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A Burd's eye view of Austin
By Patrick George AMERICAN-STATESM AMERICAN-STATESMAN AN STAFF Thursday, July 19, 2007
It's a 3 1/2-mile walk between Gene Burd's apartment near Barton Springs Road and his office on the University of Texas campus, a walk that he makes twice a day. He's easy to spot on downtown streets, because Burd hoofs his daily commute at a brisk pace that belies his 76 years. A compactly built man with thinning white hair, Burd has walked the same route – with only slight variations – since he started teaching journalism at UT in 1972. He eschews cars, believing they have a negative effect on the urban environment. He walks to the doctor, to the grocery store and to work. He never uses elevators because "you meet a better class of people" on staircases, he says. A reporter since 1953 and teacher since 1959, Burd has a gentle, high-pitched voice and often holds his hand over his mouth when he talks, as if telling a secret. His office is so full of papers and books stacked to the ceiling that it's nearly impossible to step inside. He's also famously frugal – so much so that in 2004, he used more than $1 million of his own money, most of it just from saving up his paychecks and investments, to establish a foundation which gives financial awards to journalists and researchers who specialize in city planning, architecture, environmental issues and other urban topics. He has since given the foundation $25,000 for operational costs. While Burd expects that many people think of him as "that crazy old guy who walks everywhere," his daily walk gives him a chance to observe his city as it grows and changes. He worked as a newspaper reporter in several cities before earning a doctorate in urban media studies from Northwestern University in Chicago and joining the UT faculty. Though he now has the longest tenure in the journalism school, Burd is still an associate professor and his $73,779 annual salary ranks beneath many younger peers. While he says that he's "a little bitter" about that, he has nonetheless made a lasting impression on many of his students. "He's a wonderful professor who really understands journalism and its course over time," said Megan Larson, a recent graduate and former student of Burd's. "One thing he told us was that if you want to be a good writer, you have to know a little bit about everything," said Dennis Killian, another former student. A penny saved
It's Burd's frugality that has allowed him to save up and give to causes he cares about. He lives unassumingly in a modest, low-rent South Austin apartment where he's lived since 1999. He seldom buys new clothes. Those New Balance shoes? He found them in the trash somewhere. He rarely goes out to eat and doesn't have a car. Never married, he says 1
growing up in rural poverty taught him to be a good saver. He says he invests conservatively and wisely. While Burd wouldn't divulge his exact financial status, he said he is "not at all broke" even after his donations. Much of it comes from cashing in retirement funds he doesn't think he'll use – as long as he's physically and mentally healthy, he doesn't plan on retiring, or ending his twice-daily trek across town. "Each year, it gets a little more difficult for me," Burd says. "But I just keep on going." Meanwhile, all this giving has brought him more attention than he bargained for, he said. While the $1 million donation might have come as a total shock to some, those who know Burd well say they suspected he might have had something like this up his sleeve all along. "I once said to him, 'Burd, I'll bet you've got a million bucks stashed away somewhere,' " said Bob Mann, a lecturer at the journalism school. "He would never spend it on himself. He's extremely generous." "I guess I'm a miser, but I try to share with others," Burd says. "I never went into journalism or teaching to make money." UT – University of Texas New Balance – prestižna robna marka sportske obuće (razmislite može li se New Balance izostaviti u prevodu) Pronañite značenje sledećih reči/idioma (u slengu): buck,
quid, lolly, cash cow, dinero, dough, fat cat, bread, sponger, freeloader. Potražite u rečnicima sledeće reči i izraze i razmislite kako biste ih mogli prevesti: a penny for your thoughts, to cost an
Gene Burd
arm and a leg, to make ends meet, to be paid peanuts, money for jam/old rope, to see the colour of someone’s money, mone y, money is no object, in for a penny, in for a pound, not have two pennies to rub together, to spend a penny, money makes the mare go, to earn an honest penny, to feather one’s nest, to live beyond one’s means.
Prevedite sledeće rečenice:
1. When I was a student I lived on a shoestring. 2. The house is lovely and spacious, but on the other side of the coin is that it is far from the shops and schools. 3. We were so hard up we had to sleep in the car. 4. There was a celebration lunch for the group and Bill picked up the tab. 5. I need $100 to keep my head above water. Zanimljivi linkovi:
http://www.businessballs.com/moneyslanghistory.htm http://www.learn-english-today.com/idioms/idiom-categories/money-idioms.htm
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growing up in rural poverty taught him to be a good saver. He says he invests conservatively and wisely. While Burd wouldn't divulge his exact financial status, he said he is "not at all broke" even after his donations. Much of it comes from cashing in retirement funds he doesn't think he'll use – as long as he's physically and mentally healthy, he doesn't plan on retiring, or ending his twice-daily trek across town. "Each year, it gets a little more difficult for me," Burd says. "But I just keep on going." Meanwhile, all this giving has brought him more attention than he bargained for, he said. While the $1 million donation might have come as a total shock to some, those who know Burd well say they suspected he might have had something like this up his sleeve all along. "I once said to him, 'Burd, I'll bet you've got a million bucks stashed away somewhere,' " said Bob Mann, a lecturer at the journalism school. "He would never spend it on himself. He's extremely generous." "I guess I'm a miser, but I try to share with others," Burd says. "I never went into journalism or teaching to make money." UT – University of Texas New Balance – prestižna robna marka sportske obuće (razmislite može li se New Balance izostaviti u prevodu) Pronañite značenje sledećih reči/idioma (u slengu): buck,
quid, lolly, cash cow, dinero, dough, fat cat, bread, sponger, freeloader. Potražite u rečnicima sledeće reči i izraze i razmislite kako biste ih mogli prevesti: a penny for your thoughts, to cost an
Gene Burd
arm and a leg, to make ends meet, to be paid peanuts, money for jam/old rope, to see the colour of someone’s money, mone y, money is no object, in for a penny, in for a pound, not have two pennies to rub together, to spend a penny, money makes the mare go, to earn an honest penny, to feather one’s nest, to live beyond one’s means.
Prevedite sledeće rečenice:
1. When I was a student I lived on a shoestring. 2. The house is lovely and spacious, but on the other side of the coin is that it is far from the shops and schools. 3. We were so hard up we had to sleep in the car. 4. There was a celebration lunch for the group and Bill picked up the tab. 5. I need $100 to keep my head above water. Zanimljivi linkovi:
http://www.businessballs.com/moneyslanghistory.htm http://www.learn-english-today.com/idioms/idiom-categories/money-idioms.htm
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Teacher Man By Frank McCourt
If I knew anything about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis I'd be able to trace all my troubles to my miserable childhood in Ireland. That miserable childhood deprived me of self-esteem, triggered spasms of self pity, paralyzed my emotions, made me cranky, envious and disrespectful of authority, retarded my development, crippled my doings with the opposite sex, kept me from rising in the world and made me unfit, almost, for human society. How I became a teacher at all and remained one is a miracle and I have to give myself full marks for surviving all those years in the classrooms of New York. There should be a medal for people who survive miserable childhoods and become teachers, and I should be first in line for the medal and whatever bars might be appended for ensuing miseries. I could lay blame. The miserable childhood doesn't simply happen. It is brought about. There are dark forces. If I am to lay blame it is in a spirit of forgiveness. Therefore, I forgive the following: Pope Pius XII; the English in general and King George VI in particular; Cardinal MacRory, who ruled Ireland when I was a child; the bishop of Limerick, who seemed to think everything was sinful; Eamonn De Valera, former prime minister and president of Ireland. Mr. De Valera was a half-Spanish Gaelic fanatic who directed teachers all over Ireland to beat the native tongue into us and natural curiosity out of us. He caused us hours of misery. He was aloof and indifferent to the black and blue welts raised by schoolmaster sticks on various parts of our young bodies. I forgive, also, the priest who drove me from the confessional when I admitted to sins of self-abuse and self-pollution and penny thieveries from my mother's purse. He said I did not show a proper spirit of repentance, especially in the matter of the flesh. And even though he had hit that nail right on the head, his refusal to grant me absolution put my soul in such peril that if I had been flattened by a truck outside the church he would have been responsible for my eternal damnation. I forgive various bullying schoolmasters for pulling me out of my seat by the sideburns, for walloping me regularly with stick, s tick, strap and cane when I stumbled over answers in the catechism or when in my head I couldn't divide 937 by 739. I was told by my parents and other adults it was all for my own good. I forgive them for those whopping hypocrisies and wonder where they are at this moment. Heaven? Hell? Purgatory, if it still exists? I can even forgive myself, though when I look back at various stages of my life, I groan. What an idiot. What timidities. What stupidities. What indecisions and flounderings. But then I take another look. I had spent childhood and adolescence examining my conscience and finding myself in a perpetual state of sin. That was the training, the brainwashing, the conditioning and it discouraged smugness, especially among the sinning class. Now I think it time to give myself credit for at least le ast one on e virtue: doggedness. Not as glamorous as ambition or talent or intellect or charm, but still the one thing that got me through the days and nights. F. Scott Fitzgerald said that in American lives there are no second acts. He simply did not live long enough. In my case he was wrong.
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When I taught in New York City high schools for thirty years no one but my students paid me a scrap of attention. In the world outside the school I was invisible. Then I wrote a book about my childhood and became mick of the moment. I hoped the book would explain family history to McCourt children and grandchildren. I hoped it might sell a few hundred copies and I might be invited to have discussions with book clubs. Instead it jumped onto the best-seller list and was translated into thirty languages and I was dazzled. The book was my second act. In the world of books I am a late bloomer, a johnny-come-lately, new kid on the block. My first book, Angela's Ashes, was published in 1996 when I was sixty-six, the second, 'Tis, in 1999 when I was sixty-nine. At that age it's a wonder I was able to lift the pen at all. New friends of mine (recently acquired because of my ascension to the bestseller lists) had published books in their twenties. So, what took you so long? I was teaching, that's what took me so long. Not in college or university, where you have all the time in the world for writing and other diversions, but in four different New York City public high schools. (I have read novels about the lives of university professors where they seemed to be so busy with adultery and academic in-fighting you wonder where they found time to squeeze in a lime teaching.) When you teach five high school classes a day, five days a week, you're not inclined to go home to clear your head and fashion deathless prose. After a day of five classes your head is filled with the clamor of the classroom. I never expected Angela's Ashes to attract any attention, but when it hit the bestseller lists I became a media darling. I had my picture taken hundreds of times. I was a geriatric novelty with an Irish accent. I was interviewed for dozens of publications. I met governors, mayors, actors. I met the first President Bush and his son the governor of Texas. I met President Clinton and his wife Hillary. I met Gregory Peck. I met the Pope and kissed his ring. Sarah, Duchess of York, interviewed me. She said I was her first Pulitzer Prize winner. I said she was my first duchess. She said, Ooh, and asked the cameraman, “Did you get that? Did you get that?” I was nominated for a Grammy for the spoken word and nearly met Elton John. People looked at me in a different way. They said, “Oh, you wrote that book. This way, please, Mr. McCourt,” or “Is there anything you'd like”? Pope Pius XII – papa Pije XII Eamonn De Valera – Ejmon de Valera Angela’s Ashes Ashes – Anñelin Anñelin pepeo (naslov knjige) Jeste (naslov knjige) ‘Tis – Jeste
Frank McCourt
Zanimljivi linkovi:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_McCourt http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/mcc1bio-1 4
3
Alexander the Great
Alexander was the son of Philip II, king of Macedonia, and of Olympias, a princess of Epirus. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor. He gave Alexander a thorough training in rhetoric and literature and stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and philosophy. In the summer of 336 BC Philip was assassinated, and Alexander ascended to the Macedonian throne. He found himself surrounded by enemies at home and threatened by rebellion abroad. Alexander disposed quickly of all conspirators and domestic enemies by ordering their execution. Then he descended on Thessaly, where partisans of independence had gained ascendancy, and restored Macedonian rule. Before the end of the summer of 336 BC he had re-established his position in Greece and was elected by a congress of states at Corinth. In 335 BC as general of the Greeks in a campaign against the Persians, originally planned by his father, he carried out a successful campaign against the Thracians, penetrating to the Danube River. On his return he crushed in a single week the Illyrians and then hastened to Thebes, which had revolted. He took the city by storm and razed it, sparing only the temples of the gods and the house of the Greek lyric poet Pindar, and selling the surviving inhabitants, about 8000 in number, into slavery. Alexander's promptness in crushing the revolt of Thebes brought the other Greek states into instant and abject submission. Alexander began his war against Persia in the spring of 334 BC by crossing the Hellespont (modern Dardanelles) with an army of 35,000 Macedonian and Greek troops. At the river Granicus, near the ancient city of Troy, he attacked an army of Persians and Greek mercenaries totalling 40,000 men. His forces defeated the enemy and, according to legend, lost only 110 men. After this battle all the states of Asia Minor submitted to him. In passing through Phrygia he is said to have cut with his sword the Gordian knot. Continuing to advance southward, Alexander encountered the main Persian army at Issus, commanded by King Darius III. The Battle of Issus ended in a great victory for Alexander. Darius fled northward, abandoning his mother, wife, and children to Alexander, who treated them with the respect due to royalty. Tyre, a strongly fortified seaport, offered obstinate resistance, but Alexander took it by storm in 332 after a siege of seven months. Alexander captured Gaza next and then passed on into Egypt, where he was greeted as a deliverer. By these successes he secured control of the entire eastern Mediterranean coastline. Later in 332 he founded, at the mouth of the Nile River, the city of Alexandria, which later became the literary, scientific, and commercial center of the Greek world. In the spring of 331 Alexander made a pilgrimage to the great temple and oracle of Amon-Ra, Egyptian god of the sun, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus. The earlier Egyptian pharaohs were believed to be sons of Amon-Ra, and Alexander, the new ruler of Egypt, wanted the god to acknowledge him as his son. The pilgrimage apparently was successful, and it may have confirmed in him a belief in his own divine origin. Turning northward again, he reorganized his forces and started for Babylon with an army of 40,000 infantry and 7000 cavalry. Crossing the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, he met Darius at the head of an army of unknown size, which was said to number a million men. This army he completely defeated in the Battle of Gaugamela, on October 1, 331 BC. Darius fled as he had done at Issus and was later slain by one of his own men. Babylon surrendered after Gaugamela, and the city of Sūsa with its enormous treasures was soon conquered. After a few months Alexander forced his way to Persepolis, the Persian 5
