2007年8月30日 星期四

美国黑人强烈反对马丁•路德•金“中国制造”

文学艺术 | 2007.08.29

美国黑人强烈反对马丁•路德•金“中国制造”

马丁·路德·金雕像的泥塑草稿静静地矗立在湖南长沙的一个小小美术工作室里,雷宜锌和他的助手们正在反复审视、修改他们的草稿,希望十八个月后伫立在华盛 顿的同名广场上的十米高的花岗岩马丁·路德·金雕像能够将这位“人权之父”的自由平等的精神向世界广为传播。而许多美国黑人、艺术家强烈反对民族英雄的像 也“中国制造”。艺术作品就这样一不小心卷入了困扰美国人的国家、种族问题。雷宜锌就这一座不平凡的雕像和他的艺术创作接受了德国之声记者的采访。

“我也知道痛苦的滋味”

批评声来自美国的艺术家,温弗里·杨夫妇成立了 专门的网站,号召一群艺术家们反对马丁·路德·金纪念碑基金会将合约签给一个中国的雕塑家。他们认为应该由美国黑人艺术家,至少是美国艺术家来完成这项重 要的作品。温弗里·杨说:“设想一下,金的雕像将由一个大木箱从中国送到美国,而木箱上面会写着‘中国制造’。”而另一位曾经制作了七部金的雕像的美国黑 人艺术家艾德·威特则称雷宜锌的设计方案“干瘪,皱褶,毫无生气”,他还说道:“我了解黑人的长相,我了解他们怎样运动,我了解黑人的身体结构。”

对于谁应该来制作这个雕像,以及中国艺术家不懂 黑人解剖学的指摘,雷宜锌有这样的回答:“任何国家,任何事情都有两个方面的意见。这些反对意见并不是主流意见,是极少数人的一些看法。我也看了一些美国 网上的争论,绝大多数人支持这个项目这样做,有的人甚至觉得,白人、黑人、黄皮肤的人都要一起来参加这个项目。金是一个国际性的伟人。金的思想就是,让上 帝所有的孩子,黑人、白人、犹太人,异教徒,新教徒,天主教徒,他们手拉手,同唱一首歌。他当时就呼吁过,不能用一个人的肤色和出身来评价一个人,而是以 他的品质来评价一个人。”雷宜锌的代表作《中秋》Bildunterschrift: 雷宜锌的代表作《中秋》

不过,雷宜锌说他也能理解其中一部分人的意见,很多批评的原因是,金所掀起的黑人权利运动,坚苦卓绝,来自异域文化的艺术家很可能不能完全领会金所遭遇的苦难,从而不能真正传达他的精神。


“我也是承受过痛苦的人,我也知道痛苦的滋味是 什么。” 对于这样的质疑,雷宜锌用自己的经历作答:“我年轻的时候,因为出身不好,在农村待了七八年,当知识青年,那个时候,我也是受歧视的,感觉不好。不过我相 信,这种痛苦是会过去的。今天无论在美国还是在中国,人们都越来越平等,有这种思想的人,我认为他们是狭隘的。”


而对于中国艺术家不懂黑人身体结构的指责,雷宜 锌说这些是雕塑家的基本功,根本不成问题:“这个问题不存在。我们作为造型艺术家,从学习艺术开始就是研究人,我们研究的不光是中国人,而是各种各样的 人。基本功已经把你训练成,不管你做黑人、白人、黄种人(的雕塑),包括做动物都要有能力表现。不能只对自己周围的东西比较熟悉。当然,我们也需要不断研 究。对每个个案,都需要作具体分析,争取给雕塑注入精神。”


除此之外,马丁·路德·金纪念碑委员会还指派了两名美国艺术家作雷宜锌的合作人,他们是密歇根大学的讲师罗卡特和雕塑家汉密尔顿,两位都是美国黑人。

“是他们选中了我”

对于雷宜锌来说,被选中执刀金的纪念碑雕像,完 全是个偶然。2000年,美国国会通过立项,批准在与白宫、华盛顿纪念碑、林肯纪念堂相邻的位置设立马丁•路德•金广场,并计划树立金的雕像。从那时之后 的六年多来,马丁·路德·金纪念碑委员会一直在寻找合适的人选,制作金的雕像。回忆中选的经历,雷宜锌说道:“是他们选中了我。一个很偶然的机会。 2006年5到7月份在美国明尼苏达参加了一个国际石雕研讨会,一共有来欧美非亚等大洲的十几位艺术家参加了研讨会,而当时的(马丁·路德·金纪念碑)委 员会当时正在寻找合适的人选来创作这个雕塑,他们已经寻找了六年。他们在本土和世界各地都进行了漫长的搜寻。此次他们也到我们的研讨会来观察。当时他们与 所有的雕塑家都谈了,每个人都想接受这个项目,不过同时,每个人也都推荐委员会要跟‘中国雷’谈一谈。当时我还在大树下睡午觉,不过听到雕塑的消息我非常 振奋,得知这个雕像会放在美国的国家广场上,我更是非常兴奋。我马上同意接手这个项目。”


“这个雕塑将要有10米高,对中国雕塑家来说,不算是个很大的雕塑,我们在国内常常雕刻更大的雕塑。而对美国艺术家来说是比较大的雕塑,很多艺术家多年来都没有这样的机会。”因此,雷宜锌获得这个项目,批评声中也不免有些酸葡萄的味道。雷宜锌作品《出境》Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 雷宜锌作品《出境》


基本确立雷宜锌为雕塑家人选之后,雷宜锌还要通 过马丁·路德·金纪念碑委员会的筛选,雷宜锌说道:“筛选过程由基金会的12人评选委员会来决定,这12个人都是艺术、建筑、规划方面的专家、权威,其中 10个人是美国黑人。他们看到了我在明尼苏达的雕塑(《遐想》),以及我出版的作品集,加上外国雕塑家的推荐,之后他们的委员会就对我进行了评估,此后他 们又委托我做了一个小的泥塑方案,这个方案也经过了美国国家最高艺术委员会的评审,这个委员会由经过美国总统任命的专家组成,被认为是美国最认真,最挑剔 的专家。我的模型获得委员会的全票通过。到2006年12月份,两个委员会的内部评估都作完了。目前我们已经开始制作大型泥塑,之后还要预计18个月到 24个月的时间,到2009年初可以完成。”

马丁·路德·金意味着什么

马丁•路德•金是美国著名黑人运动领袖, 1963年他在林肯纪念堂发表的著名演说“我有一个梦想”,打动了全世界。1964年,金获诺贝尔和平奖。1968年他被种族主义分子枪杀。作为美国民权 运动之父,金一直得到全美国人民的巨大尊敬。 那么,对于制作他的雕像的艺术家雷宜锌来说,金意味着什么呢?


“在中国的五六十年代,大家都知道他,中国政府 当时还通过大规模的集会和游行来支援过他,包括毛泽东本人也写过文章声援他。小的时候对他就有印象。现在通过一些材料就更了解他了。大家把他定位为‘人权 斗士’,对我来讲,他是一个英雄,是一个对全人类,对整个世界都有影响的英雄。他所追求的不光是对一个民族,一个种族内部的平等。而是天下所有的人之间, 都要充满爱,就像兄弟姐妹一样地在地球上生活。他的影响是非常博大的,充满了希望也充满了爱。从这点来说,一般人不能达到这个境界。而且,今天的中国也正 需要这种精神。”

雷宜锌雕刻刀下的金

雷宜锌的青年时代受到他的出身问题的影响, 1977年中国恢复高考之前,他作为“知识青年”在农村生活多年,不过那个时候他已经开始描描画画,而且因为当时的政治需要,出现了大量的政治宣传画。雷 宜锌也笑称:“文化大革命是对中国美术事业的一种促进,当时通过画宣传画使得美术事业很繁荣。”恢复高考之后,他以优异的成绩考入广州美术学院,正式开始 创作生涯。大三的时候,他创作了雕塑《中秋》。这部作品至今还被他称为自己的代表作。此后他的很多作品在雕塑大赛上获奖,他也被称为中国当代最有艺术表现 力的雕塑家之一。他的另一部作品《出境》参加了第八届全国美术作品展览,获得了大奖。他讲解道:“作品表现了一群中国人出国过海关的那一个瞬间。中间有一 个农民,暴发户,一个青年企业家,和女性的养殖专业户。就是说,富起来的农民,腰包里面有钱了,出国去玩。尽管之前他们做了很多准备和打扮,不过在出关的 那一瞬间,还是给我们呈现了饶有兴味的一幕。我记录了这个瞬间,这个作品也获得了全国美展的大奖,被中国美术馆收藏。这也是一部非常写实和具象的作品。他 从一个侧面表现了中国的改革开放。”




写实是雷宜锌的创作风格,他也一直在坚守着自己的这种创作风格:“写实的手法是我们的优势,世界上很多人都在抛弃这种手法,我和很多中国人都在坚守着这种风格。”“绝望之山,希望之石”

Bildunterschrift: “绝望之山,希望之石”






那么,出自一个中国艺术家之手的金的雕像又有怎样的特色呢?

