SO DO I. Curse you for making me think about it so much, because now I want it ALL! :P
I was researching the theory that the moons of Mars are actually artificial space habitats of extraterrestrial origin, which meant reading all the Iosif Shklovsky I could get my hands on, since he's the most oft-cited scientist regarding that theory. And there was a passing reference to the song Tau Ceti in his memoirs "Five Billion Vodka Bottles To The Moon", and I was intrigued by the fact that a song that in the US would probably have been filk that was only performed at SF cons, was apparently so mainstream in late-Soviet Russia that he'd just assume everyone knew the reference.
And since I have a long-running but low-key interest in Soviet science fiction, I looked it up. And I decided based on the two translations I found on the wysotsky.com website that it was great song and a terrible shame that there didn't seem to be any English translations that were even vaguely accurate, complete, and singable that I could share with English-speaking fandom. And I occasionally really enjoy attempting to translate poetry out of languages I don't speak, and the only alternative was working on Yuletide, I decided to give it a try. ^_^
..and aoifes_isle did ask about strange stuff I'd been researching for no particular reason...
But thanks! I was leaning toward "in the mood for a drink", but I wasn't quite sure.
no subject
I was researching the theory that the moons of Mars are actually artificial space habitats of extraterrestrial origin, which meant reading all the Iosif Shklovsky I could get my hands on, since he's the most oft-cited scientist regarding that theory. And there was a passing reference to the song Tau Ceti in his memoirs "Five Billion Vodka Bottles To The Moon", and I was intrigued by the fact that a song that in the US would probably have been filk that was only performed at SF cons, was apparently so mainstream in late-Soviet Russia that he'd just assume everyone knew the reference.
And since I have a long-running but low-key interest in Soviet science fiction, I looked it up. And I decided based on the two translations I found on the wysotsky.com website that it was great song and a terrible shame that there didn't seem to be any English translations that were even vaguely accurate, complete, and singable that I could share with English-speaking fandom. And I occasionally really enjoy attempting to translate poetry out of languages I don't speak, and the only alternative was working on Yuletide, I decided to give it a try. ^_^
..and
But thanks! I was leaning toward "in the mood for a drink", but I wasn't quite sure.