capital. After plundering the royal treasuries and taking other rich booty, he burned the city during a drunken binge and thus completed the destruction of the ancient Persian Empire. In order to complete his conquest of the remnants of the Persian Empire, which had once included part of western India, Alexander crossed the Indus River in 326 BC, and invaded the Punjab. At this point the Macedonians rebelled and refused to go farther. He then constructed a fleet and passed down the Indus, reaching its mouth in September 325 BC. The fleet then sailed to the Persian Gulf. Shortages of food and water caused severe losses and hardship among his troops. He arrived in Babylon in the spring of 323 BC. In June he contracted a fever and died. He left his empire, in his own words, “to the strongest”; this ambiguous testament resulted in dire conflicts for half a century. Alexander was one of the greatest generals of all time, noted for his brilliance as a tactician and troop leader and for the rapidity with which he could traverse great expanses of territory. He was usually brave and generous, but could be cruel and ruthless when politics demanded. As a statesman and ruler he had grandiose plans. According to many modern historians he cherished a scheme for uniting the East and the West in a world empire, a new and enlightened “world brotherhood of all men.” He trained thousands of Persian youths in Macedonian tactics and enrolled them in his army. He himself adopted Persian manners and married Eastern wives – Roxana, and Barsine. Shortly before he died, Alexander ordered the Greek cities to worship him as a god. Although he probably gave the order for political reasons, he was, in his own view and that of his contemporaries, of divine birth. Epirus /e"paIr@s/ – Epir Euphrates /ju;"freIti;z/ – Eufrat Issus – Is Olympias – Olimpijada Phrygia /"frIdZI@/ – Frigija Thebes /"Ti;bz/ – Teba Thessaly – Tesalija Tyre – Tir
Alexander the Great (Μέγας Aλέξανδρος)
Transkripcija klasičnih imena
Sophocles – Sofokle; Pericles – Perikle; Themistocles – Temistokle; varijante Periklo itd. Leonidas – Leonida; Aeneas – Eneja; izuzeci: Aristotle (< Ἀ ριστοτέλης, Aristoteles) – Aristotel; Homer (Ὅµηρος, Homéros) – Homer; Marcus - Marko Sextus – Sekst; Brutus – Brut; Gaius – Gaj; Aurelius – Aurelije; Valerius – Valerije; Tiberius – Tiberije; Iulius/Julius – Julije; izuzeci: Pliny (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great 6
Renaissance
Renaissance painters turned from the purely religious subjects of the Middle Ages to a depiction of the natural world. Technical advances in the representation of perspective, anatomy, and light and shadow were matched by a great expansion in subject matter. Portraits, studies of the human form, animals, landscapes, scenes of daily life, and historic events all joined religious subjects as acceptable material for the painter. Giotto, a 14th-century Florentine painter, is often considered the forerunner of Renaissance painting. He broke with the highly formalized style of medieval painting, in which static, expressionless, two-dimensional figures were arranged in size and form according to their symbolic importance. Giotto based his art on observation of the real world and tried to use space and light more dramatically. In the 15th century the artists of Florence began to use scientific principles to solve problems of perspective and to develop new techniques for representing light and shade. At the same time, the painters of Venice experimented with color to produce a more natural effect. During the Middle Ages the Catholic Church had been almost the sole patron of the arts, and most of the artwork produced had religious themes. By the 1400s private collectors and patrons began to demand paintings of secular subjects. Personal portraiture also appeared in the works of artists such as Piero della Francesca and Sandro Botticelli. Representation of the natural world, however, was not enough for the great artists of the later Italian Renaissance. The masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo reveal not only the complete mastery of earlier technical advances, but also profound reflection on the nature of the material world and an effort to represent ideal qualities that underlie outward appearances. The work of Flemish artists such as Jan van Eyck in the 15th century suggests a common interest in concrete detail, but for the rest of Europe, the major impact of the new movement in art did not occur until the 17th century. Renaissance architecture was largely inspired by the rediscovery of classical forms and principles. In the 15th century, architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi and Leon Battista Alberti saw in the ruins of ancient Rome the foundation for a new architecture based on the principles of geometry and mathematics. Brunelleschi produced the first great works of Renaissance architecture in buildings such as the Church of San Lorenzo and the Pazzi Chapel in Florence. Alberti wrote theoretical treatises explaining the principles of Roman architect Vitruvius. His work on the Church of San Francesco, a Gothic church in the central Italian city of Rimini, is typical of the early Renaissance. It illustrates the tendency to remodel old buildings by adding classical approaches to form, such as the use of symmetry, and classical features, such as arches and columns. An important Renaissance contribution to the development of Western architecture was the revival of the dome, an architectural feature that was first introduced by the Romans. Brunelleschi's great dome on the cathedral of Florence is one of the outstanding achievements of the period. Renaissance architects were also interested in secular buildings of all kinds, including palaces, libraries, and theaters. Outstanding examples of secular Renaissance architecture include Florence’s Palazzo Medici by Italian architect Michelozzo and the Olympic Theater and Villa Rotonda, designed by Andrea Palladio and located in the northern Italian town of Vicenza. Palladio's use of
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columns and domes in houses and villas illustrates the application of classical principles of design to secular structures. Another important Renaissance architect was Donato Bramante. His Tempietto, a shrine in Rome, is an outstanding example of a circular building with a domed roof, a popular form during the Renaissance. Raphael, Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi, Giacomo da Vignola, Michelangelo, and members of the Sangallo family were all among the outstanding Renaissance architects of the 16th century. The Renaissance was a time when long-standing beliefs were tested, and Europeans became increasingly confident that they were creating a whole new culture. It was a period of intellectual ferment that prepared the ground for the thinkers and scientists of the 17th century. The Renaissance idea that humankind rules nature, for example, contributed to the development of modern science and technology. Renaissance thinkers used classical precedents to preserve and defend the concepts of republicanism and human freedom. These ideas had a permanent impact on the course of English constitutional theory. Renaissance political thought may also have been a source for the form of government adopted in the United States. Above all, however, the Renaissance left to the world monuments of artistic beauty that define Western culture.
Duomo, Florence
Michelangelo, David
Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi – Baldasare Tomazo Peruci Filippo Brunelleschi – Filipo Bruneleski Giacomo da Vignola – ðakomo da Vinjola Jan van Eyck – Jan van Ajk Michelozzo – Mikeloco Palazzo Medici – palata Medičijevih Pazzi Chapel – kapela Pacijevih Piero della Francesca – Pjero dela Frančeska Raphael – Rafaelo Firenca – pridevi: firentinski, florentinski, fjorentinski from Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004 Zanimljivi linkovi:
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/renaissance/ http://history.hanover.edu/courses/art/111ren.html 8
5
High, high above the North Pole, on the first day of 1969, two professors of English Literature approached each other at a combined velocity of 1200 miles per hour. Although they had never met, the two men were known to each other by name. They were, in fact, in process of exchanging posts for the next six months... The two men were in airplanes, and one was bored with and the other frightened of looking out of the window – since, in any case, the planes were too distant from each other to be mutually visible with the naked eye. The crossing of their paths passed unremarked by anyone other than the narrator of this chronicle. Imagine, if you will, that each of these two professors of English Literature (both, as it happens, aged forty) is connected to his native land, place of employment and domestic hearth by an infinitely elastic umbilical cord of emotions, attitudes and values – a cord which stretches and stretches almost to the point of invisibility, but never quite to breaking-point, as he hurtles through the air at 600 miles per hour. Imagine further that, as they pass each other above the polar ice-cap, the pilots of their respective Boeings, in defiance of regulations and technical feasibility, begin to execute a series of playful acrobatics, like a pair of mating birds, so as thoroughly to entangle the aforesaid umbilical cords, before proceeding soberly on their way in the approved manner. It follows that when the two men alight in each other's territory, and go about their business and pleasure, whatever vibrations are passed back by one to his native habitat will be felt by the other, and vice versa. It would not be surprising, in other words, if two men changing places for six months should exert a reciprocal influence on each other's destinies, and actually mirror each other's experience in certain respects, notwithstanding all the differences that exist between the two environments, and between the characters of the two men and their respective attitudes towards the whole enterprise. One of these differences we can take in at a glance from our privileged narrative altitude (higher than that of any jet). It is obvious, from his stiff, upright posture, and fulsome gratitude to the stewardess serving him a glass of orange juice, that Philip Swallow, flying westward, is unaccustomed to air travel; while to Morris Zapp, slouched in the seat of his eastbound aircraft, chewing a dead cigar (a hostess has made him extinguish it) and glowering at the meagre portion of ice dissolving in his plastic tumbler of bourbon, the experience of long-distance air travel is tediously familiar. Philip Swallow has, in fact, flown before, but so seldom, and at such long intervals, that on each occasion he suffers the same trauma, an alternating current of fear and reassurance that charges and relaxes his system in a persistent and exhausting rhythm. While he is on the ground, preparing for his joumey, he thinks of flying with exhilaration soaring up, up and away into the blue empyrean, cradled in an aircraft that seems, from a distance, effortlessly at home in that element, as though sculpted from the sky itself. This confidence begins to fade a little when he arrives at the airport and winces at the shrill screaming of jet engines. In the sky the planes look very small. On the runways they look very big. Therefore close up they should look even bigger but in fact they don't. His own plane, for instance, just outside the window of the assembly lounge, doesn't look quite big enough for all the people who are going to get into it. This impression is confirmed when he passes through the tunnel into the cabin of the aircraft, a cramped tube full of people. But when he, and the other passengers, are seated, well9
being returns. The seats are so remarkably comfortable that one feels quite content to stay put, but it is reassuring that the aisle is free should one wish to walk up it. There is soothing music playing. The lighting is restful. A stewardess offers him the morning paper. His baggage is safely stowed away in the plane somewhere, or if it is not, that isn't his fault, which is the main thing. Flying is, after all, the only way to travel. David Lodge, Changing Places (adapted) empyrean /%empaI"ri;@n/
the sky, heaven Kondicionali (revizija i prevoñenje)
If you see him If you should see him Should you see him
please give him my regards.
If it weren’t for your help Were it not for your help Were it not for the fact that you helped me
I would still be homeless.
If the management had acted sooner, the strike would not have happened. Had the management acted sooner, the strike would not have happened.
TYPE 1
TYPE 2
TYPE 3
Ostale upotrebe veznika if i implicitni kondicionali As if I care whether she’s offended! ( = I don’t care) He’s a pleasant, if awkward guy. ( = although) I’ll finish this report if it kills me. ( = even if it kills me) But for his pension, he would starve. ( = if he didn’t have) Given time, they’ll probably agree. ( = if we give them time) To hear him talk, you’d think he was Prime Minister. ( = if you could hear him talk) Say you were to run out of money? What would you do? ( = what if you were to...?) Izvor: L.G. Alexander, Longman English Grammar , London: Longman
David Lodge
Zanimljivi linkovi:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_Places http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth62 10
6
Mobile Phone
The mobile phone is a portable electronic device used for communication. In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, current mobile phones can support many additional services such as SMS for text messaging, email, have access to the Internet, and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video. Most current mobile phones connect to a network of base stations, which is in turn interconnected to the public telephone network. At present, Africa has the largest growth rate of cellular subscribers in the world, its markets expanding nearly twice as fast as Asian markets. The availability of prepaid services, where the subscriber is not committed to a long term contract, has helped fuel this growth to a monumental scale in Africa as well as in other continents. There are three major technical standards for the current generation of mobile phones and networks, and two major standards for the next generation 3G phones and networks. All European countries and African countries and many Asian countries have adopted a single system, GSM, which is the only technology available on all continents and in most countries and covers over 74% of all subscribers on mobile networks. In many countries, such as the United States, Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, and South Korea GSM co-exists with other internationally adopted standards, as well as national standards. Over the past five years several dozen mobile operators have abandoned networks based on old technologies switching over to GSM. “Pre-pay” accounts were invented simultaneously in Portugal and Italy and today form more than half of all mobile phone subscriptions. USA, Canada, Japan and Finland are among the rare countries left where most phones are still contract-based. In less than twenty years, the mobile telephone has gone from being rare, expensive equipment of the business elite to a pervasive, low-cost personal item. In many countries, mobile telephones outnumber land-line telephones. The mobile phone is banned in some countries, such as North Korea. The SMS feature spawned the “texting” sub-culture. In December 1993, the first person-to-person SMS text message was transmitted in Finland. Currently, texting is the most widely-used data service. Most schools in the United States have prohibited mobile phones in the classroom due to the large number of class disruptions that result from their use, the potential for cheating via text messaging, and the possibility of photographing someone without consent. In the UK, possession of a mobile phone in an examination can result in immediate disqualification from that subject or from all their subjects. Mobile-phone use while driving is common but controversial. While some countries have banned motorists from using mobile phones while driving outright, some have banned or restricted drivers from using hand-held mobile phones while exempting phones operated in a hands-free fashion. Using a hand-held mobile phone while driving is an impediment to vehicle operation that can increase the risk of road traffic accidents. However, some studies have found similarly elevated accident rates among drivers using hands-free phones, suggesting that the distraction of a telephone conversation itself is a significant safety problem. This problem does not apply to conversations with a passenger , as passengers can regulate the flow of conversation according to the perceived level of danger, and also provides a second pair of eyes to spot hazards.