雷宜锌要尽力融合中西方的艺术传统,争取有所创 新:“美国人做东西比较精细、圆润、丰富;中国追求线条的流畅和美感,另外中国的艺术讲究概括,简练,讲究‘意到笔不到’。而我设计的雕塑,上部分是实 的,下部分是虚的:头部接近美国的手法,比较细;越往下走,就越‘虚’,成面成块。另外人像的背景,都是大刀阔斧劈出来的,是一种很概括的语言。所以还是 融合了东西方的艺术特色。”

“绝望之山,希望之石”

这句取自金的演讲的名言,成了整座雕塑的基本精 神。整座雕塑由三块花岗岩组成,而金的雕像,就从中间的那块巨石里刻画出形象。他把双臂盘在胸前,手握一支笔,从巨大的花岗岩中呼之欲出。“这块石头是从 绝望之山里面劈出来的希望之石。绝望之山与希望之石组合在一起,表现一句马丁·路德·金的名言,他说:‘我希望,从绝望之山中间劈出一块希望之石。’”

多马


With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

他们奋斗在遥远的东方??。

德专家检查中国绿色产品

前些时候,中国的玩具和婴儿围嘴都出现了很大纰漏。对这些产品,消费者反应十分敏感。然而在这片土地上还在出产其它产品,对于这些产品,消费者很注重其质 量,例如绿色食品。

中国在这一领域是世界第二, 甚至德国人餐桌上的豆芽,谷物,还有茶都可能来自于中国的绿色生态园地。然而德国的绿色行业警觉性非常高,因为他们对中国的腐败官员、擅长欺诈的检查人员 以及懒散的农民感到担忧和恐惧。

为了使绿色产品严格达标,他们奋斗在遥远的东方??。

德国绿色食品经济委员会(BÖLW)主 席略温施泰因(Felix Prinz zu Löwenstein)说,“我对中国的法制体系不那么信任,所以我不会轻易相信那些所谓的优胜产品。” 中国每年在全世界范围内出口的生态产品总值达2亿5千万欧元。随着全世界需求的不断增长,在中国评为优质级生态产品的数量已从三年前的不到百分之十上升到 目前的百分之三十多。

这个行业在中国的迅速兴起也带来了可悲的负面作 用,那就是导致了质量上的疏忽大意和对优质产品评定的弄虚作假。生态鉴定专家,同时也是农业家的格劳斯(Peter Grosch)说,“存在着一些害群之马,他们与农民们私下达成交易,进行不光明磊落的买卖。” 他认为,中国政府还不能严惩违反生态产品法规的行为。

格劳斯每年两次前往中国大陆,那里有四百万多公 顷的生态种植基地,在世界排名第二,仅次于澳大利亚。他所就职的德国有机认证机构(BCS)位于纽伦堡, 专门负责为欧洲、美国和日本的客户考查分布在世界60个国家的生态农场。根据格劳斯的判断,他在德国一些众所周知的生态品牌代表中对德美特 (Demeter〕和生物园(Bioland〕比较信任。要是农场的种植条件符合了进口国的法律方针,那么格劳斯就会表示认同,同时他的客户们也会愿意交 易。

德国有机认证机构在中国监查250个农场,而在九十年代末还只有60个。格劳斯一直坚持严格的要求,这位61岁的德国人说,“在过去的一段时间里我们已经取消了好几个村的资格。” 遭到处罚的不仅是相关的农民,还有已经转卖了一部分这些产品的德国商人。

格劳斯目前正在中国东北的延吉参观生态农场,业 主对德国专家的结果表示理解。穆金希〔音译〕领导着一个占地2000公顷、由14位农民组成的农场。他说,“我们可以从德国人在萨克森州的生态种植那里学 到很多东西。” 但格劳斯说,并不是每个人都有这样的觉悟,许多农场主生态意识薄弱,他们出于投机,对农产品施药,打激素,还盼望能蒙混过关。

格劳斯观察着,闻着,并从一块地皮触摸到另一 块。像他这样的专家很少需要实验室的帮忙去揭开造假者的面具。但造假者运用的手段并不是总能像那天那样容易查出来。农田的边缘放着一只杂草杀虫剂的空瓶。 那位农民表示说,他没有用毒素,而是城市工人们在进行街道护理时洒上去的。对格劳斯来说,这块土地三年禁止用于生态产品出口。

当格劳斯离开中国后,他的雇员们会继续检查农场。德国有机认证机构的检查专家们定期来访,当然也会突然袭击。格劳斯把他的同事们亲自带到现场,等到在德国进一步培训的时候仔细审查。至于雇员们的薪水格劳斯用了“很好”来形容。因为那是防止贿赂的最好方法。

2007年8月25日 星期六

To Woo Europeans, McDonald’s Takes an Upscale Turn

To Woo Europeans, McDonald’s Takes an Upscale Turn

Steve Forrest for The New York Times

A McDonald’s in London. The chain's European restaurants now have designer touches and more localized menus. More Photos >


Published: August 25, 2007

LONDON — Taking a respite from an afternoon of shopping, Ita Clift sips a cappuccino at a McDonald’s. Though she rarely sets foot in the fast-food restaurant, Ms. Clift says she dropped in to this one in the Edgware Road section of Northwest London for a quick boost of energy and because the restaurant “looked so nice and sophisticated.”

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Related

American Instincts in a French Executive (August 25, 2007)

McDonald's

A McDonald's in Wolfratshausen, Germany, offers espresso drinks on it's McCafe menu. More Photos »

Steve Forrest for The New York Times

A McDonald’s in central London includes chairs that are not typically found in the chain’s restaurants in the United States. More Photos >

Sophisticated? McDonald’s?

The Golden Arches are going upscale. Aiming to create a more relaxed experience in a sophisticated atmosphere, McDonald’s is replacing bolted-down plastic yellow-and-white furniture with lime-green designer chairs and dark leather upholstery. It is the restaurant chain’s biggest overhaul in more than 20 years and, with its franchisees, it plans to spend more than 600 million euros ($828 million), remodeling 1,280 European restaurants by the end of this year.

The changes are more than cosmetic. McDonald’s is introducing healthier foods and items that cater to regional tastes, like caffè lattes. Hoping to attract more young adults and professionals, in addition to its core customer base of children, the chain is also adding amenities like Internet access and rental iPods.

The changes are paying off. In the first half of this year, combined sales at Europe’s 6,400 restaurants rose 15 percent, to $4.1 billion, compared with a 6 percent increase in the United States, where McDonald’s has 13,800 restaurants and sales totaled $3.9 billion.

The strength of European currencies helped, but even without the lagging American dollar, European revenue is rising faster in real terms than revenue in the United States.

“McDonald’s is doing a great job in Europe, which has become an enormously important market for them,” said Larry Miller, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

The chain now serves over 10 million customers a day in Europe, which contributes 36 percent to the company’s operating income, making it the most profitable region, after the United States.

The original impetus for the makeover was a European sales slump in the late 1990s, brought on by concerns about obesity and annoyance at unappealing décor and grumpy employees. But the ideas for how to change came from Denis Hennequin, president of McDonald’s Europe, the first non-American in that role.

As head of McDonald’s restaurants in his native France in the late 1990s, Mr. Hennequin had searched for ways to make fast food more appealing to a nation that prefers slow-simmered cassoulets and likes to savor a meal.

“To make McDonald’s and a Big Mac work in the country of slow food, we felt we had to pay more attention to space and showcasing,” said Mr. Hennequin, seated in front of zebra print wallpaper in one of the remodeled London restaurants.

He was right. After refurbishment, on average, sales increased 4.5 percent at the upgraded restaurants in France. The new outlets were so successful that two years ago Mr. Hennequin was asked to do the same for the rest of Europe.

But now the success of his makeovers comes with a challenge of its own: How much can you upgrade the image before McDonald’s isn’t McDonald’s anymore? “If you stretch the brand too much it can snap,” said Dean Crutchfield, director of marketing at the brand consultancy Wolff Olins in New York.

