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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom
@brianbergstrom.bsky.social
2.8K followers 1.1K following 2.7K posts
Lecturer & Literary Translator JPN -> ENG Currently out: DILEMMAS OF WORKING WOMEN by Fumio Yamamoto In progress: CAPITAL FROM ZERO by Kōhei Saitō, LOVEAHOLIC by Fumio Yamamoto Tarte 🥧 and Butt 🌈 Enthusiast (à Montréal) IG: instagram.com/asa_no_burei
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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · Jul 3
To celebrate the release of Dilemmas in the UK, Foyles asked me to write an essay about Yamamoto and her life and work.

It's up on their site now, and I'd love it if you gave it a look—I love this book, and I'm so excited to have a platform to talk about it

www.foyles.co.uk/further-read...
Fumio Yamamoto and Skinship by Brian Bergstrom translator Brian Bergstrom reflects on Fumio Yamamoto's writing, and the central role of 'skinship'—a Japanese term meaning “the aspect of a relationship that arises from physical touch”. The inset photo is of Fumio Yamamoto, along with the UK cover of The Dilemmas of Working Women, the book by her that I translated that's coming out today
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Reposted by Brian Bergstrom
brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 15h
Under where? #fcf #bulge #nsfw
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 13h
🫡
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 15h
🫣😈
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 15h
🙈😅
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 15h
Did you see that there's a new translation of Grave of Fireflies out (by @ginnytkmr.bsky.social!)?
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 15h
☺️🥰 et le tien aussi
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 15h
😘
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 15h
🫣🫢
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 15h
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 15h
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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 15h
Under where? #fcf #bulge #nsfw
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Reposted by Brian Bergstrom
asurashaiku.bsky.social
AsurasHaiku @asurashaiku.bsky.social · 22h
spring chill--
men are always heading
to the battlefield

--Miwako Fujimoto

花冷や男はいつも戦場へ　藤本美和子

(花冷, "blossom chill," is the kigo for a cold day in spring)

#haiku #gendaihaiku #translation
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Reposted by Brian Bergstrom
levimclaughlin.bsky.social
Levi McLaughlin @levimclaughlin.bsky.social · 21h
Big upheaval in Japanese politics. Today (Japan time), after a ninety minute meeting between Saitō, head of Komeito, and Takaichi, the LDP politician who recently won her party’s presidency, Saitō announced an end to their parties’ 26-year-long coalition agreement.
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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 1d
This was a cliché of gay-adjacent narratives in the 90s in Japan, and it seemed regressive then!
cover of the english translation of Eguni Kaori's Twinkle, Twinkle, in which a straight woman marries a gay man on purpose
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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 1d
This is fun though:

"My boyfriend's a little...different"

"This former monster always wanted to do *this*?!"
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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 1d
It's a "Horror Occult Girls' Manga Magazine" called Monthly Halloween (月刊ハロウィン) The rest of the text are names of manga artists/writers and their works, which are serialized in it
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Reposted by Brian Bergstrom
mal-content.bsky.social
f̵̖̔̈ǎ̴͓g̵͈̩͎̏̄̾g̴̺̈ó̶͍̈́͆t̶̖̝̀ @mal-content.bsky.social · 1d
Spokane
merriam-webster.com
Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 2d
What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?
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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 1d
Yes! (I'm also from thereabouts)
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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 1d
I translate from Japanese to English, and work with authors like Erika Kobayashi, Kōhei Saitō, Tomoyuki Hoshino, & Kōtarō Isaka. Forthcoming are new works by Saitō and the late, great Fumio Yamamoto, and a short piece by Hoshino. I'm going to be in Toronto at the end of the month talking w/Isaka!
Graphic for my upcoming event in Toronto: Crafting Twists and Thrills: A Conversation with Author Isaka Kōtarō (Japan Foundation Toronto) A picture from a recent event at Argo Bookstore where I'm posing with a table decorated with some books I've translated as a whole or collections containing short pieces I've translated: Slow Down by Kōhei Saitō, Sunrise by Erika Kobayashi, Animals Brag About Their Bottoms by Maki Saitō, Trinity, Trinity, Trinity by Erika Kobayashi, Hotel Lucky Seven by Kōtarō Isaka, The Dilemmas of Working Women by Fumio Yamamoto, Unusual Fragments: Japanese Stories, and The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories
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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 1d
But seriously, how are the rest of us supposed to follow that? 😉
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 1d
🫡
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Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 1d
You'd think that someone so bland couldn't be so irritating too, but you'd be wrong
rawstory.com
Raw Story @rawstory.com · 3d
Bari Weiss, the incoming editor in chief of CBS News, once auditioned for a role on the hit daytime television show "The View," but tested so poorly with audiences that she "wasn't invited back," according to a new report.
CBS News' new boss once auditioned for 'The View' — and 'wasn't invited back': report
Bari Weiss, the incoming editor in chief of CBS News, once auditioned for a role on the hit daytime television show "The View," but tested so poorly with audiences that she "wasn't invited back," according to a new report. Variety reported on Tuesday that Weiss auditioned for "The View" when host Me...
bit.ly
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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 2d
It's apparently World Octopus Day, which reminds me of Bashō and his poem about octopuses staring up at the moon from the pots they unwittingly mistook for homes, as well as something I wrote a while back about "shiori" [撓] / "tenderness" in his poetry
ON POETRY AND 'TENDERNESS'— I was teaching Basho, the haiku master, last class, and one of the things he does is write about poetry, and he says haiku should possess three qualities: sabi (loneliness), shiori (tenderness), and hosomi (slenderness). They're all pretty vague, of course, but loneliness is something like the ironies that remind one of the transience of life (his example is old men with white hair acting as "flower guards" beneath cherry blossoms, which are associated with youth and freshness), and "slenderness" is basically what we would call "restraint" these days -- prizing simplicity in phrasing over needless decoration or pretty language/allusion. But "tenderness" is so hard to teach, and hard for students to understand. It's a quality that basically (I think?) is a reaction to the corrosive ironies and cleverness of "low" poetry of the time that ridiculed stock characters or known figures in a pursuit of showing off. Basho, at least in my interpretation, wanted to reject the pretensions of "high" poetry -- the kind that prized the clever allusion built on extensive education in classical forms -- while keeping its seriousness of purpose and philisophical depth; he also wanted to reject the empty cleverness and spiritual poverty of "low" poetry while keeping its unembarassed willingness to treat humble, everyday, or even vulgar subjects (one of his more famous poems describes a horse peeing near where he's trying to sleep), and use of plain, unforced language. I think that's what "tenderness" as a poetic quality means -- an embrace of the subject of the poem without critical or other kinds of distance, to be "tender" toward it, a respect for the thing being described/evoked that becomes an obligation to evoke it as fully and directly as possible (which is where the other principles come in). As I was (probably confusingly) trying to talk about this in class, I realized that this becomes, in modernity/modernism, "objectivity" as a grounding of r… Anyway, here are my own translations of some of his poems; unlike many translators, I tried to keep the 5/7/5 meter even in English [hence, the technically incorrect use of "ocotopi"; so sue me, grammar nerds]: --- O, the ancient pond! A frog jumps into its depths: The sound of water --- Fishermen’s faces. At first light, what do I see? White poppy flowers. --- Suma’s fishermen. What cries from their arrowpoints? Flying nightingales. Nightingales flying disappear into the distance: A single island At Suma temple Listen to the ancient flutes Beneath the trees’ shade --- Octopi in pots Dream unattainable dreams ‘neath the summer moon. --- The moon is there, but there’s a feeling of absence. Summer in Suma. I can see the moon yet, something is still missing. Summer in Suma. --- Hair shaven and shed On Kurokami mountain – Old robes changed for new.* *[by his companion on The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Sora, who took the tonsure at the beginning of the journey] For a little while I watch the waterfall’s spray. My first summer’s rite. --- How cruel it seems! Beneath this warrior’s helmet: Only a cricket. --- Whiter than the white stones of Stone Mountain Temple blows the autumn wind. an octopus backed up into a pot/trap
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Reposted by Brian Bergstrom
celeste.lgbt
Celeste Trianon @celeste.lgbt · 1d
Any and all ICE agents entering Canada should be arrested under Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

