The frost is on the pumpkin

The last two nights have been--literally--freezing. My sympathies for snowy_owlet and other insufficiently-acclimated Southerners. I'm not immune either; the crisp temps have been a factor in my choice of Halloween costume (I flirted with the idea of borrowing bunj's General Zod outfit, but the high degree of chest exposure coupled with the suspected lack of structural integrity overall became a deal-killer) and my decision not to running around outside yesterday, sun or no sun. Even worse, I came this close to putting on Christmas carols--me! A founding member (in spirit if not in fact) of the "Advent is in December" brigade!

The colours have been surprising good this year. A lot of the Bradford pears, with their deep scarlet leaves, are near or at peak and the hawthorns have put on a respectable show, being more orangey than I can remember for some time. The beautiful ash trees, the sugar maples, and the golden honey locusts are looking pretty ragged, so it's mostly the less showy trees--sallow lindens, paper-bag mulberries, and the like--which are left to go.

Oh, and I burned the parkin cake last night. I'm not sure how I managed this, since I followed teapot_farm's grandmum's recipe to the letter (modulo dark molasses for the unavailable black treacle and more kosher-friendly fats) in order to deflect blame if it turned out inedible. Hopefully, I can simply shave off the blackened sides and bottoms and my hosts will be no wiser.

Edit: I was going to include an "at least it's not snowing ha ha ha"-type comment in the above, but thank goodness I didn't. Because fideles difuntos if there isn't a little flurry going on outside.

Strange equivalents

The Polish writer Bruno Schulz owes his fame almost entirely to two works: Sklepy cynamonowe and Sanatorium pod klepsydrą. Both titles seem quite straightforward to me in Polish: Cinnamon shops and The Sanatorium under the clepsydra, respectively. So what's up with the foreign translations?

The translations of the first title into French, Spanish, and German are exactly what you'd expect, i.e. Les boutiques de cannelle, Las tiendas de canela, and Die Zimtladen. So where the hell did the English translator get The street of crocodiles?

The second case is even stranger, since there is no consensus at all. Everyone agrees that there's a santorium involved, but no one can agree where it is: English-speakers seem to come the closest with The sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass. A clepsydra is, strictly speaking, a water clock rather than an hourglass, but they're both archaic time-telling devices. The Germans call it Sanatorium zur Todesanzeige "Santorium at the obituary". How exactly do you illustrate that on a sign? And where on earth do the French come up with Le sanatorium au croque-mort[*] "The sanatorium at the gravedigger"? Lastly, you'd think no one would understand the Poles better than their neighbours the Czechs, so what exactly are the latter getting at with Sanatorium na věčnosti "Santorium at eternity"?

[*] Croque-mort is literally "(he) chews death". How did I live this long without ever discovering such an amazing word?

Kung fu Kalevala

Some of you may be interested to learn about this movie, but the moment I heard about it, my reaction was "bunj absolutely must know about it."

Jade Warrior (Finnish Jadesoturi, Chinese 玉武士 (Yù wǔ shì)) is a Finnish-Chinese co-production movie. It combines kung-fu with Finnish Kalevala mythology. It was directed by Antti-Jussi Annila.