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高級(jí)英語 Advanced English(張漢熙) 第二冊(cè) 6.DISAPPEARING THR0UGH THE SKYLIGHT

所屬教程:高級(jí)英語 Advanced English(張漢熙) 第二冊(cè)

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DISAPPEARING THR0UGH THE SKYLIGHT

Osborne Bennet Hardison Jr.

1 Science is committed to the universal. A sign of this is that the more successful a science becomes, the broader the agreement about its basic concepts: there is not a separate Chinese or American or Soviet thermodynamics, for example; there is simply thermodynamics For several decades of the twentieth century there was a Western and a Soviet genetics, the latter associated with Lysenko's theory that environmental stress can produce genetic mutations. Today Lysenko's theory is discredited , and there is now only one genetics.

2 As the corollary of science, technology also exhibits the universalizing tendency. This is why the spread of technology makes the world look ever more homogeneous. Architectural styles, dress styles, musical styles--even eating styles--tend increasingly to be world styles. The world looks more homogeneous because it is more homogeneous. Children who grow up in this world therefore experience it as a sameness rather than a diversity , and because their identities are shaped by this sameness, their sense of differences among cultures and individuals diminishes. As buildings become more alike, the people who inhabit the buildings become more alike. The result is described precisely in a phrase that is already familiar." the disappearance of history.

3 The automobile illustrates the Point With great clarity. A technological innovation like streamlining or all-welded body construction may be rejected initially, but if it is important to the efficiency or economics of automobiles, it will reappear in different ways until it is not only accepted but universally regarded as an 財(cái)富. Today's automobile is no longer unique to a given company or even to a given national culture, its basic features are found, with variations, in automobiles in general, no matter who makes them.

4 A few years ago the Ford Motor Company came up with the Fiesta, which it called the "World Car." Advertisements showed it surrounded by the flags of all nations. Ford explained that the cylinder block was made in England, the carburetor in Ireland, the transmission in France, the wheels in Belgium, and so forth.

5 The Fiesta appears to have sunk Without a trace. But the idea of a world car was inevitable. It was the automotive equivalent of the International Style. Ten years after the Fiesta, all of the large automakers were international. Americans had Plants in Europe, Asia, and South America, and Europeans and Japanese had plants in America and South America, and in the Soviet Union Fiat Fiat (= Fabbrica Italiana Automobile Torino ) workers refreshed themselves with Pepsi-Cola). In the fullness of time international automakers will have plants in Egypt and India and the People's Republic of China.

6 As in architecture, so in automaking. In a given cost range, the same technology tends to produce the same solutions. The visual evidence for this is as obvious for cars as for buildings. Today, if you choose models in the same price range, you will be hard put at 500 paces to tell one makefrom another. In other words, the specifically American traits that lingered in American automobiles in the 1960s--traits that linked American cars to American history--are disappearing. Even the Volkswagen Beetle has disappeared and has taken with it the visible evidence of the history of streamlining that extends from D'Arcy Thompson to Carl Breer to Ferdinand Porsche.

7 If man creates machines, machines in turn shape their creators. As the automobile is universalized, it universalizes those who use it. Like the World Car he drives, modern man is becoming universal. No longer quite an individual, no longer quite the product of a unique geography and culture, he moves from one climate-controlled shopping mall to another, from one airport to the next, from one Holiday Inn to its successor three hundred miles down the road; but somehow his location never changes. He is cosmopolitann. The price he Pays is that he no longer has a home in the traditional sense of the word. The benefit is that he begins to suspect home in the traditional sense is another name for limitations, and that home in the modern sense is everywhere and always surrounded by neighbors.

8 The universalizing imperative of technology is irresistible. Barring the catastrophe of nuclear war, it will continue to shape both modern culture and the consciousness of those who inhabit that culture.

9 This brings us to art and history again. Reminiscing on the early work of Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp, Madame Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia wrote of the discovery of the machine aesthetic in 1949:"I remember a time ... when every artist thought he owed it to himself to turn his back on the Eiffel Tower, as a protest against the architectural blasphemy with which it filled the sky.... The discovery and rehabilitation of ... machines soon generated propositions which evaded all tradition, above all, a mobile, extra human plasticity which was absolutely new....”

10 Art is, in one definition, simply an effort to name the real world. Are machines "the real world" or only its surface? Is the real world that easy to find? Science has shown the in substantiality of the world. It has thus undermined an article of faith: the thingliness of things. At the same time, it has produced images of orders of reality underlying the thingliness of things. Are images of cells or of molecules or of galaxiesmore or less real than images of machines? Science has also produced images that are pure artifacts. Are images of self-squared dragons more or less real than images of molecules?