Mr. Hennequin said he did not have a choice. “Reimaging is essential in the competitive world of retail,” he said. “We need to avoid aging faster than our customers.”

To do that he instructed the design studio he had set up in Paris to come up with nine different designs. Franchised restaurants, which account for about 64 percent of all European outlets, can then choose the design most appropriate for their location and clientele.

The designs range from “purely simple,” with minimalist décor in neutral colors, to “Qualité,” featuring large pictures of lettuces and tomatoes and gleaming stainless steel kitchen utensils, like meat grinders.

“The new ones are much more comfortable, less crammed and we love those chairs,” said 16-year-old Shane Bogela, referring to the redesigned stores and the “egg” chairs, designed by the Danish architect Arne Jacobsen, at a McDonald’s in London.

A separate food factory in Munich is trying to come up with new menus for the different tastes in the 41 European countries, including Russia, where McDonald’s operates.

In Britain, McDonald’s restaurants started to serve porridge for breakfast. In Portugal, they offer soup and in France, cheese saga — burgers with French cheeses.

McDonald’s first adapted its menu to local tastes in the 1980s when it started to offer beer in some of its German restaurants.

Paying attention to local European tastes has also helped McDonald’s overcome some of the cultural hurdles it faced as a large American fast-food chain. “The problem in Europe was the perception that any large U.S. brand has, which is bringing the American way of eating and marketing and invading the local culture,” said David Kolpak, who helps manage $62 billion, including McDonald’s shares, at Victory Capital Management in Cleveland.

While head of McDonald’s restaurants in France, Mr. Hennequin experienced opposition to American corporations firsthand in 1999 when Jose Bové, the firebrand leader of a French farmers union, organized a bulldozing of a McDonald’s restaurant to protest the spread of American “hegemony.”

Mr. Hennequin reacted with a large advertising campaign promoting the American chain’s use of local produce and its creation of local jobs. McDonald’s not only organized open-door days for customers to come see its kitchens, but also invited customers to make a trip to its suppliers.

While palates differ from country to country, design is more universal, Mr. Hennequin said. He admires strong brands that reinvent themselves to become more fashionable and appealing, as the trendy car line Mini Cooper did. In France, he hired the same advertising agency as Apple Computer, another brand Mr. Hennequin said he admired for its adaptability.

“We would like to stay true to our roots while moving forward,” Mr. Hennequin said.

This means that McDonald’s kept its trademark golden arches logo in Europe but got rid of the red accompanying it. Instead, restaurants feature a warm burgundy color. The pointy roofs are being phased out and replaced by simple olive green facades, and the bright neon lights in the restaurants were dimmed.

French fries and cheeseburgers remain the best sellers on the menu.

Remodeling is also catching on in the United States, where McDonald’s has renovated about 6,000 of its 13,800 restaurants in the last two years, though less extensively than in Europe. Some analysts say the new design works better in Europe than in the United States, where most McDonald’s customers prefer to eat in their cars or take their food home.

“And they won’t change their habits,” Mr. Kolpak said.

2007年8月22日 星期三

Barcelona Arena

"......一九二六年六月七日,八十四歲的高第在巴塞隆納街頭倒退著走,電車一下子把他撞倒。也許他在想設計,也許想看清街頭某個建築的高處。路人不知他是誰,過了好一陣子才傳出高第的死訊。

一九七四年三月十七日,七十三歲的美國現代主義建築大師路易‧康(Louis Kahn),從巴基斯坦回美國,在紐約中央車站要搭火車回費城,心臟病發,倒在男洗手間裡。由於紐約市政府人員的疏忽,一代大師在停屍房待了兩天才被家人認領。

死亡常常為傳奇加分。

建築大師留下的作品是傳奇的見證,幸運的話。

旅館隔街是巴塞隆納三個鬥牛場裡頭最大的一個。紅磚的圖案千變萬化,遠望如鏤空的雕塑,十分美麗。如今大興土木。像歐洲許多建築,基於法規或美學的 渴望,環形門面完整保留,中間完全挖空,改建商場。竣工之後,將由晶亮的名牌商店進駐。這是全球化最可怕的一件事,從莫斯科到米蘭到芝加哥,每個國家商場 都千篇一律地變成機場免稅精品店,內容完全一樣。

這個Barcelona Arena 改建商場,掀起軒然大波,最後改建派得勝。這也是鬥牛作為西班牙國粹地位動搖的表徵。年輕世代不在意這繁文縟節的殺戮儀式,保護動物組織反對殘殺動物來娛樂,抗議之聲不絕於耳。......"


城市與傳奇

林懷民

2007.06.29. 巴塞隆納‧西班牙



arena Show phonetics
noun [C]
1 a large flat enclosed area used for sports or entertainment:
an Olympic/a sports arena

2 an activity that involves argument and discussion:
After 30 years in the political arena, our local member of parliament is retiring next year.

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)




Learning to Cook, With Time Left to See Paris

Learning to Cook, With Time Left to See Paris

Published: August 22, 2007

SERIOUS cooks know they can go off to France and take immersion courses, but until recently, I hadn’t realized that it is possible to take quickie cooking classes: a few hours, a half day or a day.


mas·car·po·ne (mäs'kär-pō'nĕ, -pōn') pronunciation
n.

A fresh soft Italian cheese with a high butterfat content, made from cow's milk enriched with cream.

[Italian, augmentative of dialectal mascarpa, whey cheese.]


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Owen Franken for The New York Times

Making a mascarpone and fruit dessert at Ecole Lenotre in Paris.




Related

For Vacation, Pack a Toque (August 22, 2007)

Although I visit Paris often, my visits are short, and I assumed cooking classes would involve a major time commitment. In fact, it is easy to pop into a class, connect with Paris in a different way and, as a bonus, improve your French. (Usually, but not always, there is an English translator.)

The range of choice is so enormous that I decided to explore my options at three principal cooking schools in Paris: École Ritz Escoffier, École Lenôtre and Le Cordon Bleu. All three schools have well organized Web sites, particularly Lenôtre, where classes are given only in French. At Cordon Bleu, amateur classes are translated simultaneously into English, as are many demonstrations; at Ritz Escoffier, everything is translated.

How to choose? Among its spring classes, Cordon Bleu offered a Paris market tour, a class called “Cooking for Friends” and a seven-hour Saturday class on Easter chocolates, as well as its core daily demonstrations.

At Lenôtre, there were loads of temptations: “Grand Effet — Petit Prix” (“Impressive Meal at a Budget Price”), “All About Lamb,” “Flavors of Asia” and “Chocolate From A to Z.” Among Ritz Escoffier’s offerings were an evening cooking workshop in white and green asparagus and an all-day class on lamb.

In July and August, offerings at all three schools are limited. Signing up well ahead is essential, especially for popular classes. This doesn’t seem to apply to demonstration classes, which are larger and expandable.

A demonstration is just fun; a hands-on cooking class puts you right in the action.

My first venture was a demonstration class at the Ritz. There is an Alice in Wonderland quality to entering the back door on the Rue Cambon, descending the stairs and finding yourself underneath all that expensive elegance, in the bowels of the great Paris hotel.

In the spacious classroom and kitchen of the École Ritz Escoffier, I joined some two dozen others, including Americans, Japanese and a few Europeans. The chef, Christophe Pouy, in impeccable whites and pleated toque, was relaxed and charming yet a master of efficiency as he set in motion the menu of ravioli of duck foie gras with truffle cream, glazed pork ribs with lentils and chocolate mousse with candied orange.

From 3 to 5:30, he talked while he cooked, and a young Belgian sous-chef translated into English. She could even handle the occasional joke, if with utter seriousness. An overhead mirror reflected the chef’s moves, although it was easy to see without it.

We took notes on our printed recipes, especially on the little “trucs,” useful tips, the chef passed along: poach the ribs for a half hour or so, then marinate, before putting them in the oven; convert a plastic bag into a “poche,” a sort of pastry bag, to squeeze out dough or mousse; basics such as what to look for when buying foie gras.

In a few hours, everything came together in a symphonic close, and we tasted the various dishes and departed, crammed with information and energized — the chef had done all the work.

Shortly after the demonstration class at the Ritz, I was cooking. But it couldn’t have been more different than that laid-back affair. At the elegant Pavillon Élysée Lenôtre, on the Champs-Élysées, I was ushered into the bright, airy cooking area.

