Author Archives: Dr. Faustus

Aprenda português XXVIII: A Isca 029

Uma vida curta e gloriosa ou uma vida longa sem destaque?

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PAGE 29 (Four panels)

Panel 1: Daphne, in the interview, now looking serious and pensive.

Unseen interviewer (out-of-panel balloon) (1): But that means the end of you!

Translation (1):: Mas isto será o seu fim!

Daphne (2): It is a choice between κλέος and νόστος.

Comment (2): The Greek text above (κλέος, νόστος) should, if possible, be left untranslated and untransliterated.

Translation (2): É uma escolha entre κλέος e νόστος.

Comment (2): The Greek text above (κλέος, νόστος) should, if possible, be left untranslated and untransliterated.

Unseen interviewer (out-of-panel balloon) (3): What?

Translation (3): O que?

Panel 2: View of a vase painting showing the Greek hero Achilles.

CAPTION – DAPHNE NARRATING (4): In the Iliad, the hero Achilles faces a choice between either going home and living a long life – that’s νόστος – or staying to fight and living a short but glorious life – that’s κλέος.

Comment (4): See Comment (2) above for how to treat the Greek text.

Translation (4): Na Ilíada, o herói Aquiles encara uma escolha entre voltar para casa e viver uma vida longa – é o νόστος – ou se manter na luta e ter uma vida curta, porém gloriosa – é o κλέος.

Panel 3: Daphne, leaning forward to engage more closely her unseen interviewer.

Daphne (5): Given the choice between a either a lifetime as a corporate drone after which I shall be forgotten or being part of something that will be in history books for centuries, the right answer seems obvious.

Translation (5): Diante da opção de uma vida de drone corporativo e ser esquecida depois ou fazer parte de algo que estará nos livros de história por séculos a fio, a resposta correta me parece óbvia.

Panel 4: Daphne sitting back, taking a sip from her cup of coffee.

Daphne (6): Or at least, the right answer is obvious to me.

Translation (6): Ou pelo menos, a resposta correta é óbvia para mim.

  A Isca (Português/Versão em página longa)
A Isca (Português/Versão em carrossel)

Hear us out, O Volcano Goddess

Robert Gibson Jones cover to Amazing Stories, June 1950, featuring a flame-haired volcano goddess.

Robert Gibson Jones gives us a flame-haired volcano goddess for the June 1950 issue of Amazing Stories. We can find the same cover, in somewhat better condition and with sharper colors, over at Galactic Central.

Women seem to have gotten the upper hand in this issue. Consider this illustration to Robert Moore Williams’s story “World Without Men,” done by fairly prolific Henry Sharp (1912-2005).

Take that, cowboy!

This issue of Amazing Stories is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.

Aprenda português XXVII: A Isca 028

Daphne Bosselseg quer fazer parte da história da ciência.

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PAGE 28 (Four panels)

Panel 1: DAPHNE BOSSELSEG (“Daphne”) sits in a coffeehouse, being interviewed. There is coffee on the table in front of her. Daphne is a dark-haired, dark-eyed, intense-looking youngish woman who wears a dark cable sweater and blue jeans.

Daphne (1): The bitter truth is, I’m facing a lifetime of asking “Do you want fries with that?”

Comment (1): “Do you want fries with that? Is a stock phrase in American English, the question asked by a fast-food counter worker. By extension, to have to ask the question means having a poorly-paid, unenjoyable, and low-status job. It can be translated either literally or with an equivalent phrase in the target language.

Translation (1): A dura realidade é que estou diante de uma vida inteira perguntando “você quer suas fritas com o quê?”

SUBTITLE (2): Daphne Bosselseg, prospective subject.

Translation (2): Daphne Bosselseg, possível voluntária.

Panel 2: Front panel of the first edition of Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, over which are layered the captions of Daphne speaking.

