Catymology

Yo, cats and catted ones,

The Professor, as is his wont, is taking the day off. So, I borrowed his thingpoddy and--guess what?--I'm learning Engrish. In case you don't know it, Engrish is a language spoken by non-native speakers of English, often Japanese. Engrish.com is filled with examples from advertising, comic books, signs--you name it.

Check it out--it's really fun. Or, as an Engrish speaker might put it:

Inspect that. That enjoys and really is.

I found out I can do a lot with Engrish, and for a cat such as me ("no translation available"), just randoming around with some Engrish is almost as much fun as playing with a ball of yarn is for a normal cat.

But, what about the meat festival, you ask? What's that doing in the the title of a post about Engrish? Okay, here's the heart of it--also the gizzard and the shank, wing, etcetera: while I was on Katz's thingpoddy, I got some really bad news from a (human) cat named Zeuswood:

First Carnival » The End:

I was going to write a lengthy post on how things have changed, why people lost interest, what’s wrong with CotV, etc., and I may yet complete and post that. However, I wanted to get at least a basic announcement up sooner rather than later, and not just the ones buried on the upcoming hosts page or at the evil “Blog Carnival” site.

Carnival of the Vanities is closing for lack of interest.

The four year edition was the final test. If a heavily promoted, major landmark in the life of a historic, hugely influential blogospheric institution can’t get links or traffic - not to malign those who did come through for us, thanks! - and not even from many people with a stake, then there is no hope for it week to week. It’s just another way to get links; ironically, without having to write stuff so good or provocative it would have a better chance of generating links on its own. CotV was supposed to help ensure visibility of your best, since most of us have written great stuff that sunk into the blogosphere without so much as a ripple. And links aren’t even the prestige thing they once were. Heck, it’s the readership that matters more, and CotV doesn’t bring that.

Seems like just the other day, Katz was saying as how the Carnival of the Vanities is one of his favorites. Is he ever gonna be mad when he wakes up and gets the news about it's folding. But never one to miss an opportunity, I decided to try out my new Engrish skills on Zeuswood's message:

Thanking/apologizing meat festival of vain heart has closed because of scarcity of interest.

Alas! No more meat festival? Clap if you want to save the meat festival! Then click on over to this week's edition (but wait till Wednesday) at Lucy's Dilemma.

Ah! It worked! See the comment from Kehaar at Silflay Hraka. And check out the explanation:

I didn't want to have to do this, but rather than see the Carnival of the Vanities shut down, I'll be bringing it home to Silflay Hraka after the 209th edition, appearing this week at Lucy's Dilemma.

Episode 210 will appear here on Wednesday the 27th. Future installments of CoTV will appear on this blog rather than rotate until further notice.

If you have a post you'd like to submit, please send it to kehaar at silflay hraka dot com.

Hurray! Rumor of death of meat celebration festival was exaggerated very!


Update: 9/20/2006: Since Lucy has been kind enough to mention this post, I want to point out that Laurence Simon has also offered to host the Carnival of the Vanities. But in the "Clap if you want the carnival to continue" tradition, Laurence wants to hear from 100 of us, via email, that we support his effort: email laurence at isfullofcrap.com. (Hey, we couldn't make these things up, could we?)

--A.K.