There, seven students (eight is the maximum) had their own chopping boards, knives, aprons and tea towels set up around a long central table, plus recipes and pencils. My heart sank as I realized the other six were all French women. How do you say “baptism by fire” in French? After the offer of coffee or water and a pain chocolat, the chef, Jacky Legras, didn’t stop for breath and neither did we.

As he said what he required — X amount of flour, X grams of butter, a minced onion, X egg yolks — each student would quickly take on a task. Ingredients were either in containers on the table, or in a refrigerator. Everyone seemed to know what to do. Mon Dieu! I started peeling potatoes, an easy job.

The chef was masterful at assessing students and giving harder jobs to the most experienced. Differing levels of expertise didn’t seem to matter, and in the flurry of work, along with frenzied note-taking, no one was keeping tabs on anyone else.

For our three-course Italian dinner, the menu was ambitious: gnocchi with Gorgonzola; mignons of veal with vegetable garnish and tuna sauce; and tiramisù. The chef would assemble the prepared ingredients, have pots going and ovens set, and show us, for example, how to beat the gnocchi dough to get the right texture. Eventually, we each had our own portion of dough to squeeze out of a tube and cut into pieces, our portion of veal to tie for roasting, and so on.

As we roared along, fine points of seasoning were covered along with myriad other details; my favorite was watching the chef deftly place paper-thin tomato skins on a cookie sheet with just a drop of olive oil on each and put them in the oven. A bit later, they emerged as stiff little “sails” to adorn the elegant vegetable garnish on the veal.

In three and a half hours, we never sat down or slowed down. And once again, the meal came out perfectly and on time; the food was divided by a helper into packages for us to take home. It was an intense learning experience, even if I grasped only about 85 percent of the rapid-fire French.

My next class was at Le Cordon Bleu, which is in its own building on a pleasant street in the 15th Arrondissement, less central and less glamorous than the other two. It is also less expensive, and the setting is spacious and comfortable. (Le Cordon Bleu, though Paris-based, is an international chain.)

The two-hour evening demonstration of “Chef’s Secrets” was led by Marc Chalopin, who cooked and talked us through the meal of scallop “parfait” with smoked herring eggs on cheese shortbread, sautéed pork medallions on puréed potato, and mushrooms with cream and potato crisps. We closed with some tastes and an excellent glass of cabernet franc from Saumur.

While somewhat frothy, the April cooking class on pear desserts at Lenôtre turned out to be fun: roast pears on hazelnut dacquoise with caramel ice cream; pear and ginger chutney and pear-raisin crumble. Since there were only five of us (again, French women and me) under the guidance of the chef, François Schmitt, and the menu was less daunting, this session felt fairly relaxed. Along with technique, I got to know ingredients like tant pour tant (half sugar and half almond powder), miel de sapin (fir-tree honey) and étoiles de badiane (star anise).

My final class, at Ritz Escoffier, was a half day on fish cookery, for which I had been squeezed into one segment of a week-long course (there was a spare place). This meant arriving early with the other students for school orientation and being issued full chef’s garb from the wardrobe department: toque, pants, white chef’s shirt, apron, tea cloth and a secure locker. In an hour, we were dressed and at work, preparing small mackerel marinated with herbs and cleaning the fish for a bouillabaisse.

This charming chef, David Goulaze, led our international bunch, including a Brazilian woman, a Korean girl as amateurish as I, a deft French woman studying for chefdom and a young Bosnian chef. It worked despite the huge variation in skills.

And when Mr. Goulaze personally tied the white chef’s scarf around each of our necks, I knew that a full week’s course — at least! — was in my future.

2007年8月21日 星期二

百年中国话剧 专访大师赖声川

文学艺术 | 2007.08.21

百年中国话剧专访大师赖声川

今年是中国话剧百年,也恰逢在内地、台湾、香港长演不衰的纯华语原创经典剧目《暗恋桃花源》20周年纪念。8月21日开始,《暗恋桃花源》在中国内地许多 城市跟观众见面后,再次回到了北京:这已经是《暗恋桃花源》在北京的第四轮巡演。一部话剧在整个中国 的舞台上让那么多观众如痴如狂的热捧了那么多年,至今仍不见颓势,导演赖声川仿佛有一种魔力。他是一位真正的大师。德国之声的记者日前对他进行了专访,亲 身感受到了这位戏剧大师的智慧光芒。

德国之声:中国话剧百年,在您的心目中,百年中中国最好的话剧应该是哪部?

赖声川:那当然应该是《茶馆》、《雷雨》了。这些经典的还是无法动摇它们的位置的。

德国之声:虽然您认为《暗恋桃花源》应该算是舞台剧,而不是话剧,但是《暗恋桃花源》在观众和舆论眼里,已经无可争议的在中国话剧百年史上占据了自己的一席之地。在您自己看来《暗恋桃花源》可以在百年的剧目中排在一个什么样的位置呢?

赖声川:不敢说,真的不敢说。排行榜是专家来评定的,而我们,只是在做演出。

德国之声:《暗恋桃花源》以前只是在美国、韩国这些国家正式演出过,从未正式登陆过欧洲。您也曾说过,因为韩国有着相似文化背景、历史背景的缘故,他们的观众能够比较容易理解这部戏。德国其实也有着类似于1949年中国的那段历史,并且在德国的童话传说中也不乏有着类似于桃花源的理想国,喜爱戏剧的德国观众对于理解这部戏问题应该不大。那么《暗恋桃花源》是否想过搬上德国的舞台?

赖声川:我觉得德国的观众相对于欧洲其他国家的 观众而言,应该是、绝对是比较容易理解这部戏的。前两天正好和一个来自德国杜塞尔多夫剧场的人在聊天,他23号会来看演出,他对把这出戏搬上德国的舞台很 有兴趣。----我今年上半年在美国斯坦福大学做英文演出,让我得到鼓励,因为美国没有这样分离的一个背景,居然观众依然看的非常地投入。---所以这出 戏在德国演出的话,我对获得成功很有信心。

德国之声:您以前在采访中提到过,对于把自己的戏搬上海外舞台持不积极不主动的态度,现在是否意味着这种态度有所改变?

赖声川:哈哈。我不容易积极。积极的意思是说你要清楚你的对象是谁。做好你的戏,人家对你感兴趣的话,自然而然就会找到你来。重视缘分吧。通常人家来找我们做演出,只要是认真的、专业的团体,我们都不会拒绝和他们谈合作的。

德国之声:我们留心到现在在北京的剧场里,新戏上演几乎都能满座,甚至只是一些平庸之作。但是在上海,只有真正的精品戏、大戏才能吸引到观众。您认为造成这一情况的原因是什么?是因为它们城市文化背景的差异?还是北京中国文化首都的独特地位使然?

赖声川颇有艺术家气派Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 赖声川颇有艺术家气派赖 声川:我还没完全意识到这个状况,我也不认为什么戏在北京都能满座。我还是第一次听到这种情况,我还要想一下。但是在北京和上海的确不太一样。现在话剧在 大陆的发展处在一个交叉路口,一个比较奇怪的状况:那么多年来商业演出第一次出现。你说它是商业的,大家必须接受。好比贴个标签,说赖声川是个商业剧场导 演,我不得不接受;就像有人说莎士比亚是个商业剧场导演,他也不得不接受一样,因为事实上你在卖票,有观众买票。这就是一个商业行为。可是你把话剧看作是 一种艺术,剧场演出是社会生活中不可缺少的一种活动的话.....这就是它不同的面貌了。所以如果有人说我们只是纯粹的做一个商业的演出的话,那我会否 认,因为我们的戏创作的目的不是为了赚钱,莎士比亚创作的目的也不是为了商业。但是现在在市场上,纯粹为了赚钱的戏也有;纯艺术的、跟商业完全不沾边的也 有,所以这个情况是复杂的。到什么时候能够走到一个比较成熟的阶段:观众能够分得出来这帮人在做什么样的演出,那帮人在做什么样的演出,可能还需要时间。

德国之声:当时《暗恋桃花源》在上海巡演的时候,您对观众表现出来的热情评价称是北京的三倍,同时您认为按照市场容量和潜力来看,该剧在上海演出个150场没有问题。那么,阔别上海已久的《暗恋桃花源》什么时候才能再和上海观众见面呢?

