senseless acts of beauty

[David Cortesi <cbmvax!uunet!UUNET.UU.NET!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!infmx!godzilla!cortesi>]

There's a delightful piece of writing making its way around the net
with the following theme:

        Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.

I just had to try to translate it.  You will probably be able to improve
on the following attempt:

        ko di'i tigni ge zu'o spaji fi ka xendo
                        gi zu'o li no te zukte li'i melbi

Literal back-translation (Vocabulary used is at end of message):

        ko di'i tigni ge
        you! repeatedly-perform both:
                        zu'o spaji fi ka xendo
                activity-of [you] surprise [zo'e] by quality-of be-kind-to
                        gi zu'o li no te zukte li'i melbi
                and activity-of the-zero reason-for-act-of
                                experience-of beauty

Analysis & feeble justifications:

        omission of "le" before "zu'o," "li'i," "ka" etc.

Not sure about this: "zu'o [bridi]" like any abstractor is a sumti, and
the added indirection of "le zu'o [bridi]" does not seem necessary to
me.  But this is an area that puzzles me and I would appreciate
comment.

        "[You] practice..."

It seems to me that "ko di'i tigni" is better here than possible
alternatives such as "ko di'i rinka."  I realize "tigni" probably has
the sense of a theatrical performance.  That is precisely the meaning I
get from the English: these acts should be done "for effect,"
demonstratively; hence theatrically.

        "random kindness"

Feel free to do something with "cunso" (random); I decided to focus on
the element of surprise, which seemed central to me.  The x3 of "spaji"
is the act that causes the surprise, which was convenient: "spaji fi ka
xendo" is exactly "surprise with kindness."
        "senseless acts"

"Mu'inai" could have been useful here, had it not already been
preempted (per the cmavo list) to mean "despite motive...".  So: how
does one deny the existence of a sumti?  A senseless act is a "zukte"
for which there is no x3.  The best I could find for this was "li no."
Since this was the important element I brought it to the front.  "li no
te zukte" is an act whose motivation is zero, nought.  However, zero is
a real thing, and a senseless act is one with no real motive.  (Perhaps
"the empty set" would do for a motive, if I knew how to say it?)

Here's the list of words I used; there were quite a few more that I
considered but you can find those for yourself.

melbi  meb mle      beautiful       beautiful to...in aspect...by standard...
spaji  saj          surprise        surprise/startle...by...
tigni  tig          perform         perform...for/before audience...
xendo  xed     xe'o kind            be kind to...by being/doing...
zukte  zuk     zu'e act             act/do...with purpose/goal...; entity

di'i    TAhE    regularly       tense interval modifier: regularly
fi      FA      3rd sumti place tag: tag 3rd sumti place
ge      GA      fore and        logical connective: all but selbri forethought
 and
gi      GI      connective medial       forethought connective medial marker
ka      NU      property/quality abstractor (-ness); x1 is quality/property
 exhibited by [bridi]
li      LI      the number      convert number/operand/evaluated expression to
 sumti
li'i    NU      experience abstract: x1 is x2's experience of [bridi]
no      PA      0       digit/number: 0 (digit)
te      SE      3rd conversion  switch 1st/3rd places
zu'o    NU      activity (event) abstractor; x1 is abstract activity of [bridi]