Lords and Shepherds

I had a couple of work appointments in Wollongong today, and drove down under grey skies. There's nothing better than a road trip on fast roads under grey skies in my book. I love grey weather because it is enclosing, comforting, and never desponds me. Relentless sunny days despond me...people expect me to go outside and 'enjoy myself'. I do not, of course.

The other ingredent is loud music. The more seriously classical the better, but sometimes old fashioned rock does it. Pity that the work car didn't have the benefit of a Naim audio system!

The weather was really bad on the way down Ousley pass, in fact visibilty contracted to mere metres and a few cars had a pile up: we all tried to pull off the road to let the police and fire truck pass at the very slow pace they were doing, also due to heavy mist.

But..radio. I listened to Margaret Throsby on ABC Classic. Not normally a show I like, although I also caught an interview once with Graham Long, pastor at the Wayside Chapel. I often saw him at Epping Church of Christ many decades ago...when I contacted him he remembered my mother, which was nice.

Back to Throsby. Her interviewee today was John Darnielle, of The Mountain Goats. A nice guy; interivewed because he's sort of famous now as a novelist and invitee to a few writing get togethers in Australia.

In the interview he contested the view held by some that reading novels in translation is not OK; even Throsby was taken aback by this...I instantly liked Darnielle. And I was really taken by his illustration. He said "take 'The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want'...I think Throsby was surprised as was I...goosebumps. He spoke highly of the interpretive work that the translators had done and the magnificence of its results. Compare for instance, Young's literal rendering of the same phrase: "Jehovah [is] my shepherd, I do not lack". Not quite the same.