赖声川:要年底或明年吧?我要说明一下:我当时说这话并不是在贬低北京,只是说上海观众表达自己喜爱的方式和台湾很像。北京是严肃的,它反映不大并不代表着它不接受。在某一种正确的操作和环境之下,《暗恋桃花源》在上海演出150场是完全有可能的。

德国之声:表演工作坊的里程碑之作《如梦之梦》在台湾和香港演出时都非常受欢迎,那这部作品有没有搬上内地舞台的计划?

赖声川:有在谈。但是很庞大:三十多个演员,需要专门搭建的舞台.....观众还不能多。这就注定了它是一个赔钱的戏。票价卖得再高都还是只能赔钱。所以这需要更有穿创意的制作才行,做起来的话要容纳了更多的各种赞助,包括企业的,有可能的话,还有政府的。

德国之声:从故事架构还有故事背景来讲,《如梦之梦》似乎比《暗恋桃花源》更适合搬上欧洲的舞台。您对此如何看?

赖声川:我觉得无论《如梦之梦》还是《暗恋桃花源》,很多戏其实都适合在欧洲演出。只是《如梦之梦》在剧情方面牵涉到法国的过去和现在,讲到的也是跨文化的一些议题,在欧洲很容易引起共鸣。这就决定了它在欧洲比较容易被接受。

德国之声:您源源不断的创意来源于您对佛学的研修,而您创作的剧本是您创意的结晶。那么可以说,《暗恋桃花源》这些出色剧本的产生是因为佛赋予您的智慧吗?

赖声川:我想这应该是一个误会吧?我的创意不是因为佛法。但从某一个方面来讲,学佛一直对我个人、对我的人生有很深的转化作用。既然如此,它的神迹当然会出现在我的作品上。我想应该是这样一个关系:佛法影响着我的生活、我的生活影响着我的作品。

德国之声:在话剧《暗恋桃花源》还没和内地观众见面之前,很多人只是通过电影版的VCD知道了这部作品,当时很多人对于这部戏的讨论更多只是集中在大时代的背景下,或是集中于戏的爱情隐喻。在这出戏在内地上演后,关于这方面的讨论反而少了,您是否觉得这代表着内地观众的看法有变化?

合影Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 合影赖 声川:我觉得大陆观众对这个戏理解是很深。但是因为时代变了,那个电影是92年演的,这个戏是86年原创,所以到现在已经20年了,无论是86年还是92 年,对于两岸开放交流,在台湾49年过来的那些外省人终于可以返乡探亲,离那个历史点是很近的:86年基本上刚开始,92年还在那个氛围面。所以当时看戏 的人他会一直讨论这些事情。但是现在时间久远了,甚至很多年轻观众他搞不清楚49年发生了什么事,就是具体的他搞不清楚,但是他只要知道男女主角40年没 见,就好了。我曾经担心过《暗恋桃花源》会让一些人慢慢看不懂,但是我现在发现它完全可以抽离历史,进展到另外一个阶段:不需要历史来辅助它,然后观众就 是在看一个爱情故事。我觉得这样也很好啊。慢慢慢慢,感兴趣的人自然也会去追究这个时代背景,就会分为很多层次的观众,有的就是来看爱情故事的,讲真的, 其实这也就够了;有的人也会发现不止哦,原来还有那样的时代背景,那他也可以进一步去了解,研究。

德国之声:相对于前几年,这两年的中国话剧市场颇显得有些风生水起,但是有舆论认为这是虚假繁荣,充满了泡沫。如果这种观点属实的话,您认为中国话剧真正的出路在那里?

赖声川:第一,我不觉得它泡沫,因为我不觉得它 繁荣。北京1700多万人的城市,没有一个像百老汇或者伦敦那样可以常年让某出戏演出的剧场。《那一夜我们说相声》在台湾卖出了100多万套磁带,就是说 每20个台湾人就有一套这个磁带,这个受欢迎的程度放在美国,那就是说这个戏固定在一个剧场可以演上十年甚至是二十年。所以我觉得你认为蓬勃,但我一点都 不觉得蓬勃,事实上广大的人民都没有在看舞台剧。开始只是少数人在看,慢慢的在培养更多的人进剧场去看戏。《暗恋桃花源》是一个蛮正面的在培养观众,之后 他第二次进剧场去看什么戏,我就不知道了。

德国之声:那你觉得是票价的原因在阻碍观众走进剧场吗?

赖声川:我们在尽量执行低票价的政策。我觉得现 在大部分话剧演出定的价格是合理的。一年内,北京有多少新的、好的戏出现,而不是简单的、盲目的引进外国的戏改编了搬上舞台演出,我觉得这才是我们自己需 要去检讨的。我认为:一个健康的剧场环境是建立在本地创作旺盛的基础上的。

介:

头顶着“美国加州大学伯克利分校戏剧博士,现任台北艺术大学教授、美国斯坦福大学客座教授及驻校艺术家、‘表演工作坊’艺术总监”头衔的赖声川,29岁就开始剧场创作,至今编导舞台剧27部、电视剧300集,另有剧场导演作品22部,是一位真正的大师。

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瞿晓发自北京

2007年8月18日 星期六

Ralph Alpher, 86, Expert in Work on the Big Bang, Dies

a puckish turn of mind


Ralph Alpher, 86, Expert in Work on the Big Bang, Dies


Published: August 18, 2007

Ralph Alpher, a physicist whose early calculations and theoretical predictions supported the Big Bang concept for the origin of the universe, though his role was largely overlooked as later discoveries proved him right, died last Sunday in Austin, Tex. He was 86.

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Union College, 1999

Ralph Alpher

His death was announced by Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., where he was a professor emeritus. The announcement said he had been living in Austin and been in failing health since breaking his hip in February.

Only last month, Dr. Alpher was awarded the National Medal of Science at a White House ceremony where he was cited for “his unprecedented work” on the origin of cosmic particles, “for his prediction that universe expansion leaves behind background radiation and for providing the model for the Big Bang theory.”

It was the science establishment’s last effort to make amends to a “forgotten father of the Big Bang” for the failure to recognize fully and earlier Dr. Alpher’s role in the theory’s foundations. He was unable to accept the award in person.

When he was a graduate student at George Washington University in the 1940s, some scientists had for about two decades hypothesized that the universe had begun in an explosion of condensed matter and had been expanding ever since. But some still favored the steady-state theory, which held that the universe had always existed in more or less its current state.

In 1948, Dr. Alpher published two papers based on research for his doctoral dissertation. The first was written with his adviser, George Gamow, a Russian-born physicist with a puckish turn of mind who obtained permission to include as a co-author Hans Bethe, an authority on the origin of cosmic elements. The authorship by Alpher, Bethe and Gamow was a scientific pun on the first letters of the Greek alphabet, which seemed appropriate for a paper on cosmic genesis.

The paper reported Dr. Alpher’s calculations on how, as the initial universe cooled, the remaining particles combined to form all the chemical elements in the world. This elemental radiation and matter he dubbed ylem, for the Greek term defining the chaos out of which the world was born.

The research also offered an explanation for the varying abundances of the known elements. It yielded the estimate that there should be 10 atoms of hydrogen for every one atom of helium in the universe, as astronomers have observed.

Months later, Dr. Alpher collaborated with Robert Herman of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University on a paper predicting that the explosive moment of creation would have released radiation that should still be echoing through space as radio waves. Astronomers, perhaps thinking it impossible to detect any residual radiation or still doubting the Big Bang theory, did not bother to search.

Then, in 1964, the radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey accidentally detected the hiss of background radiation. Astrophysicists at Princeton University proposed that this was the radio echo from the Big Bang, which they had independently predicted and been looking for.

Dr. Alpher and Dr. Herman had been vindicated, except that no one involved in the discovery so much as tipped a hat in their direction. Belatedly, scientists have acknowledged the slight.

In his authoritative 1977 book, “The First Three Minutes,” Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate physicist at the University of Texas, described Dr. Alpher’s research as “the first thoroughly modern analysis of the early history of the universe.”

Dr. Weinberg said in an e-mail message that the calculations by Dr. Alpher and Dr. Herman “had for the first time given an idea of the temperature of radiation left over from the early universe.” But, he added, “what is strange is that Alpher and Herman did not push radio astronomers to look for this radiation.”

While Dr. Penzias and Dr. Wilson later received Nobel Prizes, Dr. Alpher and Dr. Herman soon dropped out of cosmology and were later seldom credited for their contribution. Dr. Alpher joined the General Electric Research and Development Center in Schenectady in 1955 and became a research professor of physics at Union College in 1986, retiring in 2004.