We have a legal framework designed to address the unconscionable. We ought to use it!
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brianbergstrom.bsky.social
Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · 2d
It's apparently World Octopus Day, which reminds me of Bashō and his poem about octopuses staring up at the moon from the pots they unwittingly mistook for homes, as well as something I wrote a while back about "shiori" [撓] / "tenderness" in his poetry
ON POETRY AND 'TENDERNESS'— I was teaching Basho, the haiku master, last class, and one of the things he does is write about poetry, and he says haiku should possess three qualities: sabi (loneliness), shiori (tenderness), and hosomi (slenderness). They're all pretty vague, of course, but loneliness is something like the ironies that remind one of the transience of life (his example is old men with white hair acting as "flower guards" beneath cherry blossoms, which are associated with youth and freshness), and "slenderness" is basically what we would call "restraint" these days -- prizing simplicity in phrasing over needless decoration or pretty language/allusion. But "tenderness" is so hard to teach, and hard for students to understand. It's a quality that basically (I think?) is a reaction to the corrosive ironies and cleverness of "low" poetry of the time that ridiculed stock characters or known figures in a pursuit of showing off. Basho, at least in my interpretation, wanted to reject the pretensions of "high" poetry -- the kind that prized the clever allusion built on extensive education in classical forms -- while keeping its seriousness of purpose and philisophical depth; he also wanted to reject the empty cleverness and spiritual poverty of "low" poetry while keeping its unembarassed willingness to treat humble, everyday, or even vulgar subjects (one of his more famous poems describes a horse peeing near where he's trying to sleep), and use of plain, unforced language. I think that's what "tenderness" as a poetic quality means -- an embrace of the subject of the poem without critical or other kinds of distance, to be "tender" toward it, a respect for the thing being described/evoked that becomes an obligation to evoke it as fully and directly as possible (which is where the other principles come in). As I was (probably confusingly) trying to talk about this in class, I realized that this becomes, in modernity/modernism, "objectivity" as a grounding of r… Anyway, here are my own translations of some of his poems; unlike many translators, I tried to keep the 5/7/5 meter even in English [hence, the technically incorrect use of "ocotopi"; so sue me, grammar nerds]: --- O, the ancient pond! A frog jumps into its depths: The sound of water --- Fishermen’s faces. At first light, what do I see? White poppy flowers. --- Suma’s fishermen. What cries from their arrowpoints? Flying nightingales. Nightingales flying disappear into the distance: A single island At Suma temple Listen to the ancient flutes Beneath the trees’ shade --- Octopi in pots Dream unattainable dreams ‘neath the summer moon. --- The moon is there, but there’s a feeling of absence. Summer in Suma. I can see the moon yet, something is still missing. Summer in Suma. --- Hair shaven and shed On Kurokami mountain – Old robes changed for new.* *[by his companion on The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Sora, who took the tonsure at the beginning of the journey] For a little while I watch the waterfall’s spray. My first summer’s rite. --- How cruel it seems! Beneath this warrior’s helmet: Only a cricket. --- Whiter than the white stones of Stone Mountain Temple blows the autumn wind. an octopus backed up into a pot/trap
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