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When cellular services were launched, phones and calls were very expensive and early mobile operators decided to charge for all air time consumed by the mobile phone user. This resulted in the concept of charging callers for outbound calls and also for receiving calls. As mobile phone call charges diminished and phone adoption rates skyrocketed, more modern operators decided not to charge for incoming calls. An exception to this is international roaming, by which also receiving calls is normally also charged. base station – bazna stanica land-line telephone – fiksni telefon outbound call – odlazni poziv V e ž b a nj a Prevedite sledeće reči/izraze:
to update (software), copyright, to download, duty-free shop, fast food restaurant, groggy, homepage, login, model (e.g. Naomi Campbell), pet shop, prime time (TV), public relations, receiver (radio, satellite, etc.), transmitter Pronañite domaće reči/izraze umesto postojećih:
akcija (natpis u izlogu), aplikacija (za vizu i sl.) biznismenka, bodigard, bukmejker, dedlajn, diler (npr. automobila), dresing (za salatu), drim-tim, džanki, fan, flajer, gadžet/gedžet, hepening, implementirati, intervju (za posao), keš, kokpit, lajv (javni nastup), mauntinbajk, mejkap, ofis, pres-konferncija, puzle, reket (o novcu) Ispravite nepotrebne anglicizme u sledećim rečenicama: 1. Radila sam kao bebisiterka. 2. Svakodnevno su igrali bič volej. 3. Elektronski biznis je kod nas nedovoljno razvijen. 4. Reditelj je izjavio da ne namerava da napravi dajdžest verziju popularne knjige. 5. Mnogi savremeni automobili imaju erkondišn. 6. Kada si mlad lakše stičeš filing za atmosferu. 7. U našem fitnes centru dočekaće vas prijatna atmosfera. 8. Frilansing novinarstvo postaje sve isplativije. 9. Sporazumevali smo se čudnim miksom engleskog i nemačkog. 10. Skor naše ekipe je odličan.
Korisna literatura:
Nejgebauer, G., T. Prćić i V.Vasić. 2001. Rečnik novijih anglicizama: Du yu speak anglosrpski? Novi Sad. Zmaj. Prćić, T. 2005. Engleski u srpskom, Novi Sad: Zmaj.
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7
Philip Swallow rented an apartment in the top half of a two-storey house on a beautiful hill. The rent was low, because the house stood on what was called a slide area. It had, in fact, already slid twelve feet towards the bay – a circumstance that had caused the owner hurriedly to vacate it, leasing the accomodation to tenants too indigent, or too careless of life, to complain. Philip fell into neither of these categories, but then he had not learned the full history of the house until after signing the six months’ lease. That history had been related to him on the first evening of his occupancy by Melanie Byrd, the prettiest of the three girls who shared the ground-floor apartment. At first he had felt exploited, but after a while he grew reconciled with the situation. Melanie also reminded him there was no truly safe place in Euphoria, since there was a major earthquake in the nineteenth century, and a repetition of this disaster before the end of the twentieth was predicted by seismologists and some local sects: a rare and impressive instance of agreement between science and superstition. When he drew back the curtains in his living-room each morning, the beautiful view filled the window.[...] The vast panorama was agitated, even early in the morning, by every known form of transportation – ships, yachts, cars, trucks, trains, planes and helicopters – all in simultaneous motion, reminding Philip of a brightly illustrated cover of a book he had received on his tenth birthday. It was indeed, he thought, a perfect marriage of nature and civilization, this view, where one might take in at a glance the unity of man’s technological skill and the finest splendour of the natural world. The harmony he perceived in the scene was, he knew, illusory. The bay, which winked so prettily in the morning sun, was, according to Charles Boone and other sources, poisoned by industrial waste and was thus being steadily destroyed. For all that, Philip thought, almost guiltily, framed by his living-room window, the view still looked very good indeed. Morris Zapp was less enchanted with his view - a view of dank back gardens, rotting sheds and dripping laundry, huge, ill-looking trees, grimy roofs, factory chimneys and church spires – but he had discarded this criterion at a very early stage of looking for furnished accommodation in Rummidge. You were lucky, he had quickly discovered, if you could find a place that could be kept at a temperature appropriate to human organisms, equipped with the more rudimentary amenities of civilized life and decorated in a combination of colours and patterns that didn’t make you want to vomit on sight. He considered living in a hotel, but the hotels in the vicinity of the campus were, even worse than the private houses. Eventually he had taken an apartment on the top floor of a huge old house owned by an Irish doctor and his extensive family. Morris took the flat because it was centrally heated – the first he had seen thus blessed. But the heating system turned out to be one of electric radiators programmed to come on at full blast when you were asleep and to turn themselves off as soon as you got up, from which time they leaked a current of lukewarm air. David Lodge, Changing Places , adapted
Obeležite pasiv u tekstu originala i razmislite kako ćete ga prevesti
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V e ž b a nj a Pročitajte tekst originala i razmislite o prevodu: Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. ( Macbeth, V,5) Prevedite sledeće rečenice:
1. I can’t stand being laughed at. 2. Most people don’t like being criticized. 3. A person struck by lightning has a high chance of survival. 4. He was rumored to be a war veteran. 5. He was photographed, and his fingerprints taken. 6. The student is left to his own devices. 7. None of his projects have been completed. 8. The project is expected to be completed in the next year. 9. Some questions could not be answered. 10. Her timid knock was well known to the people who lived in the alley. 11. His train of thought and Boon’s monologue were interrupted by an announcement from the captain that they will be landing in approximately twenty minutes. 12. “Do you want a lift?” “No, thanks. I’m being collected.” 13. For a long time the earth was believed to be flat. 14. It has never given me any particular satisfaction to be known by name to waiters of fashionable restaurants, but on this occasion I would certainly have been glad to be greeted by one. 15. He could not free himself from the feeling of being watched all the time. Pokušajte da zaključite kada je upotreba pasiva u srpskom opravdana. Pročitajte sledeće rečenice:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Optuženi je proglašen krivim od strane sudskog veća. Izvršen povraćaj oduzetih sredstava. (naslov u novinama) Veliki su izgledi da će biti održan susret dvojice državnika. Nastavljeni su direktni pregovori izmeñu Izrael i Palestina. U Skupštini je donet novi zakon o saobraćaju.
Da li se sadržaj ovih rečenica može izraziti na drugi način?
Korisna literatura:
Ivić, P. i dr. 2004. Srpski jezički priručnik . Beograd: Beogradska knjiga.
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8
The woman turned to look down the street, her eyes following the tail lights of the car as it disappeared into the rain. For the first time, she felt alone. The rain poured down, trickling through her hair, insisting its way through her clothes. Would they be alright? Would they be able to sleep tonight without her near? Far down the street, the car turned a corner and was gone. The woman walked back to the house, puddles flooding her bare feet. The house. Empty. How would it sound? She pulled open the rusted screen door, stepped inside, and left a river of water on the floor as she wandered through the house, listening. All there was… was silence. It must be silence. What else could it be? The sound, the lack of sound was so new to her, it hurt. She rubbed her ears, disbelieving the void. Where were their voices? The pounding of the feet? (Unknown)
All right, she told herself. So I’ve killed him. It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began thinking very fast. As the wife of a detective, she knew quite well what the penalty would be. That was fine. It made no difference to her. In fact, it would be a relief. On the other hand, what about the child? What were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill then both-mother and child? Or did they wait until the tenth month? What did they do? ...And now, she told herself as she hurried back, all she was doing now, she was returning home to her husband and he was waiting for his supper; and she must cook it good, and make it as tasty as possible because the poor man was tired; and if, when she entered the house, she happened to find anything unusual, or tragic, or terrible, then naturally it would be a shock and she’d become frantic with grief and horror. Mind you, she wasn’t expecting to find anything. She was just going home with the vegetables. Mrs. Patrick Maloney going home with the vegetables on Thursday evening to cook supper for her husband. Roald Dahl, Lamb to the Slaughter
Against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale anymore. Why was he here? What was his purpose in life? The important thing now was to calm down ... oh! that was an interesting sensation, what was it? It was a sort of ... yawning, tingling sensation in his ... his ... well he supposed he’d better start finding names for things if he wanted to make any headway. Hey! What was that thing suddenly coming towards him so very very fast? Would it be friends with him? And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The prospect of four thousand [pounds] a year, in addition to his present income, besides the remaining half of his own mother's fortune, warmed his heart and made him feel capable of generosity. Yes, he would give them three thousand pounds: it would be 15
liberal and handsome! It would be enough to make them completely easy. Three thousand pounds! he could spare so considerable a sum with little inconvenience. He thought of it all day long, and for many days successively, and he did not repent. ***
Mrs. John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy, would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum? And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods, who were related to him only by half blood, which she considered as no relationship at all, have on his generosity to so large an amount? It was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist between the children of any man by different marriages; and why was he to ruin himself, and their poor little Harry, by giving away all his money to his half sisters? Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Kroop turned out to be the name of an Assistant Professor in the English Department who had recently been refused tenure. [...] The other professors make out he hasn’t published enough, but really they’re sick as hell because of the raves he gets on the Course Bulletin. And what was that? It was apparently a kind of consumers’ guide to teachers and courses based on questionnaires handed out to students in previous quarters. David Lodge, Changing Places
sperm whale – ulješura (vrsta kita) liberal – large (amount) tenure – ekvivalent našem zvanju redovnog profesora
Obratite pažnju na podvučene delove teksta. Kojim vremenom ćemo ih prevesti na srpski? Pokušajte da formulišete opšta pravila na osnovu sledećih pitanja: U kom licu je pripovedanje? U kom vremenu počinje pripovedanje (na engleskom)? Postoje li sličnosti sa indirektnim govorom? Koje su to sličnosti? Na koju vremensku ravan se odnose označene rečenice? • • • •
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9
Gerald de Havilland had noticed the car right away, though he had been careful not to show it. It was the kind of car you would notice – a Tatra T77 – a rare bird indeed, from before the Second War, though this one looked brand new. And the men in it were watching him, since there was no other reason for them to stay sitting there by the kerb, with no-one getting in or out. The oddest thing was that he felt as if he had just wakened up. If you had asked him what he was doing before the car arrived, he would have said sitting having a cigar and a coffee over the crossword, but before that? It was as if there was a bright light that prevented him from seeing any farther back. Still, he could worry about that later. At that moment he needed to think about an escape route. A glance up and down the street told him that way was hopeless – it was long and wide with no turnings off it, and the only apparent refuge (a hotel with a blue-and-white awning half-way down) was too far away to reach if they were intent on picking him up. It would have to be the back, then. Experience told him that most places like this had a service lane at the back for deliveries or putting out rubbish – he might reach it through the kitchen, or else by the toilet, provided there was a window that wasn’t barred. Now might be a good time to check that out. He rose as casually as he could, leaving his hat on the table to show he meant to return, but keeping the cigar. As he moved to the interior of the café, he heard an engine rev and the sound of a car pulling away. No time for a reconnoitre, then, he thought. He was just coming to the end of the counter when out stepped the proprietor, a big man with drooping grey moustaches. It was neatly done – nothing overt, as if he had just that moment decided to sweep the floor, and just happened to be holding the heavy handle of the brush in a way that emphasised its potential as a weapon. The man coughed apologetically, as if to say it was nothing personal, and indicated by his glance what de Havilland had already guessed, that there was someone behind him. He turned, open-handed, smiling, the picture of innocence – mistaken identity was a card that was always worth playing. The two men between him and the pavement were outlined against the brightness of the street so that he could not make out their faces, but both looked capable of handling themselves – one was tall and well made, the other much shorter, but notably broad. “Come with us, please.” “Do I have a choice?”, he smiled. The two men made no reply but fell in, one on either side of him, and walked him across the pavement to the car. They put him in the middle of the front bench seat, wedging him in. His fear increased rapidly and he glanced nervously in the mirror: it relieved him to see that the rear seat was full. One man would probably have been an assassin, but not three. His fear subsided into general excitement: he was used to living by his wits, and analysing a situation like this gave him a rather livelier version of the same pleasure he derived from crossword puzzles. Why a full car? he thought. That was an odd thing: too many for murder, too many simply to pick him up; he could only deduce that these were not errand boys sent to fetch him, but the principal players themselves (except, perhaps, the driver – he had “goon” written all over him: one who took orders rather than gave them). So why had they come to him, rather than having him fetched? And why all together? Because they do not trust each other he thought. None of 17
them wanted to allow the others a head start, a chance to see him alone, or get to him first. A survey of the trio in the back confirmed his suspicions: a shrewd observer can usually work out a hierarchy from various subtle signs – who is boss, who is the righthand man, who are the underlings. He did not see any of that here. Three were certainly equals: the man beside him in the passenger’s seat, the blond giant on one side in the back and the thin wiry man on the other. Only the older, bald-headed man looked out of his depth: his face wore an expression of sly cunning, but it lacked the stamp of authority so clearly marked on the others. Conspirators, he thought: only one thing to hold them together, and it certainly isn’t trust or friendship – some common interest that they happen to share, but only for a time. He began to feel more at ease: he was not outnumbered after all – it is all one-against-one here, he told himself. As the car swung round a corner, his attention was momentarily caught by the sight of a boy on the pavement. There was something so familiar about him that he found himself mouthing a question at him – who are you? The boy seemed to recognise him too, but before he had a chance to place him, they were on their way. The car sped along the boulevard. De Havilland sensed a growing tension among the passengers; the thrumming of the engine was oppressive. He longed for someone to speak, to play the first card, but he was determined it would not be him. The man beside him in the passenger seat shifted slightly. He appeared calm, but his hands told a different story: they clutched his knees so that the tendons of his fingers stood out. However, when he spoke, it was in a reflective, almost dreamy voice. John Ward, City of Desolation, adapted service lane – prilazni put, staza to rev – turirati (automobilski motor) out of one’s depth – in a situation that one cannot deal with because it is too difficult
or dangerous Neke rečenice moraju se prevesti u skladu sa pravilima o slaganju vremena. Označite takve rečenice i obrazložite svoj izbor.