Ralph Asher Alpher was born in Washington. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offered him a full scholarship, but after he disclosed that he was Jewish, he said, the scholarship was withdrawn without explanation. Instead, he attended George Washington University at nights while working at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Washington and at the Johns Hopkins physics laboratory.

Dr. Alpher is survived by a son, Victor, of Austin; a daughter, Harriet Lebetkin of Danbury, Conn.; and two granddaughters. His wife, the former Louise Simons, died in 2004.

In a 1999 article in Discover magazine, Dr. Alpher spoke of the ache of being the forgotten man of Big Bang science.

“Was I hurt?” he said. “Yes! How the hell did they think I’d feel? I was miffed at the time that they’d never even invited us down to see the damned radiotelescope. It was silly to be annoyed, but I was.”

USN Special Report 1957 Helvetica

Special Report

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1957

Special Report: 1957

Every decade, it seems, contains a single year that epitomizes its era. The Depression had 1933; the Sixties, 1968. In the Fifties, it was 1957, the year of the pill, Sputnik, Dr. Seuss, Little Rock, and more. Half a century later, U.S. News takes a look back.

Little Rock

In Little Rock, a Matter of Justice

Eisenhower confronts the political and moral crisis of integrating public schools.

Westward Migration

L.A., Here They Came

The Brooklyn Dodgers' move to California sparked a migration fed by dreamers seeking great weather and high employment.

Mackinac Bridge

Spanning a State, and Setting a Record

The "Mighty Mac" was a singular feat that would bridge the 5-mile gap between Mackinaw City and St. Ignace.

Caril Fugate and Charles Starkweather

Misfits, Lovers, and Murderers

Two midwestern teens go on a killing spree, inspiring films and songs for decades.

Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan, Feminist Fatale

The author questioned conventional roles with The Feminine Mystique, a book that changed women's lives.

Sputnik

A Shift in the Cold War Balance

With Sputnik, the Soviets open a new frontier and catch America off-guard.

Helvetica

Helvetica: A Typeface for All Time

The strong, straight lines of the font shape corporate logos, government tax forms, and exit signs.

Ford Edsel

The Edsel, Ford's Flop

Millions of advertising dollars couldn't sell "an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon."

Jim Brown

The Man Who Redefined Football

A versatile and gifted athlete, Jim Brown broke barriers on and off the playing field.

Theodor Geisel

The Birth of a Famous Feline

An outrageous cat with a peculiar hat teaches a new generation to r


A Typeface for All Time

Hardworking helvetica gets the message across

By Kit R. Roane
Posted 8/5/07

It may look like the name of a hard rock band, but the beauty of Helvetica is that metaphorically speaking, it hardly makes a sound. Helvetica is a typeface, or more appropriately, the typeface of the 20th century. And, surely, it is the only typeface ever to have its 50th birthday observed with a major museum exhibit and an award-winning independent film.

"Helvetica is really a standout," says Christian Larsen, curator of the exhibition on the history of Helvetica at New York's Museum of Modern Art. "It helped define the typographic look of the 20th century, and I think it is here to stay."

EXPRESSIVE. The strong, straight lines of Helvetica shape corporate logos, government tax forms, and exit signs.
(Courtesy Gary Hustwit / The Museum of Modern Art)

It is certainly ubiquitous, if sometimes in a Big Brother sort of way. Hundreds of firms set brand names in its strong, straight lines, from icons of stability like 3m, Microsoft, and Sears to upstart retailers like American Apparel and Comme des Garçons. New York's signage, including that of its subway system, is set in Helvetica, as is virtually every lighted exit sign in every building in the country. The U.S. government is so sure of Helvetica's ability to lead that the typeface has become the default font for tax forms.

Helvetica wasn't always a leader. In fact, when the Swiss-run Haas Type Foundry first tried to compete with the popular Akzidenz Grotesk typeface in 1957, its attempt landed with a bit of a thud. The somewhat austere typeface, originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, was only modestly successful at gaining converts until four years later when the company rebranded itself with the strong, simple name that means Switzerland in Latin.

Modernist. Whether because of the branding or the growing movement of modernist design, Helvetica soon took off as the typeface of choice for a new generation—first as a favorite in advertising, then in 1985 becoming the choice of the masses. That was the year Apple introduced a Macintosh computer with Helvetica as one of its five fonts. Helvetica suddenly seemed the natural choice for a new century as well.

"Helvetica was introduced at a moment where postwar optimism was at its highest, at a time when—pre-Vietnam, pre-Watergate—people had real confidence in modernism and modern institutions to solve the world's problems," says Michael Bierut, a partner in Pentagram, a New York design firm. It was "a beautifully machined, rationally resolved, entirely modern typeface that seemed absolutely suited to its times."

Not everyone is so generous, of course. In Lars Müller's book Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface, Wolfgang Weingart, a leader in experimental typography known as the father of "Swiss Punk," sniffed that anyone who uses Helvetica must know nothing about typefaces. He calls it "the epitome of ugliness."

And even those who do see its beautiful neutrality are sometimes given pause by its use. Tom Geismar, a well-known New York designer, noted that Helvetica is "like a good screwdriver; a reliable, efficient, easy-to-use tool. But put it in the wrong hands, and it's potentially lethal."

That, of course, can be said about most typefaces, or—with typefaces now popping up like mushrooms on a log—of many typefaces. But when it is used correctly, the beauty of any typeface, including Helvetica, is its ability to facilitate message delivery, its role as a mass communicator, an unseen persuader that helps readers understand both the message and the messenger. Like most typefaces, Helvetica "works its magic on an entirely subconscious level," says Bierut. "Its ubiquity and inherent authority are inescapable," he adds, noting that "if it's important to people's daily lives, it's largely without their knowledge or consent."

Whether Helvetica will remain the typeface of choice is up for debate. Arial, which Minnesota designer Mark Simonson derides as "a knockoff riding on Helvetica's coattails," may already enjoy the greatest mass appeal, even if designers, marketers, and American companies still hold tightly to its competitor. And Helvetica's omnipresence could be its undoing.

While it was designed to be "neutral" and "unbiased," Gary Hustwit, creator of the film Helvetica, noted in an E-mail—typed in Helvetica—that over 50 years, Helvetica has "picked up baggage." Because it's used by big business and government, "when we look at a word set in Helvetica, we pick up the subtle feelings of authority, efficiency, [and] permanence." In some ways, its overuse may have left it powerless to steer people correctly, making not just the typeface but also the message invisible to some eyes.

Warning messages on cigarette packs are set in Helvetica, notes Hustwit, but "although it clearly says, 'Smoking kills,' apparently people aren't understanding the message. Maybe if it was set in a scary, ugly typeface, people would get the point."





On the Spot

這篇取自紐約時報 Opinion
我有空再譯

The Rural Life

On the Spot


Published: August 18, 2007

I’ve been thinking of a line in A. J. Liebling quoting the man he calls his literary adviser, Whitey Bimstein, who also trained prizefighters. “I once asked him how he liked the country,” Liebling writes. “He said, ‘It is a nice spot.’ ” I love this for the same reason Liebling does — the way it reduces the nonurban land surface of the planet to a single, homogeneous vanishing point. Mr. Bimstein was also perpetuating an ancient poetic habit, singling out an idealized setting from among the chiggers and ticks, the pokeweed and the poison ivy, in the actual countryside. I know some of Mr. Bimstein’s rural counterparts. They have lived in the country their whole lives and never once been to the city.

The house I live in here in the country isn’t far from the highway, and every day is filled with traffic passing by. Most of the time I ignore it, but every now and then a car slows and I can see the occupants looking up the hill at the horses or the geese or me on the tractor. I wonder what it is they see. I begin to feel a little allegorical, like a peasant shearing sheep in a medieval book of hours. I begin to wonder what I stand for, whether there is a moral to me or whether I simply illuminate a month in the calendar. This place is a nice spot, and so I am happy to pretend to impersonate one of the merry rustics even as I go about teaching the pigs to like scratching.

These days I’m a little dizzy with that doubleness. It isn’t so much the back and forth to the city, which has been the pattern of my life for many years. It’s that the city has come to seem to me a place of nearly perfect sincerity. The country, it turns out, is a place of pervasive irony. This is exactly the opposite of what the pastoral poets taught me to expect. To understand the irony, all you have to do is watch a woodchuck in among the cabbages. It makes a perfect mockery of the intent in planting those cabbages. Sitting erect and nibbling, it seems to imply that if you had been just a little more sincere, this would never have happened. There is no laughter more hilarious, or more cutting, than the laughter of farmers.

