相关文章：《写给Cormac McCarthy》

1

再说说《老人没有故乡》（No Country for Old Man），这次想说说这本原著小说，原著作者，说说电影里没有很明显地表达出来的，而书中的文字却能在结尾给予读者的一种希望和感动。

那是作家Cormac MCCarthy的写作特色，在死亡浓重的阴影背后，他总不忘记加上一笔暖色，那是他常用的意象－－火种。

2

电影得了这届奥斯卡最佳影片之后，我的感想之一就是：对于真正的好东西，人们是无法否认的。You can't deny a true beauty！电影就应该这样拍，整整两个小时，你睁大双眼，紧紧盯着荧幕，生怕错过一个细节。真正的美，就是这样地抓着你的视线，基本上能让阳春白雪和下里巴人们都折服。就象中国的好书《红楼梦》，即便是秦始皇投胎再生，再来一次焚书坑儒，恐怕他也不忍心把它烧掉。连老毛都抱着《红楼梦》不放，而在残忍决绝方面，他们俩应该是半斤八两，不相上下的。

发奖典礼一如既往地漫长，我只看了开头，就把后面的录下。第二天倒回来边做事边看就不耽误时间。意外的惊喜是看到作家Cormac MCCarthy也坐在观众席上，旁边就是他的小儿子JOHN。细心的读者一定知道，在他的另一本书《路》（THE ROAD）的扉页，他把该书献给这位小儿子。而且，书的内容，也是围绕父子亲情，写一个父亲对儿子的几近崇敬的爱，就象一首上帝写给儿子耶稣的赞美诗。或者是老年得子，触动了他内心的柔软；或者是年轻时对大儿子无法弥补的歉疚；也或者JOHN天生就是一个不折不扣的小天使，MCCarthy曾对人说：他儿子JOHN是他知道的所有的人里面最好的，比他自己都好。那是怎样的一种“好”法？你去《路》里面读读那些细节和对话，就明白了。

美国的文评家们授予MCCarthy这样一种光荣称号：“美国最没名气的著名作家”。这也是许多作家钦佩他的地方：一心一意写小说，不怕穷，不接受采访，不去谈论写作。他的前两任太太，都因他不食人间烟火而早早地离开他。一位前妻说：他们穷得没钱付房租，就在这时候有所大学邀请他去谈论写作，可以给他几千块钱的报酬，但他坚持不谈写作。他虽然前半生出了好几本好书，但都卖得不好。他的经济状况，一直到快50岁时得到一笔MACARTHUR FELLOWSHIP的奖金才有转变。可想而知，在这样的生活状况下，他大儿子所受的委屈。据说他们父子失去联系许多年，前些年才渐渐和好。

也许是这些生活的沉淀，他写父子情总是写得浓重深厚。不知为什么，我读到《老人没有国家》的最后一段，在感动赞叹之余，想到了他的大儿子。（未完，待续）

最大的对付压力的武器，是我们用一种想法盖过另一种的能力。
－－威廉·詹姆士（美国心理学家，1842－1910）
"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to
choose one thought over another." ~ William James

压力是你想着你应该做一个什么样的人。放松的时候你才是你自己。
－－中国谚语
"Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is
who you are." ~ Chinese Proverb

我所知道的最幸福的人是那些学会了怎样轻松地拿起一切，把他们生活中那些忧心的，充满压力的，可怕的细节交给上帝保管。
－－查尔斯·斯文道（美国福音派基督教牧师，1934－）
"The happiest people I know are the ones who have
learned how to hold everything loosely and have given
the worrisome, stress-filled, fearful details of their
lives into God's keeping." ~ Charles R. Swindoll

昨天已经消逝。明天还没到来。我们只有今天。咱们开始吧。
－－特蕾莎母亲（1910－1997）
"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have
only today. Let us begin." ~ Mother Teresa

1 人过留名

老祖宗说过：人过留名。

你要成为那么多过往人流中，能被人认出，被人记住的那一个。要不然，入世一场，白来了。

而生在这样一个古老的国度，我们什么都缺，但从不缺人。那么悠久的五千年历史，每一个朝代都盛着满满当当的人，他们之中的大多数都想出人头地，高人一等。

因而，你成为名人，实属不易。

毫无疑问，你有先天的聪慧，你本应为此而欣慰，而且，你有后天的勤奋努力，你更应为此而感到骄傲。如果你做得是自己喜欢做的事情，那么生活对于你，已经是几近完美了。

你还是机遇的宠儿，一觉醒来，发现自己被人推向一块醒目耀眼的高地。你环视四周，下面有黑压压的人群簇拥着，呼叫你的名字，有的甚至在顶礼膜拜。你忽然热血沸腾，飘飘欲仙，那也是常人无法理解，伪君子羞于承认的一种满足。

但这种感觉持续很短。慢慢的，你对这些习以为常。这不奇怪，人一旦满足之后，会开始厌倦；就象做爱抵达高潮之后，身体也会厌倦。生理现象和心理现象本来就是息息相通的。

但你开始学会爱惜你的名字，你把它放在心中最重要的位置上，就象一个国王爱惜他的王冠。

时间一长，你发现，他们念叨的那个名字很陌生。每个人对那个名字都有一种理解，你不知道你珍爱的这个名字，代表的是谁，反正不是你。

这还是好的。最可怕的是，有一天，你不再是往昔的那个你，你逐渐变成众人嘴里的那个名字。

2 雁过留声

这是件千真万确的事情，虽然事到如今，我想起来依然难以置信：那一天，它们来敲我的门。

声音不大，它们一定是饿坏了，用嘴在叨门，但我在书房里听得一清二楚。我以为是邮递员来送包裹的，门一打开，它们自己下了一跳，惊慌地扑叫着，连跑代飞地升上了天空。

是两只大雁。对我来说它们都叫大雁，因为，我实在是分不清它们的样子和性别。它们肚子白白的，背部的羽毛是水灰色，颜色越来越深，蔓延到尾部和脖子处就成了深黑。它们个子很大，逃跑的时候摇摇晃晃的，人去地空的时候，我发现它们在门径上留下了两坨湿黑的粪便。

我用手纸把粪便拣起，埋在旁边的花圃里。来年春天的时候，我发现花圃里的姿色小花，长得分外精神。

它们一走了之，再没回来过。但我时常会想起它们，特别有一天，开车走在往北方向的GREAT ROAD 上，那片空旷的大草地上遍地都是身色相同的大雁，我相信，来敲我门的那两只一定也汇在其中。它们如千军万马，一有风吹草动，凌空而去，共同组成了一种震撼人心的视觉效果。

然后，我再去读福克纳的As I Lay Dying，我理解了为什么他把大雁的哀鸣比作孤独的回声，比作激情的撩拨，比成是无法附诸于行动的言语－－这些是人们的欠缺，古往今来，他们追寻着自己无法拥有的东西，迷失在野性的暗夜里，笨拙地辨识着方向：

“早春的时候情况最糟。有时候我觉得实在受不了，夜晚躺在床上，听着野雁向北飞时，发出凄凉的哀鸣，这些叫声越来越高，越来越远，野性地消失在荒野的黑暗···” (As I Lay Dying, Addie, P170)

“而后，他就死了。他自己并不知道他已死去。我会在黑暗中躺在他身边，听着黑色的土地诉说着上帝的爱，上帝的美和上帝的罪过；听着黑暗的盲音，其中有的言语就是行为，有的言语不是行为，而只是人们的欠缺，它们象那些从野地里飞来的大雁的哀鸣，来自许久前的那些可怕夜晚，苯拙地辨别着那些行为···” (As I Lay Dying, Addie, P174)

难怪老祖宗还说过：雁过留声。

3 你们都错了

伊娃·裴隆(Evita)说：

至于名和利（And as for fortune, and as for fame）
我从来没去主动追寻（ I never invited them in）
尽管世人以为它们是我欲望的根本（ Though it seemed to the world they were all I desired）

附：Madonna - Don't Cry For Me Argentina

               

Andrew Kuo is an artist who lives and works in New York City. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design in 1999. He had his first solo exhibition in New York in 2001, and since then has had several other solo and group exhibitions both in the U.S and abroad. His most recent solo exhibition, All Over Again was on display at The 33 Bond Gallery in Manhattan from October 2007 to January 2008. Kuo's obsessive charts analyzing musical events have been featured in the New York Times' music section for the last several months. His diagrams represent his own sets of quirky data in various arrangements of color and pattern.

 

卡夫卡在病死之前，曾吩咐他的好友 MAX BROD把他一抽屉的手稿烧毁。烧，还是不烧？这个命题在BROD那里没有片刻的犹豫。他果断地把那些手稿整理出版，并极力向世界推荐卡夫卡的写作天才。这样，BROD成了著名的伯乐，卡夫卡成了世界文坛更著名的千里马。

到纳博科夫（Vladimir Nabokov，1999－1977）这里，情况有点不一样。一本《罗丽塔》，已经让他功成名就，但他死前也把一个手稿《劳拉》（The Original of Laura），和上面那个燃烧着的命题，留给了他的第一读者，也是他的遗作执行人的妻子薇拉。

我总觉得给后人留下这样困境的作家都是很软弱而矫情的，没有《红楼梦》里林妹妹的决绝和勇敢。要烧就自己一把火烧掉算了，自己舍不下，别人就能那样狠心？

做为读者来说，我当然希望纳博科夫能大大方方地把《劳拉》拉出来示众。他的Lolita排在我的英文书最爱第三名。前两名都让福克纳占去了，第一名是The Sound and the Fury, 第二名是As I Lay dying。说不定《劳拉》能改变我这个名单的排序。因为，他的儿子Dmitri说，《劳拉》是他父亲创作才能最浓缩的精华。但他最大的忧虑，是读者对他父亲的误读，因为即使《罗丽塔》已经被公认为文学世界里的精品，但在某些地方，还算是禁书。

纳博科夫曾经说过：对我来说，一本小说只在被我坦率地称为审美欢愉的范围内存在，那是一种某种程度上，以某种方式和一种观念紧密相关，这种观念就是，以艺术（好奇心，敏感，仁慈，痴迷）本身为准则。（For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.）换句话说，评判一本小说的好坏，不应该拿社会的道德规范等为准则。他也不去唱那些提升人类精神这样的高调，完全的为艺术而艺术，把审美的情趣放在第一。如果《劳拉》能比《罗丽塔》更加大胆，更能挑起人们的审美狂喜，那么谁谋杀她，谁就是文学的千古罪人。

事实证明，薇拉也没有“烧美”的勇气，可见她是真爱自家丈夫的创作。她去世之前，又把这个难题留给他们唯一的儿子 。Dmitri 抱着《劳拉》一段时间之后，最近开始向世人传话，他就要做决定了。

如果他想做父亲听话的儿子，就得背负罪名。唉！希望他能找到一个两全其美的办法。

它不跳的时候
我也几乎都忘记它了

可是，忽然念头一闪
又想起它，对它说：
下左眼皮宝贝儿
你总算乖下来了呢

它马上一个激灵
就活过来，又开始：
滴答，滴答，滴滴答

你说说，它是不是个
跳皮鬼？

原诗：叶芝（爱尔兰诗人）；雪绒翻译

如果我把睫毛加深
再让眼睛更加有神
让嘴唇更加鲜红，
或者去向镜子询问：
这一切是否恰当端正
镜子并没有显示虚荣：
我在寻找
世界建成之前的 我的面孔

假如我仰视一个人呢
就象把他看成 我的挚爱，
如果我的血有点冷
我的心无动于衷？
他又怎能怪我冷酷无情
或者对他不忠？
我倒情愿他去爱
世界建立之前的 那些事情

附：原诗

Before The World Was Made

By William Butler Yeats

If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I'd have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.

1）屋后－－宁静的村庄



2）干草和变压器



3）邻家物宠－－邮箱，垃圾桶与麻雀




4）房前－－宁静的村庄

我们可以象想PAUL用忧伤的嗓音，唱起这样一首情歌，字字句句，情真意切，动人心扉：

Blue, blue, my face is Blue,
Blue is my face, Baby, after I took you



PAUL的蓝脸当然不是天生的，事实上，94年之前，他还是个白脸书生的模样，那么是什么让一个人的皮肤变成蓝得发紫呢？实话直说吧，让PAUL脸色大变的这个宝贝不是女人，也不是爱情，而是银金属，确切地说，是一种用银金属制作的含银饮料－－胶态微粒银（colloidal silver ）。

说来话长了！一切开始于兄弟般的友谊。PAUL的一个朋友得了一种石油中毒（petroleum poisoning）的病，他在广告上看到一种生成器，上面说用这个器皿作出来的胶态微粒银可以医治石油中毒病。PAUL就买了一个，带到朋友处，做了两杯，因为想到饮料的含银量并不太强，10盎司的饮料，含银量不超过百万分之十，于是，PAUL就陪着朋友喝一杯，慢慢地喝成了习惯。

直接导致PAUL的皮肤变蓝是在他经历父母病故之后，他得了一种奇怪的皮肤病，皮肤一层层地脱落，他又想起这个胶态微粒银的偏方，就往皮肤上抹，慢慢地，他的皮肤开始变色，最后越变越蓝。

医生对他的诊断是银中毒。这样日积月累地往自己身上里外加银，还不中毒？这恐怕也是一种不治之症，一般来说，这种病，如果毒性没有进入血液，不会影响体内器官的健康，只是外表有些吓人而已。

饮用含银饮料其实是几千年前的土方疗法，用来杀菌。现代生活中有了抗生素以后，已很少有人在这样做。当然，现在仍有人给新生儿饮用，以防染生产病，也有人用它治疗烫伤。原理是，它会杀灭细菌的活动能量，当然，同时，它也能杀灭我们自身细胞的能量。

下面是PAUL银中毒之前的斯文样子：

记得小时候听过一首歌，一开头就是这句，还唱了一大串答案。寻找幸福，恐怕只要人类存在一天，这个问题就会被永远地问下去。正巧，上周末“60 分钟”的节目也给大家提供了一个答案：幸福，其实存在于丹麦人的脑海里。

当然，这个答案源于最近一次的幸福大调查，对全世界各个国家的人抽样发问的结果，丹麦人最幸福。

丹麦人自己也说：我们一直以为南欧人比我们更快乐一些呢，表面上，他们整天咋咋唬唬地，热情好客，西班牙有热带海滩，意大利人看起来吃得很爽。而丹麦人很安静，在公共场合，他们很少主动和生人说话，公车上，进进出出要影响到别人时，也尽量用肢体语言沟通。

记者发现，现实生活的压力和未来生活的后顾之忧，是影响幸福指数的两大障碍。

丹麦的年轻人没什么压力，医疗保险是全民的，上大学是免费的，未来的工作也不用发愁。什么是成功？丹麦人不会象中国人那样把成功定义成名和利，辛辛苦苦赚大钱对他们来说没什么吸引力，因为有一半要交税的。他们说：成功的人就是每天做自己喜欢做的事。

另一个幸福的秘诀被一位大学教授挖掘出来：我们丹麦人对任何事情都期望不高，和其他欧洲各国比起来，我们没什么辉煌的历史，打仗老是输，从没有称霸过世界，也不想去象英国人法国人那样去称霸世界，就象安徒生那样，做做童话的梦就行了。你看，我们对成功期望不高，对幸福期望也不高。这么说吧，如果你告诉丹麦人说，这次的全世界幸福大调查中，你们丹麦人不是第一，而是第21，那丹麦人会告诉你：21也不错嘛，比上不足，比下有余。没有不切实际的期望，就没有让你不快乐的失望，这就是我们幸福的秘诀。

