An illustration from an 1896 issue of Punch magazine.

An illustration from an 1894 issue of Punch magazine.

A pipe smoking black cat and its witchy familiar fly on a broomstick under cover of chimney smoke. An illustration from an 1860 issue of Punch magazine.

"The Rival Moons": an illustration from a 1912 issue of Puck magazine.

We've heard the nursery rhyme about the old woman who lived in a shoe, but here's an old witch who commutes in one.  From Punch, 1860.

"You may find it difficult to believe that you are dead because you feel very much alive."
—Diane Goble, How to Die Consciously

Dr. Boli notes that "feral water is dangerously unstable.  It has been estimated that more than 50% of the damage in so-called natural disasters is caused by water in an uncontrolled state.  Feral water can destroy buildings and ravage landscapes.  It is a documented fact that feral water, in sufficient quantities, can kill."

   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(
`-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `

"The Very Thing": an illustration from an 1884 issue of Lett's Illustrated Household magazine.

[For Jonathan Caws-Elwitt, for reasons too complicated to summarize easily.]

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

There are two sides to every issue, and twelve gray facets.

"Maybe politeness is the same as sarcasm.  Someone should write that book.  Against Politeness."
—Tao Lin, Eeeee Eee Eeee: A Novel

Eleusinian Mysteries: an illustration from Family (1834).

"You may be quite surprised at how rapidly children grow and require new clothing and astonished at the number of their social activities."
—Therese A. Rando, How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies (1991)

If it's the last dance, let it be with a goat.  From an 1870 issue of London Society Illustrated magazine.

Populated by the grandmothers of baseball stars: "American's greatest graveyard."  From Puck, 1907.

An illustration from an 1892 issue of Punch magazine.

This ominous sphinx appears in Puck, 1883.

To our utter delight, Dr. Menachem Feuer analyzes our Franzlations according to Schlemiel Theory.  Here's just a snippet:

They have created a book that speaks to anyone who is interested not just in reading Kafka but in, so to speak, taking his work as the basis for new texts, images, and interpretations that "open” up the text to play and new meaning. Moreover, this book speaks to people who are well versed in what is called "intertextuality.” And by this I mean the textual practice of moving between texts which, in effect, offers new meanings (I will return to this below).

But I would argue that since Franzlations also includes images, one text doesn’t simply translate into another; it also translates a text into another image (or rather a set of images which harken back to the early 20th century). By doing this, this book takes the work of Kafka into a wholly other sphere of meaning with an entirely different register of connotations. And for someone like myself, who loves textual play, this is doubly exciting. It brings us into the zone where Walter Benjamin, in his book Berlin Childhood around 1900, wanted to go; namely, to a space where the imagination can be freed by virtue of the play of images, text, and history. In this space, one becomes like a man-child, interpreting text, images, and history while at the same time playing with them. This touches on depths by way of traveling across different surfaces.

I’d like to take a look at the interplay between text and text and text and (historical) image to illustrate how these texts open up horizons that I have not experienced in any previous academic readings or fictional plays on Kafka’s novels, short stories, or parables (as in Phillip Roth, Paul Celan, or Aharon Appelfeld’s work—to mention only a few examples of writers who engage in intertextuality with Kafka’s work).

"There is a point where the proud waves of the sea must be stopped."
—Richard Polwhele, Traditions and Recollections, 1826

   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(
`-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `

"A rose is a continuation of the rosebush" [just as one is a continuation of one's mother]. —You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment (2010)

An illustration from an 1884 issue of Penny Post magazine.  The caption reads: "Look through these glasses in order."

It "would only be funny if it hadn't been done before."
—Michael Dalton Johnson, Top Dog Sales Secrets (2007)

photo by Cobalt 123

"'When a sloth dies, it remains hanging in its tree,' the sloth said, apropos of nothing."
—Lev Grossman, The Magician King (2011)

An illustration from a 1909 issue of Puck magazine.

"You may find it hard to believe but I was once like you."
—Polly Teale's dramatization of Jane Eyre (1999)

An illustration from a 1909 issue of Puck magazine.

A mermaid, or technically "a wriggler sarpint of old Nile" [sic], from Punch, 1892.

"Charlie ... gestured with his head to the letter."
—S. L. Richardson, All The Way (2008)

The illustration of the giant letter P is from Punch, 1857.

Here's the secret of dying happily, courtesy of E. V. Lucas, Windfall's Eve (1930):

"Why new houses are haunted": an illustration from an 1886 issue of London Society Illustrated magazine.

Asking for help finding a kitten.  "That's the oldest trick in the book."
—Marlene Perez, Dead Is Not an Option (2011)

An illustration from a 1901 issue of Puck magazine.  The caption reads: "The superstition of modern Drug worship."

How is a paint-worthy subject like an airpane exit hatch?  Sometimes the nearest one is behind you.  In this illustration by Frank Haviland for The Bystander (1906), the artist is blissfully unaware that he has a half-human sea creature for a critic.

