Krakow 18 May, 2016
There is a gathering. There is a clustering, custarding
confluence of nonfluence, here in Krakow. After the extraordinary efforts of
Olga Howlonia and Agata Holobut (and please sprinkle a couple of inter-diacritical
motes and specks into their names), I found myself back in our nonsense band,
on a Mission from Scrod: Olga, Agata, Sirke Happonen, and Björn Sundmark—an
alliance forged over continents, conferences, conifers, and scrapyard round-the-back
plastic barchairs. Calgary, London, Frankfurt, Malmö, Boston, and forty ways
farther yet. And here we all are, as young and as fresh as the day is long, to
give a special nonsense panel at Jagiellonian University. We were joined by the
chrazy talents of Elzbieta Chrzanowska-Kluchzewska, a Professor at the
Jagiellonian, to complete the set, and to talk about nonsense literature in
translation. “That’s impossible!” you say (why do you always say that?), but we say nay. Or I did anyway. As you might
expect, I rode my Indian nonsense hobbyhorse yet again (with extra bobs and
bibbins, and the aforementioned non-linear lollipops). We spoke of translation in Finnish, Swedish, Polish, Marathi,
Bengali, and Svengali, all to a most fine-smelling and accommodating crowd of
students, professors, and even some sugary owls and cows. 
The cold Krakovian rain raved in envy, but we
prevailed—huddling forth to a celebratory after-talk lunch in a local
spot. The only doleful interloper being what looked like it might be a dessert--or an emo band.
Avoiding a sorrowful end, we made our way to the train
station, and a cozy berth, where another joined the band, Karolina Rybicka
(whom we thank with flippers, also, for organizing). As the train chugged anti-Krakowards, we
filled the compartment with Swedish and Finnish vocal/nose flute ditties and
illicit zubrowka fumes (or perhaps it was vocal/nose flute fumes and zubrowka
ditties?).
The old Swedish-Polish battlefields flew by, as we headed to
the next and final stop of the Nonsense Tour, Wroclaw, and the Child and the
Book conference.
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