From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:59:21 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Received: (qmail 30783 invoked from network); 9 Nov 1996 05:12:33 -0000 Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE (192.36.125.6) by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with SMTP; 9 Nov 1996 05:12:33 -0000 Received: from listmail.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <9.724B74F8@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Sat, 9 Nov 1996 6:12:28 +0100 Date: Fri, 8 Nov 1996 23:11:16 -0600 Reply-To: Steven Belknap Sender: Lojban list From: Steven Belknap Subject: David Brin short story To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 3645 Lines: 100 Message-ID: I was trying to find a precision short story I remembered Brin having written. I found it. It is called , and is in the collection of short stories called (Bantam Spectra, USA & Canada. For those who haven't heard of precision short stories, these are stories which are precisely 250 words in length. Here is the full text: _______________________________________________________________________________ Toujours Voir by David Brin "Folks!" the bodyguard announced. "In moments Lasselovsky will be here. You all know what that means." >From my regular booth by the window, I saw several customers abruptly leave. The brave, or curious, remained. "He's the Oldtime spacer who returned, but didn't hide, right?" Sam, our bartender, asked. "Yeah, so don't bother him! If anyone here strongly resembles someone from his past, and triggers a deja-vu attack, we could find this building on another *planet*..." Deja vu. I suppose everyone's felt this clue to Time's true nature. Epileptics once dreaded it as an "aura," foretelling seizures. And historically, people feared epilepsy, never suspecting grand mal hinted a door to the universe. Today only Oldspacers suffer lingering aura shock. I hear neuroconvulsive hyperdrive is perfected nowadays. Modern pilots needn't endure terrifying seizures to attain that special mental state which propels a spaceship starward. To *modern* spacers, induced deja vu is a key. To Oldtimers, though, it's pure terror. "...sudden recognition could trigger a jump seizure. So don't approach him. If he feels safe, maybe he'll mingle..." Talky bodyguard. Most Oldtimers retreated to cozy surroundiings and stayed put. Ex-crewmates avoid reunions. Stubborn Lasselovsky, though, keeps moving. He's a free man, so the authorities send bodyguards ahead to warn people. Time's funny. It flows, then surges like a convulsion. I sit and wait, feeling the years. Through the window, I see a familiar face... *Captain*...? I *should* have left before this. Already my hands are shaking. Still, it is nice to see, again, the stars. _______________________________________________________________________________ A few notes regarding my adaptation of the text to ASCII: the words delimited by astericks are italicized in the book. The single carriage returns correspond to line breaks in the original text. The double carriage returns refer to a linebreak plus a return. (In printed text, paragraphs are indicated by a line break and indentation of the next line; a line break+return refers to a larger break in the text flow.) Deja vu is appropriately accented with accent ague and accent grave marks. Here's the deal: Submit your translations of the *entire* text. Try to preserve not just meaning but sentence style. Kudos to whomever can best preserve the slammed together feel of "neuroconvulsive hyperdrive" I will try to extract the best parts of whatever anyone else posts, and will put these together into a "first draft" which we will then all take potshots at, until we have some manner of consensus regarding a polished final draft. I think precision short stories are rather haiku-ish. So we ought to try to preserve the poetic sensibilities of the story in our translation. Its amazing to me that Brin got his concept across in only 250 words. I would suggest we forget about the 250 word restriction in the translation though. A literal quotation seems best for deja vue and toujours voir, methinks. -Steven Steven Belknap, M.D. Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria