A little while ago my friend posted on the internet a little extemperaneous rant about the state of the Green industry. After another commented that he could easily hear that rant read in our friend’s voice I suggested that everybody should record themselves reciting it. It wasn’t too long till our international comrades started contributing foreign-language translations, and so it was suggested that I record a Yiddish version. So I did my own translation and recorded it.
The original:
You know, if this job has taught me anything it’s that the green movement is a bunch of meaningless, self-congratulatory bullshit; a way for over-educated yuppies to make money off of one another while getting to pat one another on the back for having a social conscience. For every good idea that’s going to effect positive change, there are 30 assholes who have added a leaf to their business cards and want to sell you environmentally-friendly convention materials like handbills and banners and loads of other bullshit so you can attend these insufferably smug, self-satisfied GO GREEN conventions where you will try to sell your own marginally less-wasteful products to other people who have spent oodles of money on promotional materials, as well. If this is what environmentalism looks like, our planet is effed in the a.
My translation*, in Latin letters for easier following along:
Her, oyb ot di arbet hot mikh epes gelernt, iz es az di “grine” baveygung iz a hayfl onzinendike, zikh-baykhl-patshndike bobkes; s’iz an oyfen far iberdertsoygene Yopinikes zikh tsu makhn di grobe koze, un beys-mayse konen zey zikh oykh eyner dem tsveytn a knipl ton in bekl farn yandes. Far yedn a gutn gedank vos ker baytn di velt tsum gutn, faran draysik paskudnyakes vos hobn tsugegebn a grin bletl tsu zeyere vizit-kartlekh un viln dem oylem-goylem farkoyfn natur-frayndlekhe konferents-materyaln, azoy vi bletlekh un fones un nokh a sakh shmokhtelyakes kedey az me zol kenen bayvoynen di nit-tsu-fartrogn zikh-tsufridene, zikh-tseshaynendike GEY GRIN tsuzamenforn, vu me vet pruvn tsu farkoyfn eygene oyf a hor veyniker oysbrengerishe skhoyre mentshn vos hobn aleyn gants oysgepatert zeyer gelt oyf pirsemvarg. Oyb der environmentalizm zet beems azoy oys, iz undzer planet ongemakht in tokhes arayn.
* With invaluable editing provided by my lerer, Yankl-Perets
And they say that Yiddish literature is dead.