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10
The passengers sat around him. No one spoke; each seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. The land behind them dwindled into invisibility. As they moved farther out to sea, the wind shifted: it had been blowing from the back, from the land they were leaving; now it came from ahead, and with it, as faint as distant music, came a delicate fragrance. Jake’s heart was suddenly uplifted. He felt his face expanding in a smile. All around him, people’s mood changed: they brightened, and smiled at one another; conversations began. The tenor of them all was delighted surprise. Quiet euphoria spread among them. Everyone was pleased and all were simply glad to be there, to have come through to this point together. Someone took out a mouth organ and began to play, a lilting tune that made you want to tap your feet. Jake stood up, in a happy daze. Overhead, the sky was full of stars, brighter than any he had ever seen. He strolled forward as far as he could go, and gazed ahead in the darkness. He had been staring ahead for some time before he realised that something strange was happening to the lights: the number of them was increasing, he was sure of it. The short string of lights that had shown before seemed to have shifted, and now it was lengthening steadily – as he watched, more and more lights were added. The thought that Helen was turning away from him filled Jake with panic: it must be some sort of mistake. What could he do? He could hardly go after her – was there some way to contact the other ship to ask what was going on? That seemed a better idea – perhaps there would be a simple explanation after all. He turned to find that he was not alone: one of the ship’s officers had come up behind him, and had evidently been watching the same thing he had. And so here he was, alone on the wide ocean, with no idea of where he was going. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the lights of the ship he had left were dwindling into the distance. If they had been nearer he might have gone about and try to catch them up in the hope they would take him aboard again, but with the ship slipping away from him so fast, that course seemed as hopeless as the one he had chosen. He spotted an unusually bright star, and it burned steadily, without twinkling. A planet, perhaps? Whatever it was, he found it reassuring – it was as if its track through the heavens mirrored his own journey across this vast ocean. It made him feel connected with the universe, and just a little less lonely. He had been gazing at the burning dot for some time, thinking these thoughts, when it struck him that it was no heavenly body at all, but the light of a ship, and it was coming towards him. His heart fluttered in panic: he looked over his shoulder for the ship he had abandoned – oh, why had he done that? – but it was nowhere to be seen. He began to wonder what could this be, coming towards him so swiftly across the cold dark sea? *** Sleeping, he dreamed wonderful music, a harmony of two voices – a rich baritone and a sweet tenor that now sang in unison, now separately, then intertwined to weave the most marvellous pattern of sound. The music lifted his heart, indeed his whole self, and he felt that he was floating up, up among the stars – so it did not surprise him when he opened his eyes and saw that there were indeed stars all around him, huge and brilliant, like jewels on dark velvet. The stars are the same as the music, he thought, the stars are what the music looks like – and the music is the sound of the stars. This idea so delighted 19
him that it filled his mind to overflowing: he felt as if he understood the universe. It was some time before he realised that although he had his eyes open and was apparently awake, the music was still there. With a thrill of excitement, he turned his head towards its source: there, in the stern, were two figures, one tall and lean, the other formidably broad. Both were bareheaded: their faces, though transfigured by starlight, were familiar. He wished that they might go on singing forever, but almost as soon as he had cast his eyes on them, they ceased. John Ward, City of Desolation, adapted Pronañite značenja sledećih idioma:
to fiddle while Rome burns to play second fiddle to someone to sing somebody’s/something’s praises to face the music to change one’s tune/sing a different tune to dance to someone’s tune to blow one’s own trumpet to wet one’s whistle to strike/touch a chord to call the tune Prevedite ove rečenice:
My ears are singing. They accuse the government of fiddling the unemployment figures. Who can tune my guitar? His speech was a trumpet-call for public protest. That rings a bell. I think I heard that name somewhere before. It cost me only ₤2. I bought it for a song. He was in tune with current political issues. She could hear the drum of raindrops on the roof. His suggestions were out of tune with reality. The movie was filled with kissing and hugging and all that jazz. Zanimljivi linkovi:
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/cat/23.html
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Children and the Power of the Media (1) By Michael Russell (adapted)
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Media has the power to model personalities, to shape the way we see and understand the world and the immediate reality. As grown-ups we can easily choose what we want to hear, read or see; we can also choose what to believe. And it's a lot to choose from: newspapers and magazines, music and radio, television and movies, Internet and much more. While we can control our actions, yet we cannot control the media, what we hear and see may not be good for our children especially for those under the age of six. Media is everywhere, it is a normal part of life. Many families cannot conceive an existence without a TV, radio or newspapers. More and more people depend on the Internet to read the news, gather information and download music and movies, to have fun and to work. This is the world we choose to live in. Let's ensure we make the right choices for our children. Children can see in the media sexual and violence-related images; can hear "bad" words and mimic improper poses. Children watching too much TV tend to act aggressively. Even obesity is added to the list of the consequences and there's no wonder since watching TV means less physical exercise. Besides, media, while emphasizing the importance of eating and living healthy, still advertises for junk food, alcohol and tobacco. Although there are many laws stipulating what type of programs and commercials are proper for kids, they are often ignored. Parents and child-care providers should make all efforts to protect kids from undesirable media. School-aged kids are more exposed to the media than children under the age of six. In addition, friends might influence them. There's not too much you can do, except talking and using modern technology on your TV and computer to prevent the children from seeing certain websites and programs. Yet none of these programs are infallible. The best you can do is to honestly explain to your children what sex really is and how to prevent undesired consequences (pregnancy, disease), why alcohol and cigarettes are not healthy, how junk food interacts, sooner or later, with their metabolism. And maybe you should approach the "everyone does it" topic from a unique point of view: "that's exactly why you should not do it". Make your kids understand uniqueness is special. The Power of the Media (2)
Why does it matter that entertainment is slipping morally? Consider this: Have you ever gotten a tune stuck in your head? All you need to hear are a few bars and it starts involuntarily buzzing around in there. For hours. It could be a commercial jingle or an MTV hit. Maybe you heard it in a shopping mall or a restaurant. We wander through a supermarket and find ourselves humming the last song we heard on the radio before getting out of the car. We toss and turn in bed trying to expunge an uninvited television theme song. Then there’s the visual media. Most of us can recall disturbing images we wish we could erase from our minds. Things we’ve seen in movies, in magazines, on TV. The point is that music and images tend to travel with us. Good or bad, they rarely go in one 21
ear and out the other. And the downward trend of entertainment morality means that we’re carrying around images and lyrics that are increasingly destructive. So, it’s hard to deny that music and visual images have tremendous sticking power. But do those lingering sensations really make a difference? The advertising industry believes they do. Why else would intelligent people who run large corporations plunk down $3 million for a mere 30 second commercial? Of course, the cause and effect process is not that simple. Rather, the media first affects our moods, attitudes and emotions, which then influence our actions. Plugged In* recently spoke with Dr. Richard G. Pellegrino, an M.D., Ph.D. in neurology, about the effect that music has on our emotions. He’s been working with the brain for 25 years, and says that nothing he does can affect a person’s state of mind the way one simple song can. This makes sense. We’ve all experienced the emotions that accompany music. That’s why we listen. The promise of emotional impact is why you’re more likely to hear the theme from Rocky than a Celine Dion ballad at a sporting event—the people in the sound booth want to create a mood, and they know that music is a powerful way to do it. But getting this effect while dumping verbal garbage into your brain is much like getting high on opium—it may feel so great that you don’t want it to quit, but ultimately, you’re doing great damage to yourself. As Dr. Pellegrino told me, “You can pour messages in and if you pour the wrong messages in, they take on a particular power more than the listener understands.” *Plugged In – ime časopisa Prevedite sledeće izraze:
rating, talk show (chat show), box (What’s on the box?), PA system, CATV, newscast, newscaster (newsreader), anchor (noun, verb), aerial, fourth estate, editorial, journalist/reporter (uoči razliku), resident correspondent, host (of a show), tune (a TV channel, verb), stay tuned, coverage (obično news coverage), classified(s) (in newspapers), section (in newspapers), editor-in-chief, edited by (natpis na filmu ili TV emisiji), zap (verb), communiqué, press release, the gutter press, e-zine, televise, teleplay.
