T-Shirts!

me: zo zo zo

hello

zo the illustrations are beautiful

thinkmovechange: HEY KENT

me: please, let's make t-shirts together!

thinkmovechange: Tshirts

10:44 PM I saw one on Pedaman

it is cool absolutely

cool

but he is so slim, so thin

I think all these painters

are thin

Kent

me: hehe

thinkmovechange: how do you like the outlook

me: i think it is a stereotype.

thin painters

10:45 PM it looks great!

the drawings are amazing

thinkmovechange: so have you seen the girl

yeah

me: i love the t-shirts

thinkmovechange: she is THE ONE

me: yes!

she is the girl

thinkmovechange: i WANT HER ALSO

me: very true

thinkmovechange: YOU HAVE TO WRITE A STORY

FOR HER :)

me: ok!

thinkmovechange: JUST one short

10:46 PM me: the girl you put into the translation of the future?

thinkmovechange: maybe dig for it in your typewriter

yes, the one

me: i just wrote a story on it tonight

but there are 217 girls in that story

too many

thinkmovechange: oh, your typewriter IS amazing

ha ha a

xerox the girl

that's it

for now

217

and STILL COUNTING

:)

10:47 PM me: i'd send it to you, but it's on real paper

i'll type it on a computer soon

thinkmovechange: i LOVE real paper more than computer

anyway

me: me too

thinkmovechange: where are you?

NC

me: NC

ys

chapel hill

thinkmovechange: ok

10:48 PM so I will let you know

what comes next

expect Una to translate

me: please do

thinkmovechange: Showers

and Pedaman with new

illustrations

me: i'm amazed how you got so many people to work on this projects

thinkmovechange: oh, YOU got them actually all there

with Marvin's help

I'm just a lazy bone

10:49 PM me: oh noway

thinkmovechange: still on the 6th page of oral tradition and 3rd of Hero and 2nd of Harry

big headache

who will translate all that staff

hm

I hope those 217 girls

don't talk much

(less for translation, you know)

me: haha. they don't.

thinkmovechange: the costs are high:)

good

good girz

10:50 PM me: only 6 of them talk, and it is at the same time ;)

thinkmovechange: wow, that's exactly

how we do this all

me: well also 300 ants talk

thinkmovechange: at the same time

ANTS

man!

that's HUGE!

me: yeah but they all talk at the same time too

so no big deal!

thinkmovechange: ANTIC language I presume

me: heh

thinkmovechange: not my jurisdicionary whew :)

me: no somehow they know english

10:51 PM (or serbian!)

thinkmovechange: or both

me: i need to learn some serbian, i think

thinkmovechange: it's all antic

anyway

me: biolingual ants! just what we need to help

thinkmovechange: you've learned a lot

me: there are so many of them

thinkmovechange: 6 legs

me: they can carry the letters across the page

thinkmovechange: 3 speaking one language

3 the other

me: and translate with ease

thinkmovechange: what about your school

starbucks

10:52 PM are you in DEBT?

like all US students...

me: no surprinsly

i am not!

just very very very very poor

thinkmovechange: like an ant

me: yes

i eat about as much food as an ant, really

10:53 PM thinkmovechange: how that come?

you have good teeth though

me: actually

soon i will be rich

thinkmovechange: maybe you should chew something harder, wood? stone?

me: starbucks will start to pay me soon

thinkmovechange: not food

me: no i like my teeth!

thinkmovechange: oh starbucks pays bucks to stars

10:54 PM I think maybe they are too good for food, so you don't eat a lot of it

Look, my time for thinking is gone

I'm going to sleep

me: ok

thinkmovechange: thanks for being there

do you really

me: thank you!

thinkmovechange: liked tshirts?

me: yes! very much

thinkmovechange: OH ok then

10:55 PM would you like to have story in English same edition with Tshirts?

me: hrm

i don't know which

thinkmovechange: the Future of coures

of course

10:56 PM so I liked it, you know why

?

