GR translation: sunfishing in the clouds

[David Morris]

Simple concept: fish imagery applied to a horse and a balloon.
Unless, maybe, the character making the observation was a cowboy.
BTW, WTF are your qualifications?

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 9:01 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, Mike, for bringing that unqualified remark upon your head. The
> motion of the "nervous balloons" is rough enough to strum cables.
> Could one not call that violent?
>
> And to please David, perhaps, I found the following quote by a horsewoman:
>
> Sunfishing, otoh, is a full-blown buck where the horse swings its body
> side to side while in the air - think of the way a fish on a line will
> fling itself side-to-side.
>
> Although I'm not sure that "sunfishing" horse means applying the
> imagery of that fish to the horse. I'd rather think the man who
> applied that image first to a horse (perhaps the brother of the one
> who created the metaphor "firewater") never saw a sunfish in his life.
>
> Jochen
>
> 2012/5/11 David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>:
>> "Sunfishing applied to horses" may be obscure, but your saying you
>> lean toward that translation makes me think your GR translation is
>> going to be a real stinker, for at least 2 or 3 reasons:
>>
>> 1. There is no "violent motion involved here." You have pulled that
>> out of thin air.
>>
>> 2. A Sunfish and the balloon resemble each other, and a fish on a
>> taught line is a common image.
>>
>> 3.  Sunfish exist.  A. "Sunfishing" horse is applying the imagery of
>> that fish to a horse, much like Pynchon is applying that imagery of
>> that fish to a balloon.
>>
>> If Chinese doesn't allow "verbing" of nouns, a hyphenated or compound
>> word such as "sunfishlike-moving" would be the next obvious choice.
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 11:20 PM, Mike Jing
>> <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Sunfishing, as applied to horses, is indeed an obscure cowboy term.
>>> In fact, I didn't even know it existed.  And the image of a fish IS
>>> explicit.  But somehow I'm still leaning towards horses, probably
>>> because it feels more like a proper verb.  Besides, the "verbed"
>>> sunfish does not automatically imply the violent motion involved here,
>>> although it could.  Decisions, decisions....
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 9:23 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> There is no hint of horses in the text.  The image of a fish is
>>>> explicit, even one on a fishing line, maybe fighting to get loose.