一个年轻的丹麦小伙子说，美国人，你们要想幸福地活着其实很简单，放弃你们的“美国梦”就行了。

法官（对证人）：你看清楚了。

证人：是的，法官大人，我看清楚了。

对方律师（对证人）：我看你是在撒谎。你离现场那么远，怎么能看清楚。你老实告诉法官，你的肉眼到底能看多远。

证人（对律师）：晚上天好的时候，我站在院子里能看见天上的月亮。您去给我算算，我到底能看多远！

当一个人在恋爱，喝醉酒，或者竞选的时候，你去让他说话算数是没用的。
－－雪莉·麦可琳（美国女演员，1934－）
It's useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love, drunk, or running for office.
--Shirley MacLaine, actor and writer

如果你想让好事发生在你身上：听，想，并且要实践自我控制。
－－玛里琳·哈恩
If you want good things to happen to you:listen,think,and practice self-control.
--Marilyn Hahn, teacher and speaker

法语是一种能把脏话变成浪漫的语言。
－－斯蒂芬·金（美国作家，1947－）
"French is the language that turns dirt into romance."
-Stephen King

对那个爱你的人来说，你永远都好看。
－－小野洋子（1933－，艺术家，兰侬遗孀）
You will always look good to the person who loves you.
--Yoko Ono, artist

我对衣着的时尚品味，大多建立在那些不让人发痒的衣服上。
－－吉尔达·瑞德尔（1946－1989，美国喜剧演员）
"I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch."
-Gilda Radner

听修女们忏悔就象是被爆米花砸死。
－富尔顿·西恩（1895－1979，美国罗马天主教的大教主）
"Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn."
-Fulton J. Sheen

我父亲曾对我有深远的影响，他是个疯子。
－－－斯派克•米里根（爱尔兰作家，喜剧家，1918－2002）
"My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic."
-Spike Milligan

书店是证明人们还在思索的仅存的迹象之一。
－－杰瑞•宋飞
"A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking."
-Jerry Seinfeld

我们相信，没有人能吸着肚子把生活过得充实而圆满。
 －－《魅力》，2005年九月期（美国时尚杂志，1939－）
We believe that no one can live life to the fullest while sucking her stomach in.
--Glamour, September 2005

当你想跟谁结婚的时候，先去和他前妻吃顿午餐。
－－谢莉·温特斯（美国女演员，1920－2006）
"Whenever you want to marry someone, go have lunch with his ex-wife."
-Shelley Winters

千万不要把袜子放到烤面包机里去。
－－艾迪·爱查德（1962－，英国单口秀谐星）
"Never put a sock in a toaster."
-Eddie Izzard

文化修养高的人，就是那种看到一根香肠就能想起毕加索的人。
－－A. P.赫波特（英国幽默作家）
"A high-brow is someone who looks at a sausage and thinks of Picasso."
-A. P. Herbert

 活得穷的麻烦是，贫穷占去了你所有的时间。
－－威廉·德·库宁（画家，1904--1997）
"The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time."
-Willem de Kooning

 婚姻就是给和取。你最好是给她，反正她总会去取的。
－－乔伊·亚当斯（美国喜剧演员，1911－1999）
"Marriage is give and take. You'd better give it to her or she'll take it anyway."
-Joey Adam

 有哄骗自己的能力，也许是一个很重要的生存工具。
－简·瓦格纳（美国作家导演，1935－）
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool."
-Jane Wagner  

我的私密空间，和鱼缸里的金鱼差不多。
――玛格利特公主 （现任英女王的妹妹，1930－2002）
"I have as much privacy as a goldfish in a bowl."
-Princess Margaret

大象


在求爱期，公象害起相思病来，能严重到不吃不喝。母象稍微冷静一些，至少在做爱方面。他们很明智地选择爱人，可以很特别地等上四年再交配。

凉亭鸟

钱不能买爱，但在凉亭鸟那里，房产肯定能。为了吸引伴侣，公鸟用树枝，树皮和其他东西，为他潜在的终生伴侣修筑一个家，这个华丽的建筑，大家称其凉亭。有的公鸟，甚至用嚼碎浆果，去漆刷凉亭的墙。

想知道更多动物世界里的爱情？请阅读《时代》周刊图片集锦： Wildly in love

前言：一群十几年的老朋友，在周末促成了一桌庆祝中国年的聚会。吃吃喝喝之余，大家尽量抖落在网上或者其他饭桌上听来看来的笑话，自娱自乐。因为没有孩子在场，笑话的内容越来越黄，讲着讲着，一个笑疯众人的原创小品，应运而生。请注意，下面这朵朵黄花，主题都是围绕着“你说你的，我听我的”这个美丽的沟通误会。

