Five Communications
STRAYED IN TRANSLATION
April 15, 2002
Gordon S. Nakamura, CEO
Takara-Goldstein Products International,
Osaka. Dear Mr Nakamura:
Two weeks ago I obtained your product dE-BARK
and attempted to obey the obscure
and for the most part inscrutable instructions
to the best of my ability. But
even as I struggled to find the meaning of those
cryptic phrases, I had to ask myself
how Takara-Goldstein hopes to convey canine sense
if the human version is so abstruse—
admittedly, in translation from a Japanese source.
However, I refused to be daunted
by shaky grammatical constructions (not
just shaky but actually collapsed)
and some (deliberately?) misleading diagrams:
arrows pointing nowhere, dotted lines where
mystery prevailed. Of course I persevered,
but had to say, have met with No Success
using the device you so confidently propose
to “puzzled dog-owners”. Yet rather
than complain, I prefer offering one or two
positive suggestions which you may find
helpful in future transactions with your customers.
It seems to me (and to my husband Tom)
that even though T-G’s digital structure is sound,
the software you are using with it for
bark-recognition leaves a great deal to be desired.
If I am to explain this criticism
properly, though, I must take a step or two back;
I feel it necessary to describe
the state of affairs—perhaps the “life-style?”—
which led my husband and me to try
dE-BARK. Both of us work (and work on the garden)
at home in rural Connecticut, where
a dog is our sole and assiduous companion;
we have a good deal of acreage and
are likely to be dogged (if you will permit the pun)
from compost-heap to rose-garden by
our hyper-active and really hyper-expressive
brindle Manchester Terrier bitch
(Tom of course insists that we belong to her). Indeed
we had to name her Hinda for the way
she obstructs us on all occasions (Tom would add:
for the recurrent costive episodes).
Now Hinda’s response to every provocation
is vociferous, both indoors and out,
so of course I assumed a product of the kind
you advertise so plausibly would prove
useful. You claim, based on the signals a dog “emits”,
that this hand-held battery-powered device
will match sounds of all sorts, but especially barks, with
every digital pattern stored in it,
deciphering even howls, growls, low snarls, and high yelps
as six “feelings”: self-expression, alarm,
and frustration, then appetite, sadness, and desire.
Well, such generalities may apply
to Japanese dogs, or even to dogs in Japan,
but constant intercourse with Hinda
has convinced me that you have not calibrated
your product’s program with appropriate
(not to say accurate) translations. For example,
for one type of bark your device displays
as pertinent words: How Boring. Now I ask you,
dear Mr. Nakamura, could even
the most cursory attention paid to barking dogs
qualify these words as self-expression?
Long experience affords me a much likelier
rendering: I Don’t Know Why I’m Barking!
a frequent canine expression any dog-owner
will recognize as universal, though
as a matter of fact, there are no universals in
the world of canine feelings, or elsewhere,
I suspect; barking, like human speech, refers to
specific instances, special incidents.
What dE-BARK regards, for example, as frustration
or in some diapasons as desire
had much better be rendered as: Oh, There Goes a Cat!
It is far from my intention, of course,
to replace your entire program of digital
patterning with our Hinda’s lexicon;
I wish merely to suggest, having got nowhere with
the present software of dE-BARK’s program,
the possibility of a more reliable
language-version of barking behavior.
You will, I am sure, concur (and indeed, to digress
for a moment, might not ConCUR provide
a wider concept and a somewhat catchier name
for your product whatever the final
form a revised version of it might take? Just a thought!)
—concur that sadness is more tellingly
recast as the human phrasing of original
canine sentiment by an outcry
or outburst something like: Oh, the Cat’s Getting Away!
and that such a nebulous notion as
appetite is much more clearly focused by the words:
Drop That, Drop That: I’ll Eat It!
Furthermore, drama plays such an inveterate
role in a dog’s life that it seems almost
a betrayal of trust to let such a tired word as
alarm represent what barking conveys
in actuality: You Don’t Belong Here: Get Out!
I offer such interpretations as
no more than a start, Mr. Nakamura, but a start
based on close and continuous study
of the canine idiom it is T-G’s declared
mandate to transform into human terms.
Though I am disappointed by dE-BARK’s present-day
performance, I know real improvements lie
within reach, of that I am certain, and it would be
a privilege as well as a pleasure
to have some small share in their realization,
if you find that my recommendations
(I have others, of course) possess sufficient merit.
Should further consultation be desired,
I (and my husband of course, not to mention Hinda)
will be delighted to hear from you or
perhaps from some more specialized member of your staff.