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James Thurber, The Breaking Up of the Winships (1)
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The trouble that broke up the Gordon Winships seemed to me, at first, as minor a problem as frost on a window-pane. Another day, a touch of sun, and it would be gone. I was inclined to laugh it off, and, indeed, as a friend of both Gordon and Marcia, I spent a great deal of time with each of them, separately, trying to get them to laugh it off, too – with him at his club, where he sat drinking Scotch and smoking too much, and with her in their apartment, that seemed so large and lonely without Gordon and his restless moving around and his quick laughter. But it was no good; they were both adamant. Their separation has lasted now more than six months. I doubt very much that they will ever go back together again. It all started one night at Leonardo’s, after dinner, over their Benedictine. It started innocently enough, amiably even, with laughter from both of them, laughter that froze finally as the clock ran on and their words came out sharp and flat and stinging. They had been to see Camille. Gordon hadn’t liked it very much. Marcia had been crazy about it because she is crazy about Greta Garbo. She belongs to that considerable army of Garbo admirers whose enchantment borders almost on fanaticism and sometimes even touches the edges of frenzy. I think that, before everything happened, Gordon admired Garbo, too, but the depth of his wife’s conviction that here was the greatest figure ever seen in our generation on sea or land, on screen or stage, exasperated him that night. Gordon hates (or used to) exaggeration, and he respects (or once did) detachment. It was his feeling that detachment is a necessary thread in the fabric of a woman’s charm. He didn’t like to see his wife get herself “into a sweat” over anything and, that night at Leonardo’s, he unfortunately used that expression and made that accusation. Marcia responded, as I get it, by saying, a little loudly (they had gone on to Scotch and soda), that a man who had no abandon of feeling and no passion for anything was not altogether a man, and that his so-called love of detachment simply covered up a lack of critical appreciation and understanding of the arts in general. Her sentences were becoming long and wavy, and her words formal. Gordon suddenly began to pooh-pooh her; he kept saying “Pooh!” (an annoying mannerism of his, I have always thought). He wouldn’t answer her arguments or even listen to them. That, of course, infuriated her. “Oh, pooh to you, too!” she finally more or less shouted. He snapped at her, “Quiet, for God’s sake! You’re yelling like a prizefight manager!” Enraged at that, she had recourse to her eyes as weapons and looked steadily at him for a while with the expression of one who is viewing a small and horrible animal, such as a horned toad. Then they sat in moody and brooding silence for a long time, without moving a muscle, at the end of which, getting a hold of herself, Marcia asked him, quietly enough, just exactly what actor on the screen or the stage, living or dead, he considered greater than Garbo. Gordon thought for a moment and then said, as quietly as she had put the question, “Donald Duck”. I don’t believe he meant it at the time, or even thought that he meant it. However that may have been, she looked at him scornfully and said that that speech just about perfectly represented the shallowness of his intellect and the small range of his imagination. Gordon asked her not to make a spectacle of herself – she had raised her voice slightly – and went on to say that her failure to see the genius of Donald Duck proved conclusively to him that she was a woman without humour. That, he said, he had always suspected; now, he said, he knew it. She had a great desire to hit him, but 23
instead she sat back and looked at him with her special Mona Lisa smile, a smile rather more of contempt than, as in the original, of mystery. Gordon hated that smile, so he said that Donald Duck happened to be exactly ten times as great as Garbo would ever be and that anybody with a brain in his head would admit it instantly. Thus the Winships went on and on, their resentment swelling, their sense of values blurring, until it ended up with her taking a taxi home (leaving her vanity bag and one of her gloves in the restaurant) and with him making the rounds of the late places and rolling up to his club around dawn. There, as he got out, he asked his taxi-driver which he liked better, Greta Garbo or Donald Duck, and the driver said he liked Greta Garbo. Gordon said to him, bitterly, “Pooh to you, too, my good friend!” and went to bed. The next day, as is usual with married couples, they were both contrite, but behind their contrition lay sleeping the ugly words each had used and the cold glances and the bitter gestures. She phoned him, because she was worried. She didn’t want to be, but she was. When he hadn’t come home, she was convinced he had gone to his club, but visions of him lying in a gutter or under a table, somehow horribly mangled, haunted her, and so at eight o’clock she called him up. Her heart lightened when he said, “Hullo,” gruffly: he was alive, thank God! His heart may have lightened a little, too, but not very much, because he felt terrible. He felt terrible and he felt that it was her fault that he felt terrible. She said that she was sorry and that they had both been very silly, and he growled something about how he was glad she realized she’d been silly, anyway. That attitude put a slight edge on the rest of her words. She asked him shortly if he was coming home. He said sure he was coming home; it was his home, wasn’t it? She told him to go back to bed and not be such an old bear, and hung up. Benedictine – vrsta likera Camille – Dama s kamelijama (naslov filma u kome igra Greta Garbo) detachment – razmislite kako ćete prevesti ovu reč
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James Thurber, The Breaking Up of the Winships (2)
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...The next incident occurred at the Clarkes’ party a few days later. The Winships had arrived in fairly good spirits to find themselves in a buzzing group of cocktaildrinkers that more or less revolved around the tall and languid figure of the guest of honour, an eminent lady novelist. Gordon late in the evening won her attention and drew her apart for one drink together and, feeling a little high and happy at that time, as is the way with husbands, mentioned lightly enough (he wanted to get it out of his subconscious) the argument that he and his wife had had about the relative merits of Garbo and Duck. The tall lady, lowering her cigarette-holder, said, in the spirit of his own gaiety, that he count her in on his side. Unfortunately, Marcia Winship, standing some ten feet away, talking to a man with a beard, caught not the spirit but only a few words of the conversation, and jumped to the conclusion that her husband was deliberately reopening the old wound, for the purpose of humiliating her in public. I think that in another moment Gordon might have brought her over, and put his arm around her, and admitted his “defeat” – he was feeling pretty fine. But when he caught her eye, she gazed through him, freezingly, and his heart went down. And then his anger rose. Their fight, naturally enough, blazed out again in the taxi they took to go home from the party. Marcia wildly attacked the woman novelist (Marcia had had quite a few cocktails), defended Garbo, excoriated Gordon, and laid into Donald Duck. Gordon tried for a while to explain exactly what had happened, and then he met her resentment with a resentment that mounted even higher, the resentment of the misunderstood husband. In the midst of it she slapped him. He looked at her for a second under lowered eyelids and then said, coldly, if a bit fuzzily, “This is the end, but I want you to go to your grave knowing that Donald Duck is twenty times the artist Garbo will ever be, the longest day you, or she, ever live, if you do – and I can’t understand, with so little to live for, why you should!” Then he asked the driver to stop the car, and he got out, in wavering dignity, “Caricature! Cartoon!” she screamed after him. “You and Donald Duck both, you – “ The driver drove on. The last time I saw Gordon – he moved his things to the club the next day, forgetting the trousers to his evening clothes and his razor – he had convinced himself that the point at issue between him and Marcia was one of extreme importance involving both his honour and his integrity. He said that now it could never be wiped out or forgotten. He said that he sincerely believed Donald Duck was as great a creation as any animal in all the works of Lewis Carroll, probably even greater, perhaps much greater. He was drinking and there was a wild light in his eye. I reminded him of his old love of detachment, and he said to the hell with detachment. I laughed at him, but he wouldn’t laugh. “If,” he said, grimly, “Marcia persists in her silly belief that that Swede is great and that Donald Duck is merely a caricature, I cannot conscientiously live with her again. I believe that he is great, that the man who created him is a genius, probably our only genius. I believe, further, that Greta Garbo is just another actress. As God is my judge, I believe that! What does she expect me to do, go whining back to her and pretend that I think Garbo is wonderful and that Donald Duck is simply a cartoon? Never!” He gulped down some Scotch straight. “Never!” I could not ridicule him out of his obsession. I left him and went over to see Marcia. I found Marcia, pale but calm, and as firm in her stand as Gordon was in his. She insisted that he had deliberately tried to humiliate her before that gawky so-called 25
novelist, whose clothes were the dowdiest she had ever seen and whose affectations obviously covered up a complete lack of individuality and intelligence. I tried to convince her that she was wrong about Gordon’s attitude at the Clarkes’ party, but she said she knew him like a book. Let him get a divorce and marry that creature if he wanted to. They can sit around all day, she said, and all night, too, for all I care, and talk about their precious Donald Duck, the damn comic strip! I told Marcia that she shouldn’t allow herself to get so worked up about a trivial and nonsensical matter. She said it was not trivial and nonsensical to her. It had made her see Gordon clearly for what he was, a cheap, egotistical, resentful cad who would descend to ridicule his wife in front of a scrawny, horrible stranger who could not write and never would be able to write. Furthermore, her belief in Garbo’s greatness was a thing she could not deny and would not deny, simply for the sake of living under the same roof as Gordon Winship. The whole thing was part and parcel of her integrity as a woman and as an – as an, well, as a woman. She could go to work again; he would find out. There was nothing more I could do or say. I went home. That night, however, I found that I had not really dismissed the whole ridiculous affair, as I hoped I had, for I dreamed about it. I had tried to ignore the whole thing, but it had tunnelled deeply into my subconscious. I dreamed that I was out hunting with the Winships and that, as we crossed a snowy field, Marcia spotted a rabbit and, taking quick aim, fired and brought it down. We all ran across the snow toward the rabbit, but I reached it first. It was quite dead, but that was not what struck horror into me as I picked it up. What struck horror into me was that it was a white rabbit and was wearing a vest and carrying a watch. I woke up with a start. I don’t know whether that dream means I am on Gordon’s side or on Marcia’s. I don’t want to analyse it. I am trying to forget the whole miserable business.
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Global Warming (1)
On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is “unequivocal,” and that human activity has “very likely” been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had “likely” played a role. The addition of that single word “very” did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it. In recent months, business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a redcarpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, was awarded an Oscar; and the Supreme Court made its first global warmingrelated decision, ruling 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency had not justified its position that it was not authorized to regulate carbon dioxide. The greenhouse effect has been part of the earth’s workings since its earliest days. Gases like carbon dioxide and methane allow sunlight to reach the earth, but prevent some of the resulting heat from radiating back out into space. Without the greenhouse effect, the planet would never have warmed enough to allow life to form. But as ever larger amounts of carbon dioxide have been released along with the development of industrial economies, the atmosphere has grown warmer at an accelerating rate. Since 1970, temperatures have gone up at nearly three times the average for the 20th century. The latest report from the climate panel predicted that the global climate is likely to rise if the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere reaches twice the level of 1750. By 2100, sea levels are likely to rise between 7 to 23 inches, it said, and the changes now underway will continue for centuries to come. Izvor:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – Meñunarodni panel za promenu klime
(prevod u dokumentima Republičkog hidrometeorološkog zavoda Srbije); takoñe: komisija -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(2) CANBERRA (Reuters) - Rising temperatures will leave millions more people hungry by 2080 and cause critical water shortages in China and Australia, as well as parts of Europe and the United States, according to a new global climate report. By the end of the century, climate change will bring water scarcity to between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people as temperatures rise by 2 to 3 Celsius, a leaked draft of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said. 27
The report, due for release in April but detailed in The Age newspaper, said an additional 200 million to 600 million people across the world would face food shortages in another 70 years, while coastal flooding would hit another 7 million homes. “The message is that every region of the earth will have exposure,” Dr Graeme Pearman, who helped draft the report, told Reuters on Tuesday. “If you look at China, like Australia they will lose significant rainfall in their agricultural areas,” said Pearman, the former climate director of Australia’s top science body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. Africa and poor countries such as Bangladesh would be most affected because they were least able to cope with greater coastal damage and drought, said Pearman. The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Program to guide policy makers globally on the impact of climate change. The panel is to release a report on Friday in Paris forecasting global temperatures rising by 2 to 4.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100, with a “best estimate” of a 3C (5.4 F) rise. That report will summarize the scientific basis of climate change, while the April draft details the consequences of global warming and options for adapting to them. The draft contains an entire chapter on Australia – which is in the grip of its worst recorded drought – warning the country’s Great Barrier Reef would become “functionally extinct” because of coral bleaching. As well, snow would disappear from Australia’s southeast alps, while water inflows to the Murray-Darling river basin, the country’s main agricultural region, would fall by 10 and 25 percent by 2050. In Europe, glaciers would disappear from the central Alps, while some Pacific island nations would be hit hard by rising sea levels and more frequent tropical storms. “It’s really a story of trying to assess in your own region what your exposure will be, and making sure you have ways to deal with it,” said Pearman. On the positive side, Pearman said there was an enormous amount the international community could do to avert climate change if swift action was taken. “The projections in the report that comes out this week are based on the assumption that we are slow to respond and that things continue more-or-less as they have in the past.” Some scientists say Australia – the world’s driest inhabited continent – is suffering from “accelerated climate change” compared to other nations. I.D.Novikov Izvor:
http://blog.b92.net/arhiva/node/4108#comment-111861
U.N. Environment Program – Program Ujedinjenih nacija za zaštitu životne sredine Great Barrier Reef – Veliki koralni sprud (toponim)