CAPTION – DAPHNE NARRATING (3): I wrote an award-winning Ph.D. dissertation in the history of science. “One of the best of your generation,” my advisors told me.

Translation (2): Redigi uma tese acadêmica premiada para o meu doutorado sobre a história da ciência. “Uma das melhores da sua geração” – disse meu orientador.

CAPTION – DAPHNE NARRATING (4): But thanks to yahoo state legislators and asshole STEM billionaires, there’s no funding for humanistic research like that anymore.

Comment (3): “Yahoo” is an American colloquial expression for a crude, ill-educated, and unsophisticated person, usually one of rural or small-town origins. “STEM” is an acronym for “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” and in this context might refer to someone who got rich making technology, but who is ignorant and also likely contemptuous of humanistic learning.

Translation (3): Mas graças àquele Grosso, os legisladores do estado e os bilionários babacas do STEM, não existem mais fundos para a pesquisa humanitária do gênero.

Panel 3: Daphne back in interview position. She looks glum and pensive.

Daphne (5): No one with money wants to fund knowledge anymore. They all want universities that do nothing but make a compliant corporate workforce.

Translation (5): Ninguém que tem dinheiro quer mais financiar o conhecimento. Todos querem universidades que apenas atendam às demandas de mão de obra das empresas e nada mais.

Panel 4: Daphne being interviewed. She has brightened up, just a little.

Daphne (6): But now I have a chance at something.

Translation (6): Mas agora, eu tenho a chance de realizar algo.

Daphne (7): If I can’t write part of the history of science, then perhaps I can be part of the history of science.

Translation (7): Se não consegui escrever parte da história da ciência, então talvez eu possa ser parte da história da ciência.

  A Isca (Português/Versão em página longa)
A Isca (Português/Versão em carrossel)

Aprenda português XXVI: A Isca 027

Para capturar o monstro do mar, uma isca é necessária.

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PAGE 27 (Four panels)

Panel 1: Turpentine and Claudia stand in front of the vague underwater image of the creature, illuminated with a lightbox as if it were an X-Ray. Both are wearing white coats. Turpentine is pointing to the large siphon-like structure.

Turpentine (1): So, I suppose this structure is actually a specialized feeding orifice.

Translation (1): Então, suponho que essa estrutura seja na verdade um orifício com um mecanismo digestivo.

Claudia (2): When you’ve eliminated all the other possibilities, what remains, however implausible…

Translation (2): Quando você elimina todas as outras possibilidades, o que sobra, apesar de não ser algo plausível…

Panel 2: Turpentine back in his office, being interviewed.

Turpentine (3): Combining what we know from the native folklore and observed behavior and morphology, we seem compelled to conclude that every nineteen years, this creature comes near the surface and wants to eat young women.

Translation (3): Juntando tudo o que sabemos do folclore nativo e tudo o que observamos em termos de comportamento e morfologia, parece que estamos diante de um padrão, segundo o qual, a cada dezenove anos, essa criatura se aproxima da superfície para se alimentar de mulheres jovens.

Panel 3: A closer-in view of the mass of tentacles in the underwater image.

CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (4): It enmeshes them in tentacles, stimulates them, and eats them. We have no idea why.

Translation (4): Ela envolve suas vítimas com seus tentáculos, as estimula e depois as devora. Não temos ideia do porquê.

CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (5): Our methods to capture or closely study it have hitherto all failed.

Translation (5): Todos os métodos de captura ou aproximação para estudar a criatura falharam até agora.

Panel 4: Turpentine in his office, being interviewed.

Turpentine (6): We have been pushed to the conclusion that if you want to hook a fish, you have to have…bait.

Translation (6): Turpentine (6): Fomos forçados a concluir que, se você quiser fisgar um peixe, precisa de uma boa… isca.

  A Isca (Português/Versão em página longa)
A Isca (Português/Versão em carrossel)

Big Satanic Cat

A weird-looking giant cat assaults a woman on the January 1940 cover of Weird Tales, as painted by Virgil finlay.