之一：口音很重的山东人买苹果

山东人：我想买你的屁股（苹果），怎么卖？
女摊贩：流氓一个！
山东人：哦，六毛一个，不贵，那我买两个。

之二：汉语四声混乱的外国人下餐馆

女服务员:先生，您要点什么？
外国人：服务员，我想要睡觉（水饺）。
女服务员（惊喜）：好。就要睡觉吗？不再要点别的？我们的服务很全的。
外国人：好哇，你们有没有节目（芥末）？
女服务员：有。我们有很多种节目，你要什么样的？
外国人：我要的是很黄的那种。

之三：断句

据说这是一则参考消息上的一句简短新闻：“西哈努克亲王八日到京，外交部长姬朋飞到机场欢迎。”

然而，大队支书在向革命群众宣读报纸时，把个人的诗歌趣味和色彩修养加了进去，就变成了一则很朴实的打油：

西哈努克亲
王八日到京
外交部长鸡棚
飞到鸡场欢迎

之四： X君之灵感火花，在众人的吹燃下，越烧越黄

老夫取少妻的人，一定不止杨振宁一人。但象杨翁这样高调在媒体上时不时显摆一下的人，实在不多。杨老师翁老师，您二位这不是诚心让人们茶余饭后地惦记着吗？

话说每一次饭桌上，只要有人提起82－28现象，X君就会满腔激忿。

“首先，”X君说，“这不符合人之生物本能。一个80多岁的人，怎么能够正常地满足一个28岁少妇的要求呢？“

嗓门最大的Y女士马上接腔了，”X君，谁说老杨不行，你没听说吗？人家老杨有秘诀。“

众人安静，都等着Y女士继续。

”老杨这个秘诀，来自打麻将的经验，那就是：少吃、多摸、尽管碰，决不放炮！”

众人哄堂大笑。X君笑完之后，又陷入沉思。

没过多久，X君又开始发话了：“第二，那些请他回国的人真傻，给他配那么好的房子，给他提供那么优越的生活条件，你们知道他一天到晚都在搞什么吗？”

众人发问：搞什么？

“他一天到晚搞什么遗精（《易经》）！”

众人愕然半秒钟，有一个人先笑起来，有半数人的人跟着哈哈大笑，另一半有点云里雾里。

X君脸红着说，“不是那个”遗精“，这么大岁数，他想遗也遗不了。我是说，他一个科学家，整天在钻研那本书《易经》，这不是搞迷信嘛。”

这样一解释，脑子比较慢的另外半数人才悟过来，大家的笑声越来越高，越来越长，没多久，就有人开始叫肚子痛了。

1）放鞭炮了！咱们来把“年”吓跑！



2）花花绿绿过个年：上星期从HOME DEPOT领回家来的一盆花烛属植物（Anthuriums ），就这么一株，身边连个做伴儿的兄弟姐妹都没有，粉嫩油绿地站在那儿等我，叫我如何不爱它？




3）这些可爱的小泥人，是我05回国从老舍茶馆买回来的呢，是天津产的，不记得是不是泥人张的。后面的红木小屏风，上面刻着甲骨文，是那年去安阳殷都废墟买来的。




4）花烛（洞房呢？）英文又名“男孩子花”，为什么呢？自己联想去吧。

昨天，傍晚。门铃声响起，以为是邻家女孩的童子军甜饼到了。打开门，一个陌生男人手里拿着一堆纸文，笑脸相应。

陌生男子：抱歉，打搅您了！（既然抱歉，何必来呢？）我是XXX，欧巴马的助选成员。（比较专业，懂得说话前先报姓名，比那些电话里骗钱的人聪明一些）。我想提醒你，星期二您一定要去投票。

我：当然要去。

陌生男子：那你是已经决定要选谁了？

我：对。

陌生男子（很专业地微笑）：那我能不能知道你要选谁呢？是喜拉里，还是欧巴马？

我（笑）：我为什么要告诉你呢？

陌生男子：那我把这些资料给你留一份吧。

我：不用啦。我们订有三份报纸，十几种杂志。

陌生男子（意犹未尽）：哦，

我：再见！

陌生男子（迟迟疑疑地）：再见！

早上起来看新闻，才知道欧巴马今天来新州。原来昨天上门的是个探子！说不定还想顺带招收些啦啦队员，去参加他的鼓动会什么的。以前，普镇选镇长，一位女候选就敲过我家的门。真不知道，如果潇洒的黑马王子亲自上门拉票，我还能不能这么干脆地拒绝他。

早上读到一句英文趣话，想把它翻成中文。句子里有个词叫high-brow，记得是知识分子之类的意思，想求证一下，把鼠标放上去，在线的金山词霸说没找到。就到网上查找其他翻译字典，最后给我的答案是“高眉毛”。

我不禁笑出声来。忽然想起吴尔夫有篇叫“MIDDLEBROW”的文章，其实我当初识得这几个有关高、中、低眉毛的词，就是读完这篇文章之后。赶快上网几个词打出来，马上就搜到原文了。再放鼠标上去，这回金山词霸明白了，没把题目翻成“中眉毛”，而是翻成“中庸之人”。我这才明白，是因为上面“高眉毛”的英文，被人在中间加了个破折号。电脑当然是死脑筋，你稍加变化，它就蒙了，真是够“低眉毛”的了。呵呵。

－－
附，吴尔夫“中眉毛”原文：

Virginia Woolf--MIDDLEBROW

(This letter was written, but not sent to The New Statesman.)