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15 The hills were dry at this season and the wild grass was golden, but where the spring-pipe filled the round tub and the tub spilled over, there lay a stretch of fine green grass and looked up at the dumpling summer clouds. By closing one eye and destroying perspective Jody brought them within reach so that he could put up his fingers and stroke them. He helped the gentle wind push them down the sky; it seemed to him that they went faster for his help. One fat white cloud he helped clear to the mountain rims and pressed it firmly over, out of sight. Jody wondered what it was seeing then. He sat up the better to look at the great mountains where they went piling back, growing darker and more savage until they finished with one jagged ridge, high up against the west. Curious secret mountains; he thought of the little he knew about them. [...] Jody questioned Billy Buck, the ranch-hand, about the possibility of ancient cities lost in the mountains, but Billy agreed with Jody’s father. “It ain’t likely,” Billy said. “There’d be nothing to eat unless a kind of people that can eat rocks live there.” That was all the information Jody ever got, and it made the mountains dear to him, and terrible. He thought often of the miles of ridge after ridge until at last there was the sea. When the peaks were pink in the morning they invited him among them: and when the sun had gone over the edge in the evening and the mountains were a purple-like despair, then Jody was afraid of them; then they were so impersonal and aloof that their very imperturbability was a threat. Now he turned his head toward the mountains of the east, the Gabilans, and they were jolly mountains, with hill ranches in their creases, and with pine trees growing on the crests. People lived there, and battles had been fought against the Mexicans on the slopes. He looked back for an instant at the Great Ones and shivered a little at the contrast. The foothill cup of the home ranch below him was sunny and safe. The house gleamed with white light and the barn was brown and warm. The red cows on the farther hill ate their way slowly toward the north. Even the dark cypress tree by the bunkhouse was unusual and safe. The chickens scratched about in the dust of the farmyard with quick waltzing steps. Then a moving figure caught Jody’s eye. A man walked slowly over the brow of the hill, on the road from Salinas, and he was headed toward the house. Jody stood up and moved down toward the house too, for if someone was coming, he wanted to be there to see. By the time the boy had got to the house the walking man was only halfway down the road, a lean man, very straight in the shoulders. Jody could tell he was old only because his heels struck the ground with hard jerks. As he approached nearer, Jody saw that he was dressed in blue jeans and in a coat of the same material. He wore clodhopper shoes and an old flat-brimmed Stetson hat. Over his shoulder he carried a gunny sack, lumpy and full. In a few moments he had trudged close enough so that his face could be seen. And his face was as dark as dried beef. A mustache, blue-white against the dark skin, hovered over his mouth, and his hair was white, too, where it showed at his neck. The skin of his face had shrunk back against the skull until it defined bone, not flesh, and made the nose and chin seem sharp and fragile. The eyes were large and deep and dark, with eyelids stretched tightly over them. Irises and pupils were one, and very black, but 29
the eyeballs were brown. There were no wrinkles in the face at all. This old man wore a blue denim coat buttoned to the throat with brass buttons, as all men do who wear no shirts. Out of the sleeves came strong bony wrists and hands gnarled and knotted and hard as peach branches. The nails were flat and blunt and shiny. The old man drew close to the gate and swung down his sack when he confronted Jody. His lips fluttered a little and a soft impersonal voice came from between them. “Do you live here?” Jody was embarrassed. He turned and looked at the house, and he turned back and looked toward the barn where his father and Billy Buck were. “Yes,” he said, when no help came from either direction. “I have come back,” the old man said. “I am Gitano, and I have come back.” [...] It was almost evening now. They stood near the watering trough while the horses sauntered in from the hillsides for an evening drink. Gitano rested his big twisted hands on the top rail of the fence. Five horses came down and drank, and then stood about, nibbling at the dirt or rubbing their sides against the polished wood of the fence. Long after they had finished drinking an old horse appeared over the brow of the hill and came painfully down. It had long yellow teeth; its hoofs were flat and sharp as spades, and its ribs and hip-bones jutted out under its skin. It hobbled up to the trough and drank water with a loud sucking noise. “That’s old Easter,” Jody explained. “That’s the first horse my father ever had. He’s thirty years old.” He looked up into Gitano’s old eyes for some response. “No good any more,” Gitano said. Jody’s father and Billy Buck came out of the barn and walked over. “Too old to work,” Gitano repeated. “Just eats and pretty soon dies.” Carl Tiflin caught the last words. He hated his brutality toward old Gitano, and so he became brutal again. “It’s a shame not to shoot Easter,” he said. “It’d save him a lot of pain and rheumatism.” He looked secretly at Gitano, to see whether he noticed the parallel, but the big bony hands did not move, nor did the dark eyes turn from the horse. “Old things ought to be put out of their misery,” Jody’s father went on. “One shot, a big noise, one big pain in the head maybe, and that’s all. That’s better than stiffness and sore teeth.” Billy Buck broke in. “They got a right to rest after they worked all their life. Maybe they just like to walk around.” Carl had been looking steadily at the skinny horse. “You can’t imagine now what Easter used to look like,” he said softly. “High neck, deep chest, fine barrel. He could jump a five-bar gate in stride. I won a flat race on him when I was fifteen years old. I could of got* two hundred dollars for him any time. You wouldn’t think how pretty he was.” He checked himself, for he hated softness. “But he ought to be shot now,” he said. “He’s got a right to rest,” Billy Buck insisted. Jody’s father had a humorous thought. He turned to Gitano. “If ham and eggs grew on a side-hill I’d turn you out to pasture too,” he said. “But I can’t afford to pasture you in my kitchen.” Jody knew how his father was probing for a place to hurt in Gitano. He had been probed often. His father knew every place in the boy where a word would fester. John Steinbeck, The Red Pony (adapted)
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16 The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation had a profound effect on socioeconomic and cultural conditions in Britain and subsequently spread throughout Europe and North America and eventually the world, a process that continues as industrialisation. The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in history, comparable to the invention of farming or the rise of city-states. In the later part of the 1700s the manual labour-based economy began to be replaced by one dominated by industry. It started with the mechanisation of the textile industries, the development of iron-making techniques and the increased use of refined coal. Trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways. The introduction of steam power and machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpinned the dramatic increases in production capacity. The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the 19th century facilitated the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries. The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century, eventually affecting most of the world. The impact of this change on society was enormous. The causes of the Industrial Revolution were complicated and remain a topic for debate, with some historians feeling the Revolution as an outgrowth of social and institutional changes brought by the end of feudalism in Britain after the English Civil War. Technological innovation was the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the key enabling technology was the invention and improvement of the steam engine. The presence of a large domestic market should also be considered an important driver of the Industrial Revolution. In other nations, such as France, markets were split up by local regions, which often imposed tolls and tariffs on goods traded amongst them. Ordinary working people found increased opportunities for employment in new factories, but often under strict working conditions with long hours of labour. However, harsh working conditions were prevalent long before the Industrial Revolution took place as well. Pre-industrial society was very static and often cruel – child labour, dirty living conditions and long working hours were just as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution led to a population increase, but the chance of surviving childhood didn’t improve throughout the industrial revolution. There was still limited opportunity for education, and children were expected to work. Employers could pay a child less than an adult even though their productivity was comparable; there was no need for strength to operate an industrial machine, and since the industrial system was completely new there were no experienced adult labourers. Child labour had existed before the Industrial Revolution, but with the increase in population and education it became more visible. Before the passing of laws protecting children, many were forced to work in terrible conditions for much lower pay than their elders. Poor people lived in very small houses in cramped streets. Their homes would share toilet facilities, have open sewers and would be at risk of damp. Disease was spread through a contaminated water supply. Conditions did improve during the 19th century as public health acts were introduced covering things such as sewage, hygiene and making 31
some boundaries upon the construction of homes. Not everybody lived in homes like these. The Industrial Revolution created a larger middle class of professionals such as lawyers and doctors. The conditions for the poor improved over the course of the 19th century because of government plans which led to cities becoming cleaner places, but life had not been easy for the poor before industrialisation. However, as a result of the Revolution, huge numbers of the working class died due to diseases spreading through the cramped living conditions. Chest diseases from the mines, cholera from polluted water and typhoid were also common, as was smallpox. Accidents in factories with child and female workers were regular. Dickens’ novels perhaps best illustrate this; even some government officials were horrified by what they saw. The Industrial Revolution concentrated labour into mills, factories and mines, thus facilitating the organisation of trade unions to help advance the interests of working people. The power of a union could demand better terms by withdrawing all labour and causing a consequent cessation of production. Skilled workers were hard to replace, and these were the first groups to successfully advance their conditions through this kind of bargaining. The main method the unions used to effect change was strike action. Many strikes were painful events for both sides. In England, the Combination Act forbade workers to form any kind of trade union from 1799 until its repeal in 1824. Even after this, unions were still severely restricted. In the 1830s and 1840s the Chartist movement was the first large-scale organised working class political movement which campaigned for political equality and social justice. Unions slowly overcame the legal restrictions on the right to strike. In 1842, a General Strike involving cotton workers and colliers was organised through the Chartist movement which stopped production across Great Britain. Eventually effective political organisation for working people was achieved through the unions who began to support socialist political parties that later merged to become the British Labour Party. • • • •
smallpox – velike boginje chest diseases – bolesti pluća Combination Act – Zakon o udruživanju Chartist Movement – Čartistički pokret
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17 “My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.” Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing. “I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.” Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division. “Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion. “Hardly a soul,” said Framton. “My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.” He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret. “Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued the self-possessed young lady. “Only her name and address,” admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation. “Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,” said the child; “that would be since your sister’s time.” “Her tragedy?” asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place. “You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,” said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn. “It is quite warm for the time of the year,” said Framton; “but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?” “Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.” Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. “Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window - “ She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance. “I hope Vera has been amusing you?” she said.
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“She has been very interesting,” said Framton. “I hope you don’t mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn’t it?” She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary. “The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,” announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. “On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,” he continued. “No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying. “Here they are at last!” she cried. “Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!” Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction. In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “I said, Bertie, why do you bound?” Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision. “Here we are, my dear,” said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?” “A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton; “could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.” “I expect it was the spaniel,” said the niece calmly; “he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.” Romance at short notice was her speciality. Saki (H.H. Munro), The Open Window
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18
Japan (Arts and Culture)
Japanese cultural history is marked by periods of extensive borrowing from other civilizations, followed by assimilation of foreign traditions with native ones, and finally transformation of these elements into uniquely Japanese art forms. Japan borrowed primarily from China and Korea in premodern times and from the West in the modern age. Cultural imports began to arrive in Japan from continental East Asia around 300 BC, starting with agriculture and the use of metals. These new technologies eventually helped build a more complex Japanese society, whose most remarkable and enduring structures were huge, key-shaped tombs. Named for these tombs, the Kofun period endured from the early 4th to the 6th century AD. In the middle of the 6th century, Japan embarked on a second phase of extensive cultural borrowing from the Asian continent – largely from China. Among the major imports from China were Buddhism and Confucianism. Buddhism was particularly important, not only as a religion but also as a source of art, especially in the form of temples and statues. Although Buddhism eventually became a major religion of Japan, some evidence indicates that the Japanese initially were drawn more to its architecture and art than to its religious doctrines. In Japan’s first state, the arts were almost exclusively the preserve of the ruling elite, a class of courtiers who served as ministers to the emperor. For most of the 8th century the court was located at Nara, the first capital of Japan, which gave its name to the Nara period (710-794). At the end of the 8th century the capital moved to Heian-kyō (modern Kyōto), and Japan entered its classical age, known as the Heian period (7941185). By the beginning of the 11th century, the emperor’s courtiers had developed a brilliant culture and lifestyle that owed much to China but was still uniquely Japanese. Poetry flourished especially, but important developments also took place in prose literature, architecture (especially residential architecture), music, and painting (both Buddhist and secular). As the Heian court reached its height of cultural brilliance, however, a class of warriors (samurai) emerged in the provinces. In the late 12th century the first warrior government (known as a shogunate) was established at Kamakura. Japan entered a feudal era of frequent wars and samurai dominance that would last for nearly four centuries, first under the Kamakura and then under the Ashikaga shoguns. The culture of the Kamakura period (1185-1333) is noteworthy particularly for its poetry, prose, and painting. Although the Kyōto courtiers lost their political power to the samurai, they continued to produce outstanding poetry. Warrior society contributed to the national culture as well. Anonymous war tales were among the major achievements in prose. Painters produced narrative picture scrolls depicting military and religious subjects such as battles, the lives of Buddhist priests, and histories of Buddhist temples and of shrines of Japan’s native religion, Shinto. The Kamakura shogunate ended with a brief attempt to restore imperial rule. Then in 1338 the Ashikaga shoguns established their seat near the emperor’s court in the Muromachi district of Kyōto. During the reign of the Ashikaga (known as the Muromachi period), which lasted until 1573, Japan again sent missions to China. This time they 35
brought back the latest teachings of Zen Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism, as well as countless objects of art and craft. Zen Buddhism, which had been introduced to Japan during the Kamakura period, contributed to the development of Muromachi-period artistic forms. Chinese monochrome ink painting became the principal painting style. Dramatists created classical nō theater, which performed for the upper classes of society. And beginning in the 15th century, the tea ceremony, a gathering of people to drink tea according to prescribed etiquette, evolved. The poetic form of renga, or linked verse, also developed at this time. The linked verse style, in which several poets take turns composing alternate verses of a single long poem, became popular among all classes of society. In 1603 a third warrior government, the Tokugawa shogunate, established itself in Edo (present-day Tokyo), and Japan entered a long period of peace that historians consider the beginning of the country’s modern age. During this era, known as the Tokugawa period (1603-1867), Japan adopted a policy of national seclusion, closing its borders to almost all foreigners. Domestic commerce thrived, and cities grew larger than they had ever been. In great cities such as Edo, Ōsaka, and Kyōto, performers and courtesans mingled with rich merchants and idle samurai in the restaurants, wrestling booths, and brothels of the areas known as the pleasure quarters. These so-called chōnin, or townsmen, the urban class dominated by merchants, produced a new, bourgeois culture that included 17-syllable haiku poetry, prose literature of the pleasure quarters, the puppet and kabuki theaters, and the art of the wood-block print. Japan’s seclusion policy ended when Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States sailed into Edo Bay in 1853 and established a treaty with Japan the following year. The Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, and Japan entered the modern world. During the early years of the new order, known as the Meiji period (1868-1912), Western culture largely overwhelmed Japan’s native heritage. Ignoring many of their traditional arts, the Japanese set about adopting Western artistic styles, literary forms, and music. By the end of the Meiji period, however, the Japanese not only had resuscitated many traditional art forms but also were making impressive advances in modern styles of architecture, painting, and the novel. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Japan has moved steadily into the stream of international culture. Japan’s influence on that culture has been especially pronounced since the end of World War II (1939-1945). Japanese movies, for example, have received international recognition and acclaim, and Japanese novels have been translated into English and other languages. Meanwhile, traditional Japanese culture has flowed around the world, influencing styles in design, architecture, and various crafts, such as ceramics and textiles. From Encarta