Meanwhile, since we should like you to regard
us as your colleagues—collaborators or at least
confederates in progress—you must not
dream of refunding the $104
which dE-BARK costs in the United States
(as you surely know in your capacity as
T-G’s Chief Executive Officer).
Faithfully yours,
Annabelle (Mrs. Thomas) Eden
TWO WAYS TO SKIN A CATALOGUE
April 27, 2002
Mrs. Thomas Eden and Family
Wewauka Brook, Bridgewater, Connecticut
Dear Mrs. Eden, My superior,
Mr. Nakamura, has assigned me the honor
of replying to your recent letter.
What you have to say is of great interest to us, for
Takara-Goldstein International
is always concerned to improve the products offered
to our customers, and in those cases
where amelioration is impossible, we hope
to afford satisfaction in other
areas. Please find enclosed our check to the amount
of $104 (Company
Policy, alas, forbids refunding postage for
unsolicited communications),
along with our sincerest regret that you have been
disappointed with the performance of
dE-BARK, which is of course the most recent
item in our extensive catalogue
(which I enclose as well) of gear designed for dogs and
dog-lovers. dE-BARK is in fact so new
that yours is the first comment sent from our customers
abroad. Our Japanese clients, meanwhile,
continue expressing the most enthusiastic reactions,
and I venture to suggest, Mrs. Eden,
that a certain national, perhaps even racial
discrepancy accounts for the problem
you mention with regard to dE-BARK’s six translations;
a certain native restraint, I believe,
is answerable for the abstractions you deplore
in the “messages” your dE-BARK presents.
I do not mean that Japanese pets are more repressed
than Manchester Terriers or than any
other dogs owned by Americans (which must include
some of our Japanese breeds, after all),
but merely that our versions of canine expression
(as manifested in dE-BARK’s software)
are more likely than not to be generated by
the Japanese mode of organizing
any and all evidence of affective conduct
into group compulsions, group essentials . . .
And I should guess, Mrs. Eden, that your decoding
of Hinda’s barks is to a like degree
the characteristic consequence of your own
civil endowment, the American Way
of prizing comportment precisely as it appears
to be individual. These are merely
speculations, of course, but until we have further
confirmation from customers abroad,
we cannot modify our software, I am sorry
to say, in accord with your suggestions;
in the meantime, on behalf of Takara-Goldstein,
please accept Mr. Nakamura’s and
my own best wishes for the happiness of your whole
family—I include Hinda, of course—
and our admiration for your acute discernment
of the dog’s actual meanings expressed
in her barking, however improperly you find
dE-BARK has construed them. Yours, M. Ito,
First Vice-President in Charge of Public Relations.
IN-HOUSE MEMO
Re: Eden complaint.
From: M. Ito To: G. Nakamura Gordon darling,
this will have to do. I am hindered
(irresistible word!) from functioning more cogently
for you by my personal conviction
the impossible woman is absolutely right.
I know, I know: according to the line
I’ve handed her, the Japanese, even Japanese Vice-
Presidents, don’t want to have personal
anythings. Please forgive me for resorting to
all that collective Shinto bullshit—
it’s hard to make much of a case when you’re convinced
otherwise. You know damn well how the dogs
react when you honor me by spending the night:
Tina barks and Turner growls, and that’s not
self-expression, that’s You’re lying in our bed: now leave!
Maybe they don’t beg the way Hinda does
(terriers are so abject), but you yourself told me
my griffons were saying: Give us that fugu,
we’ll risk it! There’s Samurai virtue! And I suspect
you like the way Samurai virtue ends . . .
Once they get outside, we both know they’re insisting:
Get us that kitty, we need that kitty! . . .
Well, it’s too late to revise dE-BARK for the Edens,
but what if we started on a reverse
software—you know, translating the right remarks
into how dogs put it . . . M-BARK, maybe?
Meet me at the Red Setter after six, and we’ll try
some digital structures that might keep
Tina and Turner off the bed with a few telling
barks. (Bet we could sell that to Annabelle!)
Are you game? From the bottom of my (collective) heart
I remain your (singular) Masako.
REASSURANCE
June 1, 2002
Dear Miss Ito—as I know you to be,
for although you signed
yourself with no more than a genderless initial,
a mere glance at the impressive column
of vice-presidents
down the left side of Takara-Goldstein’s equally
impressive stationery was enough
to enable me
to make out your given name as well, and after that
a few moments of research on the web
(how persevering
I can be you must already realize) sufficed
to make manifest that in Japanese
the onomastics
of “Misako” are invariably feminine—
though it must be said that if I could decode
the instruction-sheet
for dE-BARK, such deductions were “elementary,
my dear Miss Ito”, as Holmes might put it—
thank you very much
for your letter, the supererogatory check,
and the catalogue. It is the latter
which concerns me now,
though I do admire what you call your speculations;
I believe you’ve put your finger on some
characteristic
and crucial divisions in our national mores;
I don’t in fact consider myself a
representative
American, any more than you, dear Miss Ito,
would choose to pass for a typical
Japanese woman
(though I could be mistaken about this assumption,
for that initial M of yours might well
express what you have
identified as a “group compulsion”). But really,
don’t all of us like to think of ourselves
as exceptional?
