти. Если у кого нибудь есть она – пожалуйста, скиньте ссылку!
Thank you very much [for the link]! It really is an unusual play, but for some reason it’s very hard to find. If someone has it, please let me know.
Man. If Tennessee Williams only knew. :) The play is only 4 pages long, by the way. It was basically something he scribbled in 40 minutes and here people are across the world looking for it. I don’t know – think it’s so cool!!
It’s called the Aldebaran Forum, and it’s a sort of on-line library / bibliophile forum. Your thread was under a regular feature called “Searching for Books”.
Why not send him a copy? Digital photo, scan, whatever, if it’s so short. Bet he’d be thrilled/freaked …Hi I saw you in my referral logs, here’s the play.
I have someone in Madrid for the last month doing an intensive search on everything on one of my websites and I hope to god s/he is a student doing a huge paper or something, that I get to see one day (soon), because it’s starting to freak me out.
PS Great bar story, could just picture the giggles of being in pajamas going to a bar. Oh and your children’s books, did we go to the same libraries or what! You are bringing back a lot of memories, some of those books, the ones set in New York, are what made me think everyone had to at least live there for a little while at some point. Did you ever read Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan, or Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell? I won’t give you a whole list to go through but if I get thinking about it, there’d be a slew of them I am sure!