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19
Morocco
The area of modern Morocco has been inhabited since Neolithic times, at least 8000 BC, as attested by signs of the Capsian culture, in a time when the Maghreb was less arid than it is today. Modern genetic analyses have confirmed that various populations have contributed to the present-day population, including (in addition to the main Berber and Arab groups) Jews and sub-Saharan Africans. In the classical period, Morocco was known as Mauretania, although this should not be confused with the modern country of Mauritania. North Africa and Morocco were slowly drawn into the wider emerging Mediterranean world by Phoenician trading colonies and settlements in the late classical period. The arrival of Phoenicians heralded a long engagement with the wider Mediterranean, as this strategic region formed part of the Roman Empire. In the 5th century, as the Roman Empire declined, the region fell to the Vandals, Visigoths, and then Byzantine Greeks in rapid succession. During this time, however, the high mountains of most of modern Morocco remained unsubdued, and stayed in the hands of their Berber inhabitants. By the 7th century, Islamic expansion was at its greatest. In 670 AD, the first Islamic conquest of the North African coastal plain took place under Uqba ibn Nafi. His delegates went to what is now Morocco in 683. The delegates supported the assimilation process that took about a century. What became modern Morocco in the 7th century was an area of Berbers influenced by the Arabs, who brought their customs, culture, and Islam, to which most of the Berbers converted, forming states and kingdoms sometimes after long-running series of civil wars. Under Idris ibn Abdallah who founded the Idrisid Dynasty, the country soon cut ties and broke away from the control of the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad and the Umayyad rule in Spain. The Idrisids established Fez as their capital and Morocco became a centre of learning and a major regional power. After the reign of the Idrisids, Arab settlers lost political control in the region of Morocco. After adopting Islam, Berber dynasties formed governments and reigned over the country. Morocco would reach its height under these Berber dynasties that replaced the Arab Idrisids after the 11th century. Successful Portuguese efforts to invade and control the Atlantic coast in the 15th century did not profoundly affect the Mediterranean heart of Morocco. After the Napoleonic Wars, Egypt and the North African Maghreb became increasingly ungovernable from Istanbul, and as Europe industrialized, an increasingly prized potential for colonization. For the first time, Morocco became a state of some interest in itself to the European Powers. France showed a strong interest in Morocco as early as 1830. Recognition by the United Kingdom in 1904 of France’s sphere of influence in Morocco provoked a German reaction; the crisis of June 1905 was resolved at the Algeciras Conference, Spain in 1906, which formalized France’s “special position” and entrusted policing of Morocco to France and Spain jointly. A second Moroccan crisis provoked by Berlin, increased tensions between European powers. The Treaty of Fez made Morocco a protectorate of France. By the same treaty, Spain assumed the role of protecting power over the northern and southern Saharan zones on November 27, 1912. Morocco is a country of multi-ethnic groups with a rich culture and civilization. Through Moroccan history, Morocco hosted many people coming from both East 37
(Phoenicians, Jews and Arabs), South (Moors and Sub-Saharan Africans) and North (Romans and Vandals), all of which have had an impact on the social structure of Morocco. Each region possesses its own specificities, contributing to the national culture. Morocco has set among its top priorities the protection of its diversity and the preservation of its cultural heritage. Dar , the name given to one of the most common types of domestic structures in Morocco, is a home found in a medina, or walled urban area of a city. Most Moroccan homes traditionally adhere to the Dar al-Islam, a series of tenets on Islamic domestic life. Dar exteriors are typically devoid of ornamentation and windows, except occasional small openings in secondary quarters, such as stairways and service areas. Dars are typically composed of thick, high walls that protect inhabitants from thievery, animals, and other such hazards; however, they have a much more symbolic value from an Arabic perspective. In this culture the exterior represents a place of work, while the interior represents a place of refuge. Thus, Moroccan interiors are often very lavish in decoration and craft. Consistent with most Islamic architecture, dars are based around small open-air patios, surrounded by very tall thick walls, to block direct light and minimize heat. Intermediary triple-arched porticos lead to usually two to four symmetrically located rooms. These rooms have to be long and narrow, creating very vertical spaces, because the regional resources and construction technology typically only allow for joists that are usually less than thirteen feet. Upon entering a dar , guests move through a zigzagging passageway that hides the central courtyard. The passageway opens to a staircase leading to an upstairs reception area called a dormiria, which often is the most lavish room in the home adorned with decorative tilework, painted furniture, and piles of embroidered pillows and rugs. More affluent families also have greenhouses and a second dormiria, accessible from a streetlevel staircase. Service quarters and stairways were always at the corners of the structures. The traditional dress for men is called djellaba; a long, loose, hooded garment with full sleeves. For special occasions, men also wear a red cap called tarbouche and mostly referred to as fez . Nearly all men wear babouches – those soft leather slippers with no heel, often in yellow. Many women do as well but others wear high-heeled sandals, often in silver or gold tinsel. The women’s djellabas are mostly of bright colors with ornate patterns, stitching, or beading, while men wear djellabas in plainer, neutral colors. Women are strongly attached to their “Moroccan wardrobe”, despite the financial costs involved. The production of such garments is relatively expensive, as most of the work is done by hand. Despite the costs involved most women purchase a minimum of one djellaba every year, normally for a special, social event, such as a religious festival or a wedding. Nowadays, it is an unwritten rule that Moroccan dress is worn at such events. • • •
Uqba ibn Nafi – Okba ibn Nafi Umayyad – (dinastija) Umajada; postoje i drugi oblici u transkripciji Algeciras - Alhesiras
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I sometimes feel betrayed by this combination of rigid opinion and Protean changeability, for it makes my peers elusive; in the nebulae of proclamations and argument, it’s difficult for me to disentangle fashionable views from true belief, passionate conviction from defensive dogma. What do they think, feel, hold dear? It’s harder for an outsider to make these distinctions anyway, and particularly important to make them – for it’s only when you can identify where a person stands that you can establish genuine trust. But insofar as I’m an outsider wishing to be taken in, I’ve come at the wrong moment, for in the midst of all this swirling and fragmenting movement, the very notion of outside and inside is as quaint as the Neoplatonic model of the universe. I do not experience the pain of earlier immigrants, who were kept out of exclusive clubs or decent neighborhoods. Within the limits of my abilities and ambitions, I can go anywhere at all, and be accepted there. The only joke is that there’s no there there. In a splintered society, what does one assimilate to? Perhaps the very splintering itself. Once I enter college, the rivulet of my story does join up with the stream of my generation’s larger saga, and the events of my life begin to resemble those of my peers. Marriage, divorce, career indecisions, moving from city to city, ambivalences about love and work and every fundamental fact of human activity. I share with my American generation an acute sense of dislocation and the equally acute challenge of having to invent a place and an identity for myself without the traditional supports. It could be said that the generation I belong to has been characterized by its prolonged refusal to assimilate – and it is in my very uprootedness that I’m its member. It could indeed be said that exile is the archetypal condition of contemporary lives. Ironically enough, one of the ways in which I continue to know that I’m not completely assimilated is through my residual nostalgia – which many of my friends find a bit unseemly, as if I were admitting to a shameful weakness – for the more stable, less strenuous conditions of anchoring, of home. I wish I could breathe a Nabokovian air. I wish I could have the Olympian freedom of sensibility that disdains, in his autobiography, to give the Russian Revolution more than a passing mention, as if such common events did not have the power to wreak fundamental changes in his own life, or as if it were vulgar, tactless, to dwell on something so brutishly, so crudely collective. I wish I could define myself – as Nabokov defines both himself and his characters – by the telling detail, a preference for mints over lozenges, an awkwardness at cricket, a tendency to lose gloves or umbrellas. I wish I could live in a world of prismatic refractions, carefully distinguished colors of sunsets and English scarves, synesthetic repetitions and reiterative surprises – a world in which even a reddened nostril can be rendered as a delicious hue rather than a symptom of a discomfiting common cold. I wish I could attain such a world because in part that is our most real, and most loved world – the world of utterly individual sensibility, untrampled by history, or horrid intrusions of social circumstance. Oh yes, I think the Nabokovian world is lighted, lightened, and enlightened by the most precise affection. Such affection is unsentimental because it is free and because it attaches to free objects. It can notice what is adorable (or odious, for that matter), rather than what is formed and deformed by larger forces. Characters, in Nabokov’s fiction, being perfectly themselves, attain the graced amorality of aesthetic objects. 39
How trite and tedious, in contrast, to see oneself as a creature formed by historic events and defined by sociological categories. I am Jewish, an immigrant, half-Polish, half-American... I suffer from certain syndromes because I was fed on stories of the war... At a party given by some old-moneyed Bostonians, I feel that their gracious smiles mask a perfect condescension... I haven’t escaped my past or my circumstances; they constrain me like a corset, making me stiffer, smaller. I haven’t bloomed to that fullness of human condition in which only my particular traits – the good mold of my neck, say, or the crispness of my ironies – matter. Nabokov repaid America’s generosity with Pnin and Lolita, with amusement never soured by anger. Of all the responses to the condition of exile, his is surely the most triumphant, the least marred by rage, or inferiority, or aspiration. His observations are those of an entirely free man; but perhaps such aristocratic freedom to rise above confining categories and merely material conditions can spring only from a specific circumstance, the circumstance of aristocratic privilege. Perhaps it’s not possible to transcend our circumstances entirely after all. We’re driving, my Texan and I, in his clunky old Chevrolet, from Houston to Austin, where we’ll visit some friends. The highway is nearly empty and very hot. By the roadside, there are clumps of tall, pale green weeds, with occasional patches of sagebrush and lavender. Otherwise, there is nothing but us and the speed of the car and the endlessly receding horizon. Freedom. We talk little, breathing in the utter comfort of our solitude. Occasionally, like a blessing, a bonus from God, a hill. No matter what happens to me, I think, there will always be this. There will always be landscapes, and I’ll always have the liberty to breathe them in, the wherewithal to contemplate them. I’ll always have the freedom of my insignificance. Even this empty road throbs with silence of my own experience. I need not be so afraid. Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation
Eva Wydra Hoffman
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21 The Trial of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain
On August 17, 1980, at a campsite near Australia’s famous Ayer’s Rock, a mother’s cry came out of the dark: “My God, the dingo’s got my baby!” Soon the people of an entire continent would be choosing sides in a debate over whether the cry heard that night marked an astonishing and rare human fatality caused by wild dogs or was, rather, in the words of the man who would eventually prosecute her for murder, “a calculated, fanciful lie.” A jury of nine men and three women came to believe the latter story and convicted Lindy Chamberlain for the murder of her ten-week-old daughter, Azaria. Three years later, while Lindy dealt with daily life in a Darwin prison, police investigating the death of a fallen climber discovered Azaria’s matinee jacket near a dingo den, and the Australian public confronted the reality that its justice system had failed. “A Cry in the Dark,” a movie starring Meryl Streep, carried the story of Lindy’s wrongful conviction across oceans. What went wrong? Convictions of the innocent usually result from inaccurate eyewitness testimony, but Lindy Chamberlain was convicted by flawed forensic evidence and by investigators and prosecutors unwilling to reconsider their assumptions in the face of contradictory evidence. The trial of Lindy Chamberlain, and her husband Michael, is a cautionary tale that everyone who practices forensic science should carefully consider. Despite the lack of a body, the lack of a motive, and the lack of any eyewitnesses, the Northern Territory opened its prosecution of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain on September 13, 1982. Justice James Muirhead, in crimson robes and a gray wig, sat on the bench in the crowded courtroom as attorneys for both sides worked to select twelve jurors from a panel of 123 all-white Territorians. When the selection process was completed, nine men and three women took their seats in the jury box. Ian Barker opened the case for the prosecution, telling jurors Azaria “died very quickly. The Crown does not venture to suggest any reason or motive for the killing. It is not part of our case that Mrs. Chamberlain had previously shown any ill will toward the child.” Witness Amy Whittaker provided jurors with evidence of the seemingly odd behavior that had turned public opinion against the Chamberlains earlier in the investigation. Whittaker testified that minutes after the alleged dingo attack, Michael Chamberlain had appeared at the doorway of her camper and announced, “A dingo has taken our baby, and she is probably dead by now.” Whittaker also reported Lindy saying, “Whatever happens, it is God’s will.” She also described Lindy and Michael walking alone together into the the bush for fifteen to twenty minutes – a time during which the prosecution later argued the Chamberlains might have buried their baby. Reporters saw the tide beginning to move a bit in the Prosecutor’s direction when a parade of forensic experts took the stand. Dr. Andrew Scott, a biologist from Adelaide, testified that his study suggested that the blood on Azaria’s singlet flowed downward, from what appeared to be from the cutting by a sharp instrument. Barry Cocks testified that the jumpsuit seemed cut, not torn by a dingo. James Cameron was the final witness for the prosecution. Cameron, a professor of forensic medicine, testified that Azaria was killed by “a cutting instrument” held by a 41