Even Hinda does, as I was getting round to saying,
and that is why I am now ordering
item 19V
from your intriguing catalogue (my check is enclosed).
Unlike dE-BARK, which had to translate
canine expression
into human terms not only approximate but,
as I was obliged to discover, quite
fallacious, “FLEECE-BOY”
strikes me as entirely capable of conveying
human meanings accurately to dogs.
Though once again, dear
Miss Ito, I must point out that the prose employed to
describe some items in your catalogue
is virtually
perverse in its ambiguity (when it is not
downright misleading), but
if I correctly
understand the curious text accompanying
the photograph—of an adorable
Akita (it is
an Akita, isn’t it?) with FLEECE-BOY in its mouth?—
one’s own dog, when home alone and lonely,
would similarly
resort to FLEECE-BOY for comfort? Whereupon, nestled
inside the toy, a recordable chip would
be activated
to communicate with the dog in my own voice?
So that each time we had to leave Hinda
I could re-record
the identical chip with whatever message might
seem appropriate for the occasion—
have I got that right?
I certainly hope so, for FLEECE-BOY (if this is indeed
what he can do) sounds like the answer to
our difficulties:
as I believe I mentioned in my earlier letter
Hinda, though at six hardly a puppy,
is hyper-active
and when left alone tends to demolish anything
she can find to chew up around the house.
You will understand,
therefore, and perhaps even sympathize with our zeal
to leave a first message for Hinda;
I am confident
that if I can leave a chip inside FLEECE-BOY saying
in a voice the dog actually knows,
“Don’t Do That, Hinda!
Good Dog! We’ll Be Home Soon”, my husband and I
might look forward, on those occasions when
both of us must be
away, to a less chaotic household situation
thanks to FLEECE-BOY, Takara-Goldstein and
most of all to you,
dear Miss Ito, with our warmest greetings as well,
Yours,
Annabel (Mrs. Thomas) Eden and
unquestionably
Hinda. My husband has some ideas of his own
concerning FLEECE-BOY as well as dE-BARK
and tells me he will
be in touch with you and / or Mr. Nakamura
independently (which sounds ominous
but I am certain
his points, whatever they are, will be of interest).
Again, my appreciation for all
you have done. A.E.
THE APODOSIS
June 20, 2002
Dear Miss Ito: My wife Annabelle, from whom
you received, in recent months,
two letters, I think, as well as orders for
items manufactured by
your employers, has given me your name
and Mr. Nakamura’s,
though not the correspondence—she insists
confidentiality
must prevail between purveyor and purchaser.
I proceed, consequently,
at a certain disadvantage, though hardly
for the first time (there have been
similar occasions, I can assure you),
with my appeal, though perhaps
the more trenchantly for that very reason . . .
Please do not accept further
occasions for correspondence with my wife,
however advantageous
such communications may appear to your
firm’s commercial interests.
To do so would only encourage her in
the singular delusion
which from time to time besets her existence,
though when not provoked by these . . .
occasions, intermitting almost wholly
(I assume you have observed
how coherent and indeed how eloquent
Annabelle can be, even
in the grip of her obsession, or perhaps
especially under such
circumstances). Not since 1968,
when Hinda was run over
in the driveway, before our very eyes,
have we had a dog. But when,
by an inopportune circumstance, my wife
hears of some device likely
to rouse those fond associations of hers,
she regresses (or perhaps
it is really a sort of forward impulse)
to the days when poor Hinda
was our problem and of course our pride as well;
in consequence we acquire
a good many (rather expensive) items
which serve no purpose except
to distress my wife (who refuses, of course,
to allow me to purchase
another dog of any breed whatever).
Therefore I must implore you,
Miss Ito, whatever the provocation,
not to respond to any
further inquiries or orders for purchase
from my wife. Your compliance
will return our household, I have no doubt, to
its wonted train of events
and restore Annabelle to herself once more,
an identity for which
you have my heartfelt thanks, even in advance.
Please extend my gratitude
to Mr. Nakamura who I believe
played some part in the drama
of this distressing phantasmagoria.
In hopes of recovery
I remain,
yours very truly,
Tom Eden