it was the same feeling of

magic that got me put Marvin and your photos from facebook

me: yes! magic!

thinkmovechange: the first things that were right there at that moment

and happened to

whatever happened

10:57 PM happened to be so cool

Kenton, I think we got to make that COMIC or Graphic Novel

me: : )

thinkmovechange: I wasl looking at that

some pages discouraged me totally

I'm confused

some are so professional

me: i want to make a graphic novel

thinkmovechange: the other so very naive

10:58 PM me: i need to make comix!

thinkmovechange: yes, you mentioned that to me

so I heard that from you,

it's because everything we do actually turns into that graphic novel

me: yes

thinkmovechange: see

10:59 PM so we work like ANTS :)

unconsciously synchronized

me: we do we do

thinkmovechange: but what about our GOAL?

(nobel prize 4 your books)

me: aha

11:00 PM we will have to wait a lopng time before that

thinkmovechange: ok

good night ant

me: good night fellow bug!

thinkmovechange: thanks for chat and bugworkz

me: thank you!

thinkmovechange: how bugz say bye

bzzzzz

bzzz

bz

11:01 PM me: bzz!

thinkmovechange: :)

Zo here with good news!
The Future (story) that Tijana translated sounds great in Serbian!

Tijana's work inspired me greatly for my translation of The Video Game Hero that I'm trying to accomplish before Wednesday! In meantime Tijana and I re-read and polished her translation through one more session of re-reading it and commenting it to each other, changing a bit here and there... It was a lovely experience!

Wednesday is the day scheduled for the first talks about illustrations for the Future! I thought to ask Kenton about an experiment that can be made in illustration of book of 5 stories. These stories are so different, they seem like five movies or five comics in one books, with atmosphere and ambient so diverse and powerful that I thought that beside collaboration of translators, there might be collaboration of illustrators too. So that each illustrator should chose the story to work on -- what do you say to that?

Also I thought that conceptually I see our book in Serbian looks the way that each story has more than one image as illustration, so let's say that each illustrator makes a few illustrations for each story - we practically get salon and comic book at the same place. I wish to talk with potential illustrators to provide something like comic book ambient around or through the textual tissue of the story, how they see it their way... interwoven in the text the way or opposite way how text in comics is inserted in balloons into the drawing...

I love the photo from Blue& White.online article, March 2006. It shows Kenton storytelling, breathing and speaking and holding the mic with his right arm full of words, written in red. This is great photo and great article about Grahamstreet Salon, his work and circle of creative tribe of friends there. Kenton is my inspiration, and I am happy to see that he is inspiring many others as well. So I hope the illustrators will show up among those who we invite to contribute to the book translation and overall appearance. I feel like we got to have some images inside the book, they are needed so badly, don't you feel so guys?

Marvin always says that the most detestfull thing about us humans are our feelings :) but I trust them no less than I trust Marvin!

Race City USA

Kenton here. I'm vacationing in Charlotte, NC for two days to visit my good friends Helen and Alicia. Josh and I drove up yesterday, and since then Helen's mother has been feeding us almost continually. We stuff our faces and loll around on our newly-rounded stomachs and burp softly. In the warm evenings the frogs respond across a pond, to our burps. We understand each other. Yesterday I left work early and returned to find my roommates dragging a piano across the street to our house. It took several minutes of severe exertion and now it is sitting on the sidewalk in front of our house. I watched from the window and an exceedingly pretty girls walked by and ran her hand over it, and smiled toothily pretty smile. I bought an electric typewriter today. The first thing I used it for was to write Helen's mother a thank-you note. Next I will use it to write a novel.
It feels so wonderful to be well-fed.

As a matter of fact...

