I have a new favorite columnist: Meghan Daum for the LA Times.

A genre comes of age: Seth Schiese for the NYT describes the newly released Grand Theft Auto IV as “a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun.”

Stanley Fish on French theorists in America.

Flash awesomeness: Magic Pen.

Vintage (1998) Boing Boing article on shopdropping cement teddy bears.

Poet Alexander Nemser reviews recent Pevear & Volkhonsky’s as well as Bromfield’s translations of two different versions of the War and Peace.

Is Putin the owner of a $40 billion fortune? Previous estimates in Russian press put Vlad’s personal wealth at around $400k (a thank you gift of a $ million condo in Tel Aviv for his old teacher notwithstanding). Article is also good for analysis of internal Kremlin conflicts and theories on how long Putin will […]

I’m always interested in how different registers of speech are rendered in translation (alas, so many Russian masters in English speak in the same, unvarying tone). Here’s a post by David Kippen on the topic.

How to convey the difference in languages spoken, Asterix-style.

С новым годом–Soviet “Happy New Year!” cards.