So, You’re Really Going to Believe in an Animal!
Sergei Yolkin
2013
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I guess that you can deduce Yolkin’s “take” on Groundhog Day… he doesn’t “believe”. I think that Punxsutawney Phil has to make a house-call in Moscow… oh, yes… the octopus tentacle is a reference to Paul the Octopus (a resident of the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen in Germany), who “chose” the winners in the 2010 FIFA World Cup matches. Fie on the RIA translator… they distorted Yolkin’s intent, yet again. There’s none of the disdain of the original Russian in their English rendering (changing it into an innocuous wistfulness). They’re namby-pamby… they fuck up Yolkin’s plays on words and make no attempt to carry over the “atmosphere” of the original into the translation. What a buncha maroons…
BMD
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Today, people believe that some animals have supernatural abilities allowing them the ability to predict the weather or the outcome of a football match, because in an age of modern technology, there’s a lack of the miraculous, and there’s not enough connection with the natural world. Psychologists told RIA-Novosti ahead of Groundhog Day that people are inclined to believe in animal oracles such as Punxsutawney Phil and Paul the Octopus because they bring magic into everyday life.
1 February 2013
Sergei Yolkin
RIA-Novosti
http://ria.ru/caricature/20130201/920864987.html
http://en.rian.ru/cartoons/20130201/179172721/We-Want-to-Believe-Them.html