11 The skepticism of modern science about the thingliness of things implies a new appreciation of the humanity of art entirely consistent with Kandinsky's observation in On the Spiritual in Art that beautiful art "springs from inner need, which springs from the soul." Modern art opens on a world whose reality is not "out there" in nature defined as things seen from a middle distance but "in here" in the soul or the mind. It is a world radically emptied of history because it is a form of perception rather than a content.

12 The disappearance of history is thus a liberation--what Madame Buffet-Picabia refers to as the discovery of "a mobile extra-human plasticity which [is] absolutely new." Like science, modern art often expresses this feeling of liberation through play--in painting in the playfulness of Picasso and Joan Miro and in poetry in the nonsense of Dada and the mock heroics of a poem like Wallace Stevens's "The Comedian as the Letter C."

13 The playfulness of the modern aesthetic is, finally, its most striking--and also its most serious and, by corollary, its most disturbing--feature. The playfulness imitates the playfulness of science that produces game theory and virtual particles and black holes and that, by introducing human growth genes into cows, forces students of ethics to reexamine the definition of cannibalism. The importance of play in the modern aesthetic should not come as a surprise. It is announced in every city in the developed world by the fantastic and playful buildings of postmodernism and neo-modernism and by the fantastic juxtapositions of architectural styles that typify collage city and urban adhocism.

14 Today modern culture includes the geometries of the International Style, the fantasies of facadism, and the gamesmanship of theme parks and museum villages . It pretends at times to be static but it is really dynamic. Its buildings move and sway and reflect dreamy visions of everything that is going on around them. It surrounds its citizens with the linear sculpture of pipelines and interstate highways and high-tension lines and the delicate virtuosities of the surfaces of the Chrysler Airflow and the Boeing 747 and the lacy weavings of circuits etched on silicon, as well as with the brutal assertiveness of oil tankers and bulldozers and the Tinkertoy complications of trusses and geodesic domes and lunar landers. It abounds in images and sounds and values utterly different from those of the world of natural things seen from a middle distance.

15 It is a human world, but one that is human in ways no one expected. The image it reveals is not the worn and battered face that stares from Leonardo's self-portrait much less the one that stares, bleary and uninspired, every morning from the bathroom mirror. These are the faces of history. It is, rather, the image of an eternally playful and eternally youthful power that makes order whether order is there or not and that having made one order is quite capable of putting it aside and creating an entirely different or the way a child might build one structure from a set of blocks and then without malice and purely in the spirit of play demolish it and begin again. It is an image of the power that made humanity possible in the first place.

16 The banks of the nineteenth century tended to be neoclassic structures of marble or granite faced with ponderous rows of columns. They made a statement" "We are solid. We are permanent. We are as reliable as history. Your money is safe in our vaults."

17 Today's banks are airy structures of steel and glass, or they are store-fronts with slot-machinelike terminals, or trailers parked on the lots of suburban shopping malls.

18 The vaults have been replaced by magnetic tapes. In a computer, money is sequences of digital signals endlessly recorded, erased, processed, and reprocessed, and endlessly modified by other computers. The statement of modern banks is "We are abstract like art and almost invisible like the Crystal Palace. If we exist at all, we exist as an airy medium in which your transactions are completed and your wealth increased."

19 That, perhaps, establishes the logical limit of the modern aesthetic. If so, the limit is a long way ahead, but it can be made out, just barely, through the haze over the road. As surely as nature is being swallowed up by the mind, the banks, you might say, are disappearing through their own skylights.

第六課從天窗中消失

小奧斯本本內(nèi)特哈迪森

科學(xué)是能夠?yàn)槿藗兤毡榻邮艿摹S幸粋€(gè)事實(shí)可用來說明這一點(diǎn):一門科學(xué)發(fā)展程度越高,其基本概念就越能為人們普遍接受。舉例而言,世界上就只有一種熱力學(xué),并不存在什么分開獨(dú)立的中國(guó)熱力學(xué)、美國(guó)熱力學(xué)或者蘇聯(lián)熱力學(xué)。在二十世紀(jì)的幾十年的時(shí)間里,遺傳學(xué)曾分為兩派;西方遺傳學(xué)和蘇聯(lián)遺傳學(xué)。后者源于李森科的理論,即環(huán)境的作用可能造成遺傳基因的變異。今天,李森科的理論已經(jīng)被推翻,因此,世界上就只有一種遺傳學(xué)了。

