Great analysis--thanks for posting this. Since you don't know German, I guess it's out of scope to wish for the original passages, just to compare Skoggard's and Eiland's takes. But I wish all the same.

Skoggard's passage you cite starts so wonderfully, but I too am confused by the "house rows" thing. Eisland is giving "rows of streets," so I'm guessing the original includes some notion of houses/buildings that Skoggard thought Eiland lacked.

What is translation? On a platter
A poet's pale and glaring head,
A parrot's screech, a monkey's chatter,
And profanation of the dead.

Recognize it, Charles?

who wrote the quote fnarf? I would like to steal it but at least want to know who I am stealing from.

It's the first lines from "On Translating Eugene Onegin" by Vladimir Nabokov.

I most definitely dislike translation.

What I like is Fortuitous Mistranslation.

But Hakim Bey is much too purposefully ambiguous for Charles- he likes his philosophers more old school and authoritarian.
Plus, Bey, as they say, is Gay.