This is unbelievable, but couple of days ago I met a beautiful human being, Earthlings would say a beautiful girl, yes, and she told me she would translate one story! I was amazed! Sometimes it seems so easy to translate a book into Serbian. You got to have friends and they have to love good literature, to have free time, to be very literate in both English and Serbian, they have to see that sparkle in your eyes that means Wow, this is really something, and finally they have to fall for one particular story that they wish to spend their time with... whew... All these circumstances happened with one person, in one moment, one place, one Universe and right at the point when I thought that my task would become impossible... Those humans, they really amaze me...

Yours,

Marvin

Health Problems

Marvin here.
My head hurts! And when I wake up in the morning my jaw aches. Which leads me to think I must be grinding my teeth in my sleep. Stress can cause this, I found on wikipedia. And I have been busy translating words into Serbian and -- I will tell a secret here -- I've been working on a book of my own. I got a job at a space-bar but they don't pay me well because I'm *just* a robot! As if being able to calculate the trajectory of every electrical impulse in a tiny human brain isn't credentials to do just about anything! Really I'd like to design rockets, giant ones that look like cathedrals or cats. I'd fly them in a giant synchronized fleet. It would look like thousands of beautiful bugs in the sky, and everyone would fall in love.

Serbian Fonts, Alphabet and Letters

Marvin here. Of course, you know that...

I feel depressed. Zo was so excited and hilariously happy when she saw our blog, yeah, she choked so I had to spend a couple of hours reanimating her.

In meantime, like I am programmed to do, I made her a breakfast and updated my profile, while she was busy fantasizing about the Future, she hasn't translated any further bit of it, to be true, I don't know when is she going to do it.

Today when I asked her is she doing something on it? Can we publish a few words just to give to the audience the idea, the taste of it, (you know, humans always want to taste something... and get all smudged by it...) and can you imagine what she said to me?

Can you? Of course that you can't.
One got to talk and talk and talk to you humans all the time.

She said to me in her bossy voice "Look Marvin, make yourself useful! We can't both be creative! Go and find some links to Serbian Fonts. It's something that Kenton and I would need to share."

"IT's something that we would need to share" imagine that! And you know that she shares with people always what has no connection to what her actual activity with them should be, and just keep saying: irrational, unconscious, intuitive, impulsive, creative... that's all what you Marvin can not be nor we humans expect you to perform like that, so you please just go and do your job... oh and yes..." , then she told me to take away those chunks of peach and cantaloupe... even that... not knowing how it hurt my f.e.e.l.i.n.g.s. Now I said it.

So here I am, Kenton, a brain of the size of the planet stuck on this isolated place and doing my first activity, finding these FONTS for Serbian...

What I realized instantly is that fonts for Croat or Croatian and Bosnian are the same as Serbian alphabet. The same are the fonts for Slovene. Oh, why humans can not keep one name for the same thing? I guess that creating confusion is middle name for all humans... yeah... we robots got to clear all up in the end...

So it doesn't take a brain of the size of the planet to conclude that these all languages use the same ALPHABET. Just in Serbian, they decided to use it both in Latin and Cyrillic version, with 30 letters each.

Here are the photos of these letters for you...

Oh, of course, they are on the top! those human blogz are ... unpredictable...even to the point of software... Where is this world going? (sigh)

The Beginning

A comic made by Marvin explaining the circumstances of our meeting.

First Email

Hi Kenton,

How was your day? I write to you from Belgrade, Serbia.... Just discovered your writings and your book of stories The Future and Why We are Afraid (while surfing for comics actually...). I write this because I am interested to translate your book /or other selected writings/ in Serbian language, which is my native language. I am a linguist and own a small publishing house here, one book published, so this one of yours could be very second! The first happened to be mine, but it was l.t.a.

Well, would you provisionally agree as the author/publisher? (Hope you'd nod yes.) I don't want to take much of your time and would like to know your terms, (the sooner the merrier) If you want some more serious publisher for this area, please, let me find it for you.

In meantime, write... Man, I can't stop reading :)

Pace

Zo