作為科學(xué)的自然產(chǎn)物,工藝技術(shù)也顯示出一種世界通用的傾向。這就是為什么工藝技術(shù)的發(fā)展傳播使世界呈現(xiàn)出一體化特征的原因。原本各異的世界各地的建筑風(fēng)格、服飾風(fēng)格、音樂風(fēng)格--甚至飲食風(fēng)格--都越來越趨向于變成統(tǒng)一的世界流行風(fēng)格了。世界呈現(xiàn)出同一性特征是因?yàn)樗緛砭哂型恍?。在這個(gè)世界上長(zhǎng)大的兒童感受到的是一個(gè)千篇一律的世界而不是一個(gè)多樣化的世界。他們的個(gè)性也受到這種同一性的影響,因此,在他們的感覺中,不同文化和個(gè)人之間的差異變得越來越小了。由于世界各地的建筑越來越千篇一律,居住在這些建筑里的人也越來越千人一面了。這樣帶來的結(jié)果用一句人們已經(jīng)聽熟的話來描述再恰當(dāng)不過:歷史要消失了。

以汽車為例即可非常清楚地證明這一點(diǎn)。諸如流線型或全焊接式車身結(jié)構(gòu)一類的技術(shù)革新,一開始可能不被人接受,但假如 這種技術(shù)革新在提高汽車制造業(yè)的工作效率和經(jīng)濟(jì)效益方面確有巨大作用,它便會(huì)一再地以各種變異的形式出現(xiàn),直到最終它不僅會(huì)被接受,而且會(huì)被大家公認(rèn)為是一種寶貴的成果。今天的汽車再也找不出某個(gè)汽車公司或某個(gè)民族文化的標(biāo)志性特征了。一般的汽車,不管產(chǎn)于何地,其基本特征都大同小異。

幾年前,福特汽車公司制造出一種菲愛斯塔牌汽車,并將其稱為"世界流行車"。這種車出現(xiàn)在廣告上的形象是周圍環(huán)繞著世界各國(guó)的國(guó)旗。福特公司解釋說,這種汽車的汽缸活塞是英國(guó)產(chǎn)的,汽化器是愛爾蘭造的,變速器是法國(guó)產(chǎn)的,車輪是比利時(shí)產(chǎn)的,諸如此類,等等等等。

這種菲愛斯塔牌汽車現(xiàn)在似乎已完全銷聲匿跡了,但這種制造世界流行汽車的設(shè)想計(jì)劃卻是勢(shì)在必行的。這表明汽車業(yè)也像建筑等行業(yè)一樣在向國(guó)際流行風(fēng)格的方向發(fā)展。菲愛斯塔牌汽車問世十年后,所有大型汽車制造公司都已國(guó)際化。美國(guó)人在歐洲、亞洲和南美洲都設(shè)了汽車廠。歐洲人和日本人也把他們的汽車廠設(shè)到了美國(guó)、南美洲以及蘇聯(lián)(菲亞特公司的工人在那兒可以喝到百事可樂來消乏解渴)。當(dāng)時(shí)機(jī)成熟的時(shí)候,這些跨國(guó)型的汽車制造公司還會(huì)把他們的汽車廠設(shè)在埃及、印度和中華人民共和國(guó)。

汽車制造業(yè)的情形也像建筑業(yè)的情形一樣。在一定的成本范圍內(nèi),相同的工藝技術(shù)就能產(chǎn)生相同的產(chǎn)品。證明這一點(diǎn)的直觀證據(jù)在汽車方面和建筑方面一樣,都是顯而易見的。今天,如果要你在同一價(jià)格檔次的各型汽車中進(jìn)行選擇,從距離五百步的地方看是很難分辨出各種不同牌子型號(hào)的汽車的。換句話說,六十年代里美國(guó)汽車還保留著的美國(guó)特色--美國(guó)汽車中那種與美國(guó)歷史相聯(lián)系的特點(diǎn)--正在逐漸消失。甚至連德國(guó)的大眾汽車公司的大眾甲殼蟲型汽車也喪失了自身原有的特色,而通過自己車型的變化演示了從達(dá)西·湯普森到卡爾·布里爾到費(fèi)迪南德·波爾舍一代一代的流線型汽車設(shè)計(jì)發(fā)展史。