An illustration from a 1906 issue of The Bystander magazine.  The caption reads: "And the damned grotesques danced arabesques."

These mermaids appear in Punch, 1899.

Sheila in Binghamton (not pictured) writes:


Yes, Shelia!  Empty V8 cans absolutely do make more noise.  In layman's terms, a container that was once filled with eight juices is emptier than a container filled with a single juice.  In mathematical terms, negative eight is less than zero.  In Buddhist terms, emptiness is a boundless space of resonance.  (Note that the low sodium variety of V8, containing what Samuel Beckett didn't call "more lessness," makes the most noise of all.)

But here is a warning: do not, for acoustical purposes, seek to make your own V8 juice in a jar (as did Rachel McLeod Laminer, pictured), unless the noise you seek is that of breaking glass.

"Someone should write a big book about translation ... from Humboldt to today.  If you take a closer look, you soon realize that ultimately translation doesn't exist.  And suddenly you're caught in a trap."
—Ingo Schulze, New Lives (2008)

An illustration from a 1909 issue of Putnam's magazine.  The caption reads: "Others mailed themselves, all stamped."

An illustration from an 1865 issue of Mrs. Grundy magazine.

The fairies who make words stick in your head.  An illustration from an 1890 issue of Punch magazine.

"Wouldn't it be loverly" to have a room somewhere "with one enormous chair"?  That's what Eliza dreamed of in My Fair Lady (1956), though rooms with enormous chairs go back at least as far as 1865, as we see in Punch:

Before "snail mail" there was "butterfly mail," as we see in the sixth season of Bewitched.

"Open Sesame": an illustration from an 1874 issue of London Society Illustrated magazine.

"You may find it hard to believe that a starched shirt can feel comfortable. Well, now you can believe it!"
—Ebony (Feb. 1986)

photo by Cobalt 123

"'You can never be too careful,' he said apropos of nothing, and smacked his lips." —Laurie Fox, The Lost Girls (2011)

An illustration from an 1865 issue of Mrs. Grundy magazine.

The problem with this puzzle we encountered is that the blank dominoes aren't missing values at all.  Zero is a real number which quantifies a count or an amount of null size.

   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(
`-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `

 "'Honeysuckle,' he said, apropos of nothing but the night air."
—Grace Burrowes, The Heir (2010)

[See also our previous bit regarding somebody else's honeysuckle.]

An illustration from a 1918 issue of Cartoons magazine.

"How happy he who crowns, in shades like these." —Oliver Goldsmith

The illustration appears in Punch, 1892.

An illustration from an 1887 issue of Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly magazine.  The caption reads: "Out into a world of such wild whitening beauty as is seldom seen."

A surrealist illustration from a 1906 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "I saw the shadow of an enormous foot and felt a rush of air."

An illustration from an 1896 issue of Punch magazine.

"If you persist in being self-sufficient, you may be quite surprised when your partner leaves you, citing his or her reason as, 'You don't need me.'"
—Tracy Lewis, Living Life Consciously (2009)

   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(
`-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `

To avoid performing an ordinary social duty or otherwise excuse a breach of civility, merely say:

An illustration from a 1909 issue of Putnam's magazine.  The caption reads: "This patch of blue must go into the sky somewhere."

Thirty-three years before Anton Chekhov's "Gooseberries," in which he likened a far-off train to a crawling caterpillar, this caterpillar train appeared in Punch (1865).

"I think the sea's awful, I do, the way it throws people together." —E. V. Lucas, Down the Sky

   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(
`-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `

An illustration from She by Henry Rider Haggard.  The caption reads: "Curse her!  May she be everlastingly accursed!"

"You may find it hard to believe, but the last thing I want is to inherit a title tainted by the suspicion that I murdered the previous holder to gain it."
—Shirlee Busbee, Rapture Becomes Her (2011)

An illustration from a 1909 issue of Putnam's magazine.  The caption reads: "'Keep us under your shadow,' she whispered."

An illustration from an 1889 issue of Puck magazine.

These cruel insects (butterfly fairies?) are killing a wasp in Punch, 1865.

"A natural enmity, attacking and tearing each other with the cruelty of insects." —Graphis: Volume 8 (1958)

"For every magician who plucks a coin or card out of thin air, some cohort has to send a coin or card back into that air!"
—Larry Thornton, "A Brief Dissertation Plucked out of Thin Air"

[Thanks, Gordon!]

"Hey, man, this would only be funny if it happened to you."
—Wild Women/Wild Horses: Double Delights (2004)

"Yesterday's weather played havoc with skirts a la mode." —Robert Elliott Gonzales, Poems and Paragraphs, 1918.

The illustration is from an 1856 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "What it must come to."

An illustration from an 1891 issue of Puck magazine.

"Uncle Fusby gives another delightful lecture."  From Punch, 1866.

The patron saint of bad ideas exists.
—Things That Exist

Here's a quiet reading nook for the children (nothing too ostentatious), from Punch, 1865.