human. Cross-examination focused attention on previous cases in which Cameron’s pro prosecution testimony had helped incriminate what turned out to be innocent suspects. Tears slid down Lindy’s face as she described the clothing her daughter was wearing the last night she laid her down. Much of Ian Barker’s cross-examination of Lindy was devoted to poking holes in her story about seeing a dingo in the vicinity of the family tent. Near the end of his long cross-examination Barker began asking “questions” that were really just statements for the jury. “Mrs. Chamberlain, may I respectfully suggest to you that the whole dingo story is mere fantasy?” Several witnesses testified as to the Chamberlains’ fine character and their grief over the loss of their daughter. Other witnesses told either of their own frightening encounters with dingoes, or testified in general about the aggressiveness of the region’s wild dogs. In addition, eight forensic experts attacked the dubious tests or conclusions of the prosecution’s experts. The last defense witness was Michael Chamberlain. Ian Barker, in his crossexamination of Michael, focused heavily on his actions in the first hours after Azaria’s disappearance. Barker suggested that Michael’s failure to ask Lindy certain questions, or to go running off into the brush in search of his daughter, was because he already knew Lindy had killed his daughter: “Could it be because you knew that the dingo did not take her, and that she was dead at the hands of your wife?” Michael answered, in a low voice, “No.” Barker pushed hard: “The whole story is nonsense, and you know it.” “No, Mr. Barker,” Michael insisted again. Courtroom observers concluded that Chamberlain’s testimony lacked spirit; it seemed both weary and inappropriately nonchalant. When his long hours on the stand finally ended, he took a seat in the courtroom next to his wife, and held her hands. Phillips stressed that the prosecution failed to provide even a remotely plausible explanation as to why Lindy Chamberlain would want to kill her own child. “The prosecution has had two years and three months to think of a reason,” he said, and “they can’t.” Barker admitted that no motive had been proved, but insisted that was neither the prosecution’s intent or its job. “All the Crown says is that you should find the murder happened,” Barker told the jury. He turned the tables by asking the jury to consider the lack of evidence that might suggest the dingo was guilty. “How could you possibly convict the dingo on this evidence?” he asked, noting the lack of dingo hairs or drag marks by the tent, the fact that no one saw it carrying a baby, and the relatively undamaged condition of Azaria’s jumpsuit. “The case against the dingo would be laughed out of court,” Barker concluded. On October 29, at 8:37 pm, the foreman of the jury announced its verdict. The jury found Lindy guilty of murder, and Michael guilty of being an accessory after the fact. Across Australia, the jury’s verdict was greeted mostly with approval. Reports later indicated that the jury was initially considerably more divided that its verdict indicated, having first split four for conviction, four for acquittal, and four undecided. Justice Muirhead sentenced Lindy to life in prison, but suspended Michael’s sentence. ”I consider it not only appropriate, but in the interests of justice to do so,” he explained. Douglas O’Linder
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22
John Burnside, Kate’s Garden (1)
The day Tom Williams came back I was still working at home. The good thing about freelancing was that I got to be alone all day, in an empty suburb, just me and the cats and the blackbirds, and an occasional heron, standing motionless in the reeds, down by the river. I liked that feeling; I never got tired of raising my head, halfway through a piece of work, and noticing the light at the window, the still gardens, the empty gravel path and lawns. It was a world where nothing had ever happened. Time had passed – I would know by glancing over at the clock on the mantelpiece – but the movement had been so fine it was imperceptible. On those warm spring mornings, I kept having privileged glimpses into limbo: a state, not of suspension, but of infinite potential. My study was upstairs at the back of the house. I’d placed the table so I could see the Williams’s garden, rather than my own: ever since Tom had left, eighteen months before, Kate had worked out there every weekend, digging, planting, weeding, pruning, sowing. She was a fine gardener, with an excellent eye for colour and texture, and what had been an attractive plot before Tom disappeared was now a work of art. Kate was a slight woman, pretty and nervy, with tiny birdlike hands, but she extended the patio herself, and she carried large, soggy bags of mulch or compost from the front yard, where the delivery men left them, and dug them in herself, working through every Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday, intent on what she was doing, single-minded, utterly absorbed. I think, for the first time in her life, she was truly happy. Making that garden may have been her therapy, but it was also her joy. On weekdays, I got to admire her handiwork. The other gardens could look odd, sometimes, for being deserted all day: I had a sense, occasionally, of something missing there, but Kate’s garden was all the more beautiful when she wasn’t in it. It was as she intended, I think: a home for the plants she’d chosen and nurtured; a refuge for birds and hedgehogs; a breeding pool for frogs; a lure, in the early morning, for hungry deer. The only sign that the garden was meant for human use was an old wooden bench that she scrubbed and oiled every spring, and put away in the shed in October. There was no lawn, no barbecue. Instead, she filled the space with lilies, junipers, irises. She had rare alpines and a rose-covered trellis to hide the shed. At the centre of one flowerbed, she had placed a large, amphora-shaped pot. I waited weeks to see what she would plant in it, thinking it was rather beautiful as it was, standing empty, filling with light and rain. It was some time before I understood that that was exactly what she intended. It’s no exaggeration to say that Tom disappeared. In some ways, it was no surprise, either. Tom was a strange man. I remember, when we first moved in, Kate came round to introduce herself and invited us to dinner. All through the meal, Tom barely uttered a word, keeping himself busy with passing plates and serving bowls, clearing up between courses, or opening bottles of wine. Kate ignored this pantomime. The conversation rolled along naturally without Tom’s participation, ranging from where to buy furniture through gardening tips to what I was working on at that moment. Then, halfway through the sweet course, the talk came round to an article about twins that Janice had read in a magazine, about how twin births occur more than is generally known, only one of the twins is absorbed by the other, or dies, in the womb. Tom listened intently. “I should have been a twin,” he said, when Janice had finished. 43
My wife had turned and gave him her best interested look. “Really?” “Yes,” Tom said, softly. “I don’t have evidence, nobody ever told me, but I know it’s true. I had a twin once; maybe he died, maybe he’s hidden inside me – I don’t know what happened to him, but I know he existed.” I glanced at Kate. She was staring out of the window at the darkening garden. “But how do you know?”, asked Janice. Tom shook his head softly and gazed at her. For a moment I thought he was going to cry. “Because I miss him”, he said. He smiled immediately, sensing he had taken the conversation too far. “Anyway”, he continued, “I’ve always thought there ought to be someone else like me in the world. Someone who sees things from my point of view.” He smiled again, to let us know he was only joking, and offered Janice more cream; then, after an awkward silence, Kate asked Janice something about her work, and the conversation continued as before. Tom barely spoke another word for the rest of the evening. For a time, we had the usual neighbours’ arrangement with the Williamses. We took turns issuing invitations for dinner, about once a month, always leaving a loophole for excuses. Then, one late summer afternoon, Tom went out in his shirtsleeves and never came home. Kate called the police, then the hospital; she wrote to Tom’s sister in Jersey. There was no sign of him. It was as if he had vanished off the face of the earth. I don’t know what I would have done next, but it seemed to me that Kate gave up too easily. I could imagine searching for Janice forever if the same thing had happened to us. But Kate seemed almost relieved. She kept going to work – she only had one day off in those first few weeks of Tom’s absence – and she spent the weekends in her garden; whenever I saw her, she greeted me as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She seemed so contented, I was too embarrassed to ask if there was any news of Tom. I could never imagine being with anyone but Janice; I could never imagine wanting anyone else as I have sometimes wanted her, with the sheer vivid physicality of desire that grips me unexpectedly, even now, when I watch her applying her lipstick or fixing her hair in the mirror, or when she comes in from the bathroom, wrapped in a clean towel, with drops of water still glistening on her shoulders. I could never imagine feeling for anyone else what I feel for my wife, yet I think I fell in love with Kate Williams a little, during that first year when she was living alone. It was something about the clothes she wore: the green duffle-coat, the red and cream tartan scarf, the black woollen hat that she kept pulling down so it almost covered her eyes. I would catch myself wandering out into the garden for no reason on a Sunday afternoon, just so I could talk to her. I can’t explain the sensation I had when she put aside the rake and stood chatting to me, her hands moving all the while. I was fascinated by her hands. She never wore gloves, so her fingers would usually be crusted with soil or scratched in places where she had caught herself on a thorn. It wasn’t desire I felt, but it wasn’t only compassion; it was a pure, dizzying love. Sometimes when I went back inside, after talking for a while, Janice would look at me strangely.
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John Burnside, Kate’s Garden (2)
“What is it?” she’d ask, as if she’d read some unexpected tenderness, some unwarranted concern in my face – even though I knew my expression was quite noncommittal. “Nothing,” I would answer casually. “Were you talking to Kate?” “Yes.” “Ah.” She would pause a moment. “How is she?” “Fine, I think.” “Any news of Tom?” “I didn’t ask.” There would be another short silence then, so it would seem she was thinking of what she was about to say next for the first time. “We ought to invite her over,” she would say, and I would agree immediately. We would tell ourselves it was the least we could do, we would look at our diaries later and set a date and have her round, for dinner, or a drink. Then we would forget all about it. For different reasons, neither of us wanted her in our house. She made us feel awkward for being together, even though she seemed happy by herself. It was an assumption we made, based on our own lives, that any woman whose husband had left her must be lonely under the brave façade she maintained for the rest of the world. Or maybe it was an assumption Janice made, an assumption I was obliged to share. I wasn’t altogether sure what Kate felt, but though she had never once talked about it, and even though she hadn’t much liked him, Janice was certain, deep down, that Kate was waiting for Tom to come home. I had been working all morning. The book I had just begun translating was well written and engaging, a literary biography of the poet, George Seferis. It was the culmination of a lifetime’s study, a labour of love, and I felt privileged to be working on it. I had been utterly engrossed for some time: I might never have noticed Tom if I hadn’t heard a flutter of wings and looked up. A bird had almost flown in through the open window, then veered away at the last moment. I barely saw it but, looking down into the sunlit rectangle of Kate’s garden, I saw Tom quite clearly, sitting upright, with his arms folded, on the dark wooden bench. He looked much as he had the day he left: his hair was a little longer, but he was wearing what looked like the same white shirt, the same light-green trousers, the same boots. It had been almost two years; now, here he was, sitting quietly in the garden, as if he’d just stepped out to take the sun. I could scarcely believe it. He looked too substantial to be a ghost or an apparition yet, at the same time, there was something unreal about his being there, in the ordinary daylight. It took a few moments for me to work out what it was about him that looked out of place, but when I did I understood how much he had changed. The kind of people I know usually dismiss any talk of auras as mystical mumbo jumbo, but I don’t think there’s anything supernatural in it. Every human body gives off a light of some kind. There are days when Janice is perfectly golden; she’s someone who attracts light and adds to it a touch of her own buttermilk-yellow warmth. Other people 45
are subtler, or more subdued: they reflect greens or blues or crimsons, depending on their mood, on how happy or tired they are. That morning, when I saw Tom sitting in his wife’s garden, he was wrapped in blackness – only it was more than that, there was a kind of luminescence to his body, what I can only describe now, remembering it, as a black light. I had never seen it in him until that moment; yet, at that moment, I knew I had always suspected it was there. I’ve never seen it in anyone else. It was the only time I have ever encountered a tragic figure, and I knew, without hearing the story, that tragedy had somehow overtaken him, either on the day he disappeared, or something later, when he was lost and trying to find his way home. I couldn’t be completely sure, but I guessed he hadn’t seen me. He seemed not to see anything; he simply sat stock still, with his arms folded over his chest, gazing straight ahead. I could have left him there; I could have gone back to work and pretended I hadn’t noticed him. It was none of my business, after all. It wasn’t as if I’d ever liked him much. As far as I was concerned, he was a bit of an oddball, a man who had casually walked out on his wife, without a word of explanation, without even a postcard to let her know if he was alive or dead. I could have left him out there, but I didn’t. I assumed he’d gone away without a key to the house, and he was waiting now for Kate to come home and let him in. He must have known he’d have a long wait. It was a warm morning, but I wasn’t sure it was warm enough for him to sit out there all day in his shirt-sleeves. I’m not sure if any of this is what I was thinking at the time, though. In the end, it was probably curiosity that made me ask him in. Or perhaps it was something more. Perhaps I was already harbouring the suspicion that what had happened to Tom and Kate could happen to anyone: that any love affair, any marriage, however passionate, however satisfying, was an invention of sorts, part good luck, part imagination. I knew, at the back of my mind, that there were times when I had to work to keep my idea of Janice intact. If that was the case, there would be times when she had to work just as hard. At one level, it was really nothing more than a conjuring trick and I was already wondering what it would take to break the spell. Perhaps that was what passed through my mind, as I walked downstairs and opened the back door, to ask Tom inside. He didn’t respond at first. He looked up and stared at me for a long, unsettling moment; I’m pretty certain he didn’t recognise me: he’d forgotten who I was and, from the look on his face, I could tell I wasn’t all he had forgotten. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” I called over, in as matter-of-fact a voice as I could manage. He stared at me in silence for a few moments longer, then shook his head. “It’s no trouble,” I said. “Kate won’t be home till later. You might as well come in for a while.” All of a sudden, without my knowing why, I felt it was important that he come in. It had never occurred to me before, but at that moment I was aware of a kinship between us, a likeness. Perhaps he was aware of it too; or perhaps he only responded out of politeness, or sheer passivity, but he stood up then and walked over to the fence that divided the two gardens. He looked puzzled, as if he hadn’t expected to find a barrier, though the fence had always been there. “Come around the front,” I said. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
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John Burnside, Kate’s Garden (3)
When I remember that day, I think of Tom as a ghost, a phantom who sat silently at my kitchen table, and drank three cups of coffee, one after another, like a man dying of thirst. I made small talk for a while, and he listened, with his eyes averted, nodding or shaking his head from time to time, or making small, unintelligible sounds. I talked about myself, about Janice, about people in the village, but for some time I didn’t mention Kate, and I didn’t ask the one question he must have known I wanted to ask more than anything. It was odd. I had to know why he left – it wasn’t my business, and it didn’t really matter, one way or another. He could answer, or he could simply refuse to speak. I had nothing to lose by speaking out. Finally, I gave in to the impulse – to the real need to understand what had driven him away. “What happened to you, Tom?” I asked him. I was aware of how quiet my voice was, of how gentle I had managed to sound. He looked up at me; he seemed quite mystified, as if he hadn’t understood the question. Then, after a long pause, he sighed and shook his head. “Nothing happened,” he answered, just as quietly. “Well, nothing I could tell you about. I just went for a walk that day, and realised I couldn’t go home. It wasn’t right any more. It wasn’t fair on Kate.” “It wasn’t very fair to go off without even letting her know where you were,” I replied, a little more sharply than I had intended. He gazed at me. He seemed stunned, and I realised, even before he spoke, that Kate had lied to us – by omission, no doubt, but intentionally, nevertheless.” “Did Kate tell you that?” Tom asked. “Well,” I said, in as conciliatory a tone as I could manage, “not in so many words. I suppose we just assumed.” He nodded. “Of course.” He spoke as quietly as ever, but there was bitterness in his voice. “I telephoned her,” he said. “And I wrote, four times. I couldn’t tell her where I was, but I wanted her to know I was all right.” He set his cup aside and stood up. “I’ll be going now,” he said. “Thanks for the coffee.” I stood up too. “Kate won’t be back for hours,” I said. “You can stay here if you like. I’ll just be upstairs. Make some coffee. Keep warm.” He smiled slightly. “That’s kind of you,” he said, “but I’m not waiting for Kate.” He moved towards the door. “Then why did you come?” I asked. “I was happy here,” he replied. “That was a long time ago, but I still think about it.” I didn’t speak. I couldn’t think of anything to say and, for a moment, I thought he was on the point of telling me his story after all. Then the moment passed and I knew he would never tell anyone why he had left, not even his wife. He couldn’t. “The garden looks nice, don’t you think?” he said. I nodded. “It’s beautiful.” He looked down at his feet and I thought he was about to cry. “I just wanted to see,” he said at last. 47