To THE EDITOR OF THE “NEW STATESMAN”

Sir,

Will you allow me to draw your attention to the fact that in a review of a book by me (October ) your reviewer omitted to use the word Highbrow? The review, save for that omission, gave me so much pleasure that I am driven to ask you, at the risk of appearing unduly egotistical, whether your reviewer, a man of obvious intelligence, intended to deny my claim to that title? I say “claim,” for surely I may claim that title when a great critic, who is also a great novelist, a rare and enviable combination, always calls me a highbrow when he condescends to notice my work in a great newspaper; and, further, always finds space to inform not only myself, who know it already, but the whole British Empire, who hang on his words, that I live in Bloomsbury? Is your critic unaware of that fact too? Or does he, for all his intelligence, maintain that it is unnecessary in reviewing a book to add the postal address of the writer?

His answer to these questions, though of real value to me, is of no possible interest to the public at large. Of that I am well aware. But since larger issues are involved, since the Battle of the Brows troubles, I am told, the evening air, since the finest minds of our age have lately been engaged in debating, not without that passion which befits a noble cause, what a highbrow is and what a lowbrow, which is better and which is worse, may I take this opportunity to express my opinion and at the same time draw attention to certain aspects of the question which seem to me to have been unfortunately overlooked?

Now there can be no two opinions as to what a highbrow is. He is the man or woman of thoroughbred intelligence who rides his mind at a gallop across country in pursuit of an idea. That is why I have always been so proud to be called highbrow. That is why, if I could be more of a highbrow I would. I honour and respect highbrows. Some of my relations have been highbrows; and some, but by no means all, of my friends. To be a highbrow, a complete and representative highbrow, a highbrow like Shakespeare, Dickens, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Charlotte Bronte, Scott, Jane Austen, Flaubert, Hardy or Henry James—to name a few highbrows from the same profession chosen at random—is of course beyond the wildest dreams of my imagination. And, though I would cheerfully lay myself down in the dust and kiss the print of their feet, no person of sense will deny that this passionate preoccupation of theirs—riding across country in pursuit of ideas—often leads to disaster. Undoubtedly, they come fearful croppers. Take Shelley—what a mess he made of his life! And Byron, getting into bed with first one woman and then with another and dying in the mud at Missolonghi. Look at Keats, loving poetry and Fanny Brawne so intemperately that he pined and died of consumption at the age of twenty–six. Charlotte Bronte again—I have beep assured on good authority that Charlotte Bronte was, with the possible exception of Emily, the worst governess in the British Isles. Then there was Scott—he went bankrupt, and left, together with a few magnificent novels, one house, Abbotsford, which is perhaps the ugliest in the whole Empire. But surely these instances are enough—I need not further labour the point that highbrows, for some reason or another, are wholly incapable of dealing successfully with what is called real life. That is why, and here I come to a point that is often surprisingly ignored, they honour so wholeheartedly and depend so completely upon those who are called lowbrows. By a lowbrow is meant of course a man or a woman of thoroughbred vitality who rides his body in pursuit of a living at a gallop across life. That is why I honour and respect lowbrows—and I have never known a highbrow who did not. In so far as I am a highbrow (and my imperfections in that line are well known to me) I love lowbrows; I study them; I always sit next the conductor in an omnibus and try to get him to tell me what it is like—being a conductor. In whatever company I am I always try to know what it is like—being a conductor, being a woman with ten children and thirty–five shillings a week, being a stockbroker, being an admiral, being a bank clerk, being a dressmaker, being a duchess, being a miner, being a cook, being a prostitute. All that lowbrows do is of surpassing interest and wonder to me, because, in so far as I am a highbrow, I cannot do things myself.

This brings me to another point which is also surprisingly overlooked. Lowbrows need highbrows and honour them just as much as highbrows need lowbrows and honour them. This too is not a matter that requires much demonstration. You have only to stroll along the Strand on a wet winter’s night and watch the crowds lining up to get into the movies. These lowbrows are waiting, after the day’s work, in the rain, sometimes for hours, to get into the cheap seats and sit in hot theatres in order to see what their lives look like. Since they are lowbrows, engaged magnificently and adventurously in riding full tilt from one end of life to the other in pursuit of a living, they cannot see themselves doing it. Yet nothing interests them more. Nothing matters to them more. It is one of the prime necessities of life to them—to be shown what life looks like. And the highbrows, of course, are the only people who can show them. Since they are the only people who do not do things, they are the only people who can see things being done. This is so—and so it is I am certain; nevertheless we are told—the air buzzes with it by night, the press booms with it by day, the very donkeys in the fields do nothing but bray it, the very curs in the streets do nothing but bark it—“Highbrows hate lowbrows! Lowbrows hate highbrows!”—when highbrows need lowbrows, when lowbrows need highbrows, when they cannot exist apart, when one is the complement and other side of the other! How has such a lie come into existence? Who has set this malicious gossip afloat?