Rarely if ever would I want to pass up a Weird Tales cover painted by Virgil Finlay, and this one for the January 1940 issue strikes me as particularly dynamic.

This issue also has a lot of interior art by an artist named Harry Ferman (1906-1973), who seems to have spent much of his life as a newspaper artist in Wichita, Kansas (you can read a short account of his life here) but who seems to have had a burst of pulp-magazine creativity between 1939 and 1942. His interior illustration to Earle Peirce, Jr.’s “Portrait of a Bride” shows him capable of evoking images of ethereal beauty.

Harry Ferman interior illustration to Earle Perice Jr.'s "Portrait of a Bride."
At first I saw only a vague outline of a woman’s body, with the moon shining through it.”

While his interior illustration to Mary Elizabeth Counselman’s “Twister” is one of the creepier images I’ve seen in Weird Tales.

Harry Ferman illustration to Mary Elizabeth Counselman's stor ""Twoster"e
“Shadows moved here and there — dim human faces looked out at them.”

This issue of Weird Tales is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.

Aprenda português XXV: A Isca 026

A tecnologia progride na luta contra o monstro dos tentáculos.

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PAGE 26 (Four panels)

Panel 1: Professor Turpentine, sitting in a cramped academic office. Behind him are shelves stacked with books and papers. He’s wearing a rumpled tweed jacket and being interviewed behind his desk.

Turpentine (1): This creature, whatever it is, is highly intelligent. It can evade ordinary capture methods with ease. It also generates electromagnetic and subsonic fields that interfere with underwater communications. And it even cuts control cables.

Translation (1): Essa criatura, seja lá o que for, é extremamente inteligente. É capaz de se esquivar facilmente de qualquer método de captura ordinário. Ela também gera campos eletromagnéticos e subsônicos que interferem nas comunicações subaquáticas. Ela consegue até mesmo cortar os cabos de controle.

SUBTITLE (2): Professor Eustace Turpentine, Innsmouth Institute for Marine Research.

Translation (2): Professor Eustace Turpentine, Instituto Innsmouth de Pesquisa Marítima.

Panel 2: CLAUDIA HONEYWOOD (“Claudia”) holds in her hands a submersible drone – and underwater swimming robot about the size of a toaster, in her hands, holding it forth for the camera to take a picture of. Claudia is a very attractive woman, but she downplays her attractiveness, being here in a set of coveralls, her long brown hear drawn back in a bun, and here wearing heavy safety glasses. (When Claudia is not wearing these glasses she wears other glasses that make her look a bit dorky, or at least as dorky as a beautiful person can be.)

CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (3): But recently, artificial intelligence has advanced to the point where we can make effective autonomous underwater drones.

Translation (3): Recentemente, entretanto, a inteligência artificial atingiu um ponto em que podemos enviar drones subaquáticos autônomos muito eficazes.

Panel 3: Claudia on board ship in another cramped control room, this time also looking at a monitor. Claudia is now dressed in a white coat and is wearing glasses with heavy dark frames.

CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (4): The creature leaves the drones alone for some reason. These drones can also penetrate the deep trenches where the creature likes to lurk.

Translation (4): Por algum motivo, os drones não incomodam a criatura. Esses drones também podem se infiltrar nas fossas profundas em que a criatura gosta de se esconder.

Panel 4: A murky image of the creature, a sort of giant squidlike thing with one large siphon (big enough for someone to fit down) and a large number of tentacles of all sorts and shapes.

CAPTION – TURPENTINE NARRATING (5): Thanks to these clever little machines, we now have a good sense of the gross morphology of the creature.

Translation (5): Graças a essas pequenas máquinas inteligentes, agora podemos ter uma boa ideia da morfologia bruta da criatura.

  A Isca (Português/Versão em página longa)
A Isca (Português/Versão em carrossel)