So I stand in the pasture watching the heads turning in that slowing car, and I wonder do they see the man who pines for the city and inwardly blames the pastoral poets? Do my T-shirt and jeans look like overalls to them? Am I wearing a straw hat and chewing a blade of grass in their eyes? But then I look closer and notice that they’re fighting over the map, lost on the way to some pleasant spot further north.


VERLYN KLINKENBORG

2007年8月16日 星期四

馬霍卡(Mallorca,英語也拼作Majorca)

馬霍卡Mallorca英語也拼作Majorca)是西班牙巴利阿里群島的島嶼之一,是著名的旅遊點和觀鳥去處。

19世紀旅遊業興起,波蘭作曲家弗雷德里克·蕭邦和法國作家喬治·曾逗留在法德摩薩

Many famous people have lived on the island. Frédéric Chopin and George Sand, romantically involved, rented space from a monastery for a short time. Robert Graves, after the experiences in his autobiography, Good Bye to All That, moved to Majorca and stayed for the rest of his life. Joan Miró died in Son Abrines, Palma de Majorca on December 25, 1983, after spending his later years on the Island. In 1992 the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró was established in Majorca.



“Majorca是西班牙東方群島Baleares的首府。從中世紀末即以燒製以錫為釉料還原劑的陶器著名。此樓之名為Majolikahaus乃因外牆貼滿Majorca風格的磁磚而來。



On this Day, August 16th

我第一次看紐約時報的"今天史"嗎


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On This Day in HistoryThursday, August 16th
The 228th day of 2007.
There are 137 days left in the year.
Go to a previous date.

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Today's Highlights in HistoryBuy a Reproduction
NYT Front Page
See a larger version of this front page.

On Aug. 16, 1977, singer Elvis Presley died at Graceland Mansion in Memphis, Tenn., at age 42. (Go to article.)

On Aug. 16, 1913, Menachem Begin, the prime minister of Israel from 1977 to 1983, was born. Following his death on March 9, 1992, his obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)

Editorial Cartoon of the Day

On August 16, 1879, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about hazing. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)

On this date in:

1777 American forces won the Revolutionary War Battle of Bennington, Vt.

1812 Detroit fell to British and Indian forces in the War of 1812.

1829 Chang and Eng, a pair of conjoined twins from Siam, arrived in Boston to be exhibited to the Western world. (The term Siamese twins became a common phrase for conjoined twins.)

1858 A telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable.

1861 President Abraham Lincoln prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding states of the Confederacy.

1888 T.E. Lawrence, the British soldier who gained fame as "Lawrence of Arabia," was born in Tremadoc, Wales.

1913 Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was born in Brest-Litovsk in present-day Belarus.

1948 Baseball Hall of Famer Babe Ruth died at age 53.

1954 Sports Illustrated was first published by Time Inc.

1956 Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

1960 Britain granted independence to Cyprus.

1987 Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed while trying to take off from a Detroit airport, killing 156 people; the sole survivor was a 4-year-old girl.

1987 Thousands of people worldwide began a two-day celebration of the "harmonic convergence," which believers called the start of a new, purer age of humankind.

1988 Vice President George H.W. Bush tapped Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle to be his running mate on the Republican ticket.

2000 Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominated Vice President Al Gore for president.

2002 Terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal was found shot to death in Baghdad, Iraq.

2003 A car driven by U.S. Rep. Bill Janklow ran a stop sign on a rural road in South Dakota and collided with a motorcyclist, who died in the accident. (Janklow was later convicted of manslaughter and resigned from Congress.)

2003 Idi Amin, the former dictator of Uganda, died in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia.

2006 John Mark Karr was arrested in Thailand as a suspect in the slaying of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. (Karr's confession that he had killed JonBenet was later discredited.)


Current Birthdays

Angela Bassett turns 49 years old today.

AP Photo/Earl Gibson III Actress Angela Bassett turns 49 years old today.


84 Shimon Peres
Israeli politician

83 Fess Parker
Actor

79 Ann Blyth
Actress

77 Robert Culp
Actor

77 Frank Gifford
Football Hall of Famer

77 Tony Trabert
Tennis Hall of Famer

76 Eydie Gorme
Singer

74 Julie Newmar
Actress

73 John Standing
Actor

71 Gary Clarke
Actor

71 Anita Gillette
Actress

68 Billy Joe Shaver
Country singer

68 Carole Shelley
Actress

67 Bruce Beresford
Director

65 Robert Lester
R&B singer (The Chi-Lites)

62 Bob Balaban
Actor

62 Suzanne Farrell
Ballerina

61 Lesley Ann Warren
Actress

60 Carol Moseley-Braun
Former U.S. senator, D-Ill.

57 Joey Spampinato
Rock singer, musician (NRBQ)

55 Reginald VelJohnson
Actor

54 Kathie Lee Gifford
TV personality

54 J.T. Taylor
R&B singer

53 Joshua Bolten
White House chief of staff

53 James Cameron
Director ("Titanic")

52 Jeff Perry
Actor

50 Tim Farriss
Rock musician (INXS)

49 Madonna
Singer

48 Laura Innes
Actress ("ER")

47 Timothy Hutton
Actor

44 Steve Carell
Actor ("The Office")

39 Donovan Leitch
Actor

35 Emily Robison
Country singer, musician (The Dixie Chicks)

32 George Stults
Actor ("7th Heaven")

27 Vanessa Carlton
Singer

21 Shawn Pyfrom
Actor ("Desperate Housewives")

Historic Birthdays

Menachem Begin

8/16/1913 - 3/9/1992
Israeli prime minister (1977-83)

(Go to obit.)

86 Sarah Porter
8/16/1813 - 2/17/1900
American educator


72 St. John Bosco
8/16/1815 - 1/31/1888
Italian priest; founded the Salesian Order


46 T. E. Lawrence
8/16/1888 - 5/19/1935
English archaeologist, military strategist and author


27 Jules Laforgue
8/16/1860 - 8/20/1887
French Symbolist poet


102 Amos Alonzo Stagg
8/16/1862 - 3/17/1965
American collegiate football coach


85 George Meany
8/16/1894 - 1/10/1980
American labor leader; president of the AFL-CIO (1955-79)


32 Wallace Henry Thurman
8/16/1902 - 12/22/1934
African-American editor, critic, novelist and playwright


66 Wendell Stanley
8/16/1904 - 6/15/1971
American Nobel Prize-winning biochemist (1946)


66 Ernst Schumacher
8/16/1911 - 9/4/1977
English economist


61 Stuart A. Roosa
8/16/1933 - 12/12/1994
American astronaut



Go to a previous date.

2007年8月15日 星期三

In Italy, Creating Worlds Takes Precision, Yes, and Politics

In Italy, Creating Worlds Takes Precision, Yes, and Politics

紐約時報
Published: August 15, 2007

IMPRUNETA, Italy — It has been said that wars are a way of teaching geography. And maps are caught up in the strife.


Sandro Michahelles for The International Herald Tribune

Nova Rico, a company in Impruneta, Italy, that has made globes for 50 years, has learned to accommodate geographic disputes.

“The problems of cartography are the same that exist in diplomatic relations,” said Stefano Strata, a co-director of Nova Rico, a company that has been making custom globes for 50 years in this small town near Florence better known for its terra cotta.

For mapmakers like Nova Rico, geographic disputes are commonplace. For a Turkish customer, Cyprus is shown split in two, a division that Greek Cypriots do not recognize. On one globe, Chile is given parts of Antarctica that on another globe go to Argentina. And in much of the Arab world, Israel is nonexistent.

The world of globes is quite small, and Nova Rico is one of the biggest and best-known companies in the business. It is also the only globe maker remaining in Italy.

When working on a commission, Mr. Strata and his business partner, Riccardo Donati, receive precise instructions, sometimes from government officials. In the 1980s, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq commissioned Nova Rico to draft a globe with all the Arab countries colored orange and the rest of the world yellow. Iraqi military advisers came to Impruneta to monitor production.

“It was clearly a political globe,” Mr. Strata said.

Sometimes, the problem is in the name. Mr. Donati recalled an Iranian diplomat who threatened to boycott a globe that called the gulf between Saudi Arabia and Iran the Arabian Gulf, instead of the Persian Gulf.

Mr. Donati noted, “Most people now just say the gulf.”

Most of Nova Rico’s globes — the company produces more than a million a year — go to the European market and are of a standard type. Even when nations do disappear, the geography is precise. “No one ever asked us to make their country bigger,” Mr. Donati said.