There can be no doubt about that either. It is the doing of the middlebrows. They are the people, I confess, that I seldom regard with entire cordiality. They are the go–betweens; they are the busy–bodies who run from one to the other with their tittle tattle and make all the mischief—the middlebrows, I repeat. But what, you may ask, is a middlebrow? And that, to tell the truth, is no easy question to answer. They are neither one thing nor the other. They are not highbrows, whose brows are high; nor lowbrows, whose brows are low. Their brows are betwixt and between. They do not live in Bloomsbury which is on high ground; nor in Chelsea, which is on low ground. Since they must live somewhere presumably, they live perhaps in South Kensington, which is betwixt and between. The middlebrow is the man, or woman, of middlebred intelligence who ambles and saunters now on this side of the hedge, now on that, in pursuit of no single object, neither art itself nor life itself, but both mixed indistinguishably, and rather nastily, with money, fame, power, or prestige. The middlebrow curries favour with both sides equally. He goes to the lowbrows and tells them that while he is not quite one of them, he is almost their friend. Next moment he rings up the highbrows and asks them with equal geniality whether he may not come to tea. Now there are highbrows—I myself have known duchesses who were highbrows, also charwomen, and they have both told me with that vigour of language which so often unites the aristocracy with the working classes, that they would rather sit in the coal cellar, together, than in the drawing–room with middlebrows and pour out tea. I have myself been asked—but may I, for the sake of brevity, cast this scene which is only partly fictitious, into the form of fiction?—I myself, then, have been asked to come and “see” them—how strange a passion theirs is for being “seen”! They ring me up, therefore, at about eleven in the morning, and ask me to come to tea. I go to my wardrobe and consider, rather lugubriously, what is the right thing to wear? We highbrows may be smart, or we may be shabby; but we never have the right thing to wear. I proceed to ask next: What is the right thing to say? Which is the right knife to use? What is the right book to praise? All these are things I do not know for myself. We highbrows read what we like and do what we like and praise what we like. We also know what we dislike—for example, thin bread and butter tea. The difficulty of eating thin bread and butter in white kid gloves has always seemed to me one of life’s more insuperable problems. Then I dislike bound volumes of the classics behind plate glass. Then I distrust people who call both Shakespeare and Wordsworth equally “Bill”—it is a habit moreover that leads to confusion. And in the matter of clothes, I like people either to dress very well; or to dress very badly; I dislike the correct thing in clothes. Then there is the question of games. Being a highbrow I do not play them. But I love watching people play who have a passion for games. These middlebrows pat balls about; they poke their bats and muff their catches at cricket. And when poor Middlebrow mounts on horseback and that animal breaks into a canter, to me there is no sadder sight in all Rotten Row. To put it in a nutshell (in order to get on with the story) that tea party was not wholly a success, nor altogether a failure; for Middlebrow, who writes, following me to the door, clapped me briskly on the back, and said “I’m sending you my book!” (Or did he call it “stuff?”) And his book comes—sure enough, though called, so symbolically, KEEPAWAY, [Keepaway is the name of a preparation used to distract the male dog from the female at certain seasons] it comes. And I read a page here, and I read a page there (I am breakfasting, as usual, in bed). And it is not well written; nor is it badly written. It is not proper, nor is it improper—in short it is betwixt and between. Now if there is any sort of book for which I have, perhaps, an imperfect sympathy, it is the betwixt and between. And so, though I suffer from the gout of a morning—but if one’s ancestors for two or three centuries have tumbled into bed dead drunk one has deserved a touch of that malady—I rise. I dress. I proceed weakly to the window. I take that book in my swollen right hand and toss it gently over the hedge into the field. The hungry sheep—did I remember to say that this part of the story takes place in the country?—the hungry sheep look up but are not fed.

But to have done with fiction and its tendency to lapse into poetry—I will now report a perfectly prosaic conversation in words of one syllable. I often ask my friends the lowbrows, over our muffins and honey, why it is that while we, the highbrows, never buy a middlebrow book, or go to a middlebrow lecture, or read, unless we are paid for doing so, a middlebrow review, they, on the contrary, take these middlebrow activities so seriously? Why, I ask (not of course on the wireless), are you so damnably modest? Do you think that a description of your lives, as they are, is too sordid and too mean to be beautiful? Is that why you prefer the middlebrow version of what they have the impudence to call real humanity?—this mixture of geniality and sentiment stuck together with a sticky slime of calves–foot jelly? The truth, if you would only believe it, is much more beautiful than any lie. Then again, I continue, how can you let the middlebrows teach you how to write?—you, who write so beautifully when you write naturally, that I would give both my hands to write as you do—for which reason I never attempt it, but do my best to learn the art of writing as a highbrow should. And again, I press on, brandishing a muffin on the point of a tea spoon, how dare the middlebrows teach you how to read—Shakespeare for instance? All you have to do is to read him. The Cambridge edition is both good and cheap. If you find HAMLET difficult, ask him to tea. He is a highbrow. Ask Ophelia to meet him. She is a lowbrow. Talk to them, as you talk to me, and you will know more about Shakespeare than all the middlebrows in the world can teach you—I do not think, by the way, from certain phrases that Shakespeare liked middlebrows, or Pope either.