人創(chuàng)造了機(jī)器,而機(jī)器反過來也能塑造其創(chuàng)造者。由于汽車已普遍化,使用汽車的人也就司空見慣了。現(xiàn)代社會(huì)的人像他們駕駛的世界流行汽車一樣正變得越來越彼此雷同。他們不再具有鮮明的個(gè)性特征,再不是某個(gè)特殊地理文化環(huán)境里孕育出來的特殊個(gè)人了。他們可以從一個(gè)裝設(shè)空調(diào)的市場(chǎng)到另一個(gè)市場(chǎng),從一個(gè)機(jī)場(chǎng)到另一個(gè)機(jī)場(chǎng),從一個(gè)假日酒店到三百英里外的另一家酒店,不停地旅行運(yùn)動(dòng),但他們所處的環(huán)境卻可能永遠(yuǎn)一個(gè)樣。他們是世界人,他們?yōu)榇烁冻龅拇鷥r(jià)是他們不再擁有一個(gè)傳統(tǒng)意義的家。他們從中得到的好處則是開始覺得傳統(tǒng)意義上的家是牢籠的別稱,而現(xiàn)代意義的家則無處不是,自己身邊周圍的人又無不是自己的鄰友。

工藝技術(shù)的普遍應(yīng)用是不可抗拒的。只要沒有核戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)給世界帶來毀滅性災(zāi)難,這種應(yīng)用將繼續(xù)影響現(xiàn)代文化以及創(chuàng)造這種文化的現(xiàn)代人的思想意識(shí)。

這又把我們的注意力帶回到藝術(shù)和歷史方面來了。迦百列布菲·皮卡比阿夫人追憶弗朗西斯·皮卡比阿和馬塞爾·杜尚的早期作品時(shí)對(duì)1949年機(jī)器美學(xué)的產(chǎn)生作了這樣的描寫:"我記得有一個(gè)時(shí)期……每一位藝術(shù)家表示對(duì)埃菲爾鐵塔的蔑視,譴責(zé)這座污染天空,褻瀆神明的建筑是自己義不容辭的責(zé)任……機(jī)器……的發(fā)明與發(fā)展很快就提出了一些傳統(tǒng)思維完全無法解決的命題,一種全新的、靈活的、超出人的理解力的可塑性……"

曾有人下定義說,藝術(shù)就是一種給現(xiàn)實(shí)世界命名的嘗試。機(jī)器是"現(xiàn)實(shí)世界"本身還是僅僅是其表面呢?現(xiàn)實(shí)世界容易發(fā)現(xiàn)嗎?科學(xué)已經(jīng)證明,世界是虛無的。這就動(dòng)搖了人們認(rèn)為世界的物質(zhì)是客觀實(shí)在的信念。同時(shí),科學(xué)又創(chuàng)造出了潛存于客觀實(shí)在之中的各種不同種類和范疇的現(xiàn)實(shí)世界的形象。機(jī)器的形象與細(xì)胞、分子或是銀河系這些物體形象相比較,哪一個(gè)更實(shí)在呢?科學(xué)還創(chuàng)造出了純屬人造物的形象。一個(gè)張牙舞爪的龍的形象比分子的形象是更接近現(xiàn)實(shí)還是更遠(yuǎn)離現(xiàn)實(shí)呢?

現(xiàn)代科學(xué)對(duì)世界萬物的客觀實(shí)在性的懷疑意味著對(duì)藝術(shù)的性質(zhì)需重新評(píng)價(jià),這與康定斯基在《論藝術(shù)中的精神因素》一書中對(duì)美的藝術(shù)所作的評(píng)價(jià)是十分吻合的。他說,美的藝術(shù)是"發(fā)自人的靈魂深處的需要"?,F(xiàn)代藝術(shù)所描繪的并不是用眼睛看到的物質(zhì)世界的客觀現(xiàn)實(shí),而是人的內(nèi)心世界所反映的現(xiàn)實(shí)。因?yàn)楝F(xiàn)代藝術(shù)所描繪的世界不是客觀存在的物質(zhì)世界,而是人的內(nèi)心世界,所以,它是一個(gè)完全喪失了歷史的世界。

因此,歷史的消失是一種解放--即布菲皮卡比阿夫人所謂的"一種全新的、靈活的、超出人的理解力的可塑性"的發(fā)現(xiàn)。像科學(xué)一樣,現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)往往也是通過玩耍的方式來表達(dá)這種思想解放的--在繪畫藝術(shù)方面是通過畢加索和瓊·米羅的玩耍性作品,在詩歌藝術(shù)方面是通過達(dá)達(dá)派的朦朧詩以及諸如華萊士·斯蒂文斯的《C字母一樣的喜劇演員》一類的滑稽史詩。