Vladimiro Valerio, an expert in the history of cartography on the architecture faculty at the University of Venice, called mapmaking a blend of science and art. “Maps aren’t faithful portraits of reality but subjective constructions,” he said. “Maps reflect the design for which they are to be used. They reflect who commissioned it.”

In sum, he said, “cartographers don’t lie, but they take a position.”

Maps have existed for millennia, ever since humans began to track where the hunting was good or which pass was safe to cross. Then man “began to modify the parameters of the map as his needs changed,” giving birth to urban maps, itineraries and nautical maps, Mr. Valerio wrote in a brief introduction to cartography for a Florentine museum.

“All maps are good, but they are all different,” he said. “And in this difference, you get a glimpse of our past and present.”

Three centuries ago, said James R. Akerman of the Newberry Library in Chicago, “political boundaries were not as defined on maps in many instances, as they are now, and were often more fluid in practice, so cartographers did not give them the same level of attention that they do now.”

But changes like the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fragmentation of Yugoslavia have kept Nova Rico and other mapmakers in motion. “From the end of World War II to 1989 nothing changed, and we thought things would stay the same for another 100 years,” Mr. Donati said. “Luckily we are small and flexible, so things didn’t go so badly.”

The computer age has also revolutionized cartography, as have programs like Google Earth. But cartography lovers contend that there is nothing like an atlas or a globe.

“Part of the attraction is having them as objects, for their appeal or pleasure or as a signal of status,” said Mr. Akerman, who is director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, which is part of the Newberry Library.

The Internet, he said, will never replace the act of poring over a map to plan a trip.

“Navigation is about more than going from one point to the next,” he said. “It’s about fulfilling one’s aspirations.”

2007年8月14日 星期二

A Rising Tide of Gentrification Rocks Dutch Houseboats

the gentry
plural noun
people of high social class, especially in the past:
a member of the landed gentry (= those who own a lot of land)

gentrify
verb [T often passive] DISAPPROVING
to change a place from being a poor area to a richer one, by people of a higher social class moving to live there:
The area where I grew up has been all modernized and gentrified, and has lost all its old character.

gentrification
noun [U]
when an area is gentrified

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)






Amsterdam Journal

A Rising Tide of Gentrification Rocks Dutch Houseboats

Herman Wouters for The New York Times

Houseboats on Princes Canal in Amsterdam, once a low-cost alternative to living on land, have gone upscale in recent years. More Photos >


Published: August 14, 2007

AMSTERDAM, Aug. 8 — On a recent Saturday during the confusion of this watery city’s annual Gay Pride Parade along the majestic Princes Canal, a beach umbrella was knocked into the water from the foredeck of Jackie Wijnakker’s houseboat, so she dove into the water to fetch it, unsuccessfully. It was only the second time in 17 years that she had jumped into the canal, and she cannot recall what she was trying to retrieve the first time. At any rate, she said with a laugh, “I’m too old to be diving into canals.”

She told the tale as a testament to how clean the water is, despite its murky, khaki color. “The canals are flushed regularly,” said Ron Van Heukelom, a neighbor who lives on dry land and has never ventured into the canal.

The flushing is necessary because, while most of Amsterdam’s 2,800 houseboats have running water, electricity and gas heat, few are connected to sewerage systems and continue to spill their waste into the canals.

The houseboats’ lack of toilet training is their dirty little secret, one that sits uncomfortably with a new generation of wealthier, more demanding owners who are leading a gentrification of the houseboat scene. In the process, they are displacing the less affluent boat people, many of whom are relics of the 1960s and 1970s era of flower power now struggling to pay the upkeep on their boats.


flower power noun [U]
the ideas and beliefs of some young people in the 1960s and 1970s who opposed war and encouraged people to love each other

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)





“The water is cleaner than it looks,” said Monique J. M. Jacobs, an official of the city agency responsible for water and the boats. The canals, she explained, are flushed by opening and closing locks about twice a week, and in summer more often. “Small fish are coming back, and also birds that feed off the fish,” she said. “In the old days it was awful. It stank in summer.”

The city wants to go further. It plans to install sewage pipes along the canals for the boats to hook into. This poses a threat to boat people like Ms. Wijnakker, who will have to pay about $28,000 to link up to the new system. The threat is not imminent; boat owners will have until 2017 to hook up.

Houseboats were traditionally the refuge of people without the means to live on dry land. After World War II, working-class families took to the water when housing on land was unavailable, and old canal barges were cheap, as the Dutch renewed their fleet.

“It’s difficult to find a good house on land,” said Pom Dupré, who has lived for 20 years on a 65-foot boat, the Nova Cura, along the canal. “And of course, this is a fine neighborhood,” she added, glancing at the stately 17th-century homes along the canal, many of them law offices or professional services.

There are drawbacks, she admits. Every four years the boat has to be hauled to a dry dock to have its hull checked for canal-worthiness. The family must find a place to stay, or live on the boat in the wharf; water pipes, which are exposed to the air between boat and canal wall, often freeze in the winter.


(worthy (SUITABLE)
adjective
worthy of sth suitable for, or characteristic of something:
He threw a party worthy of a millionaire and attracted a glittering crowd of beautiful people.

-worthy
suffix
1 suitable or deserving to receive a particular thing:
trustworthy
creditworthy
newsworthy

2 describes a boat, aircraft or vehicle which is suitable to be used safely in a particular substance or surroundings:
seaworthy
roadworthy

worthiness
noun [U]
suitability:
She persuaded the board of her worthiness to run the company.
certificate of airworthiness 適航證書

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)


To make ends meet, or simply to enjoy onboard company, some boat owners have transformed their boats into bed-and-breakfasts. Ms. Wijnakker began taking in guests three years ago and now does a busy trade in summer.

Two years ago, Luc Couvée, 51, a graphic artist, and his wife, Laura Tollenaar, bought a canal freighter on the canal, then added two showers and two bedrooms to take in paying guests. “I’m a very boat-minded person,” Mr. Couvée said. “And it’s cheaper than an apartment, though not by much.”

The couple paid about $420,000 for the boat, which they renamed Vreiheid, or freedom. An apartment in the neighborhood would have cost about $700,000. They have solved the sewage problem, installing the necessary plumbing and a cesspool that can be emptied regularly. When the city’s plumbing is in place, they will be ready.

cesspit
noun [C]
1 (ALSO cesspool) a large underground hole or container which is used for collecting and storing excrement, urine and dirty water

2 DISAPPROVING a situation that causes disgust

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)



The popularity of houseboats reflects a general awakening in Amsterdam to the beauty of water. “Up to the 1970s and ’80s, Amsterdam’s water was forgotten,” said Maarten Kloos, an architect who runs Arcam, an independent foundation that promotes architecture. “Now, not only houseboats, floating has gained currency.”


currency (ACCEPTANCE)
noun [U]
the state of being commonly known or accepted, or of being used in many places:
His ideas enjoyed wide currency during the last century.
Many informal expressions are gaining currency in serious newspapers.

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)




Indeed, the architecture of some new apartment buildings near the center of Amsterdam suggests huge houseboats. “Talking about water is now the topic,” Mr. Kloos said. “People used to say, ‘With the beauty of our 17th-century canals, why can’t we get rid of those boats?’ ” he said. “Now, like all of Amsterdam, the boats are more and more bourgeois.”

Mr. Kloos might have been thinking of a squat, sleek houseboat on the River Amstel that suggests Mies van der Rohe more than Peter Stuyvesant. Five years ago, Steven Westerop, a personnel executive, left his home in Leiden, a short train ride from Amsterdam, to buy a dilapidated boat on the Amstel from an elderly German who came to Holland during the flower power days. With an architect’s help, Mr. Westerop, 46, designed and built a split-level home on a hull that was essentially a reinforced concrete shoebox.

“There are many kinds of boats I didn’t like,” he said. “I wanted people to say, ‘O.K.!’ Maybe even a little over the top.”


over the top (ABBREVIATION OTT) UK INFORMAL
too extreme and not suitable, or demanding too much attention or effort, especially in an uncontrolled way:
I thought the decorations were way (= very) over the top.
The speech was a bit OTT.
I think he realised he'd gone over the top with the seating arrangements.

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)




“It’s now a yuppie market,” he said. “You need a good job, otherwise you can’t afford it.” The old boat people, like his German, are selling, he said, and all of the houseboats on both sides of his have changed owners in the past five years.

“Sometimes, though, I still feel like a Gypsy,” he went on. “But I have a big mortgage.”