To all this the lowbrows reply—but I cannot imitate their style of talking—that they consider themselves to be common people without education. It is very kind of the middlebrows to try to teach them culture. And after all, the lowbrows continue, middlebrows, like other people, have to make money. There must be money in teaching and in writing books about Shakespeare. We all have to earn our livings nowadays, my friends the lowbrows remind me. I quite agree. Even those of us whose Aunts came a cropper riding in India and left them an annual income of four hundred and rfifty pounds, now reduced, thanks to the war and other luxuries, to little more than two hundred odd, even we have to do that. And we do it, too, by writing about anybody who seems amusing—enough has been written about Shakespeare—Shakespeare hardly pays. We highbrows, I agree, have to earn our livings; but when we have earned enough to live on, then we live. When the middlebrows, on the contrary, have earned enough to live on, they go on earning enough to buy—what are the things that middlebrows always buy? Queen Anne furniture (faked, but none the less expensive); first editions of dead writers, always the worst; pictures, or reproductions from pictures, by dead painters; houses in what is called “the Georgian style”—but never anything new, never a picture by a living painter, or a chair by a living carpenter, or books by living writers, for to buy living art requires living taste. And, as that kind of art and that kind of taste are what middlebrows call “highbrow,” “Bloomsbury,” poor middlebrow spends vast sums on sham antiques, and has to keep at it scribbling away, year in, year out, while we highbrows ring each other up, and are off for a day’s jaunt into the country. That is the worst of course of living in a set—one likes being with one’s friends.

Have I then made my point clear, sir, that the true battle in my opinion lies not between highbrow and lowbrow, but between highbrows and lowbrows joined together in blood brotherhood against the bloodless and pernicious pest who comes between? If the B.B.C. stood for anything but the Betwixt and Between Company they would use their control of the air not to stir strife between brothers, but to broadcast the fact that highbrows and lowbrows must band together to exterminate a pest which is the bane of all thinking and living. It may be, to quote from your advertisement columns, that “terrifically sensitive” lady novelists overestimate the dampness and dinginess of this fungoid growth. But all I can say is that when, lapsing into that stream which people call, so oddly, consciousness, and gathering wool from the sheep that have been mentioned above, I ramble round my garden in the suburbs, middlebrow seems to me to be everywhere. “What’s that?” I cry. “Middlebrow on the cabbages? Middlebrow infecting that poor old sheep? And what about the moon?” I look up and, behold, the moon is under eclipse. “Middlebrow at it again!” I exclaim. “Middlebrow obscuring, dulling, tarnishing and coarsening even the silver edge of Heaven’s own scythe.” (I “draw near to poetry,” see advt.) And then my thoughts, as Freud assures us thoughts will do, rush (Middlebrow’s saunter and simper, out of respect for the Censor) to sex, and I ask of the sea–gulls who are crying on desolate sea sands and of the farm hands who are coming home rather drunk to their wives, what will become of us, men and women, if Middlwbrow has his way with us, and there is only a middle sex but no husbands or wives? The next remark I address with the utmost humility to the Prime Minister. “What, sir,” I demand, “will be the fate of the British Empire and of our Dominions Across the Seas if Middlebrows prevail? Will you not, sir, read a pronouncement of an authoritative nature from Broadcasting House?”

Such are the thoughts, such are the fancies that visit “cultured invalidish ladies with private means” (see advt.) when they stroll in their suburban gardens and look at the cabbages and at the red brick villas that have been built by middlebrows so that middlebrows may look at the view. Such are the thoughts “at once gay and tragic and deeply feminine” (see advt.) of one who has not yet “been driven out of Bloomsbury” (advt. again), a place where lowbrows and highbrows live happily together on equal terms and priests are not, nor priestesses, and, to be quite frank, the adjective “priestly” is neither often heard nor held in high esteem. Such are the thoughts of one who will stay in Bloomsbury until the Duke of Bedford, rightly concerned for the respectability of his squares, raises the rent so high that Bloomsbury is safe for middlebrows to live in. Then she will leave.

May I conclude, as I began, by thanking your reviewer for his very courteous and interesting review, but may I tell him that though he did not, for reasons best known to himself, call me a highbrow, there is no name in the world that I prefer? I ask nothing better than that all reviewers, for ever, and everywhere, should call me a highbrow. I will do my best to oblige them. If they like to add Bloomsbury, W.C.1, that is the correct postal address, and my telephone number is in the Directory. But if your reviewer, or any other reviewer, dares hint that I live in South Kensington, I will sue him for libel. If any human being, man, woman, dog, cat or half–crushed worm dares call me “middlebrow” I will take my pen and stab him, dead. Yours etc.,

人到中年的X先生，自从做完肝脏移至手术之后，发现自己有了新的兴趣。

比如，他忽然想吃意大利面，之前，他对此毫无兴趣的。再比如，他忽然想去迪斯尼游乐场狂欢。坐惊险的转车时，他乐得象个孩子。而这个，他以前从不感冒。于是，他猜想这种新的转变，是不是与他最新移植进来的新肝宝贝有点瓜葛。

他千方百计地找到了原主人的家属，打听到如下情况：捐献肝脏的是个男孩，车祸身亡时，只有16岁。男孩生前的两大爱好：吃意大利面和玩游乐场。

后来X找到脑专家，想得到一种科学的解释。脑专家说，其实我们身体的每一个器官都有记忆，这种记忆储藏在各个器官的细胞里，一旦它们跟我们大脑的神经接通，它们之间很快就会互通有无，最终，大脑的记忆，其实就是我们身体记忆的综合。