Dramatickers 4
March 5, 2023Welcome to Dramatickers version 4.0! It’s been nearly 20 years since I started translating lyrics and sharing info to evangelize this band. It has passed through lives as a custom Perl contraption in 2003; a Movable Type site in 2006; a WordPress site in 2010, and now enters its life as a Hugo site in 2023.
But in the past 3 years there has only been one post; I think I’d believed that the site was something I shouldn’t invest in anymore. What excites me about it now, though, is the opportunity to treat this as a primarily creative project, rather than “just” a fan project.
Translation as a distinct art form remains important to me, and some of the most powerful and indelible Japanese language learning I’ve done has been in the process of researching for this site. When I learn a word or a turn of phrase from a clammbon song, I really deeply learn it. As I plan for my move to Japan later this year (at long last!), continuing to translate songs stands out as a powerful way to practice the langauge.
I’ll be revisiting songs that I first translated long ago, with an aim to make them more poetic, more evocative, more able to stand on their own as works of creative writing in their own right; while of course still treating the original lyrics with the deepest respect and gratitude. The first in this revamp process is imagination.
Expect some stuff to be broken as the new site comes online, but I am proud of how well it works already!