現(xiàn)代美學(xué)的玩耍性說到底是其最突出的,也是最嚴(yán)肅的,而必然地也是最令人不安的特征。這種玩耍性是模仿產(chǎn)生了博奕論、虛構(gòu)粒子和黑洞的科學(xué)的荒誕性。這種科學(xué)的玩耍性還通過把人的生長(zhǎng)基因植入牛體,迫使倫理學(xué)的研究者重新審定食人肉的習(xí)性的定義。玩耍在現(xiàn)代美學(xué)中的重要性不應(yīng)引起驚訝。它在發(fā)達(dá)世界的每座城市里都通過后現(xiàn)代主義和新現(xiàn)代主義的奇形怪狀和荒誕的建筑物,通過把各種建筑風(fēng)格奇特地拼湊在一起得到反映,而這恰恰是拼貼畫式的城市和無計(jì)劃的大雜燴城市的典型表現(xiàn)。

今天,現(xiàn)代文化包括了國(guó)際風(fēng)格的幾何圖形、傳統(tǒng)門面與新型建筑相結(jié)合的奇特圖案以及主題公園和博物館村莊的游戲絕招。這種文化有時(shí)裝成是靜態(tài)的,但實(shí)際上卻是生機(jī)勃勃的。體現(xiàn)這種文化的建筑移動(dòng)、搖擺,就像做夢(mèng)一樣,反映了周圍發(fā)生的一切。這種文化向其公民展示了體現(xiàn)幾何圖形的直線結(jié)構(gòu),如管道、州際公路和高壓電線,也展示了富有藝術(shù)性的流線型克萊斯勒公司的氣流汽車、波音747飛機(jī)以及硅片集成電路上的精細(xì)網(wǎng)織圖案?,F(xiàn)代文化也向其公民展示了無情地引人注目的龐然大物--油輪和推土機(jī)以及結(jié)構(gòu)玩具的復(fù)雜設(shè)計(jì)、短線拱頂和登月車輛。它充滿了想象、聲音和價(jià)值,完全不同于我們?nèi)庋鬯吹降奈覀冎車澜绲淖匀痪拔铩?/p>

現(xiàn)代文化是一個(gè)顯示人的特點(diǎn)的世界,但又不是人們想象的那種模樣。它所表現(xiàn)的形象不是列奧納多自畫像上那種倦怠憔悴的面容,更不是每天早晨從浴室鏡子里見到的模模糊糊、平平淡淡的面孔。這些都是歷史的本來面目了。現(xiàn)代文化是一種永遠(yuǎn)具有玩耍性而又朝氣蓬勃的力量;這種力量可以創(chuàng)造出某種秩序,不管這種秩序是否客觀存在于現(xiàn)實(shí)世界之中;而且,在創(chuàng)造出一種秩序后,又完全有可能打破這種秩序,再創(chuàng)一個(gè)完全不同的新秩 序,就像一個(gè)小孩玩積木時(shí)已經(jīng)拼造出一種結(jié)構(gòu)后又毫無惡意地以純粹的玩耍態(tài)度拆散重拼一樣。這就是它使人類顯示其特點(diǎn)的形象。

十九世紀(jì)的銀行一般都是以大理石或花崗石砌成的新古典式建筑,正面裝飾著一排排粗重的廊柱。它們向世人宣告:"我們堅(jiān)不可摧;我們永不衰朽;我們像歷史一樣令人信賴。您的錢儲(chǔ)放在我們的地下保險(xiǎn)庫里可保絕對(duì)完全。"

今天的銀行卻是一些鋼架玻璃結(jié)構(gòu)的虛無飄渺的建筑,或是一些門前裝有像自動(dòng)售貨機(jī)一樣的計(jì)算機(jī)終端設(shè)備的商店門面,或是一些停放在城郊商業(yè)中心停車場(chǎng)上的掛車式活動(dòng)房屋。

原先的地下保險(xiǎn)庫如今也換成了磁帶來替代其職能。錢在電腦中變成了一系列數(shù)字信號(hào),這些數(shù)字信號(hào)要不斷地經(jīng)過其他電腦一次次地錄入、刪除、處理、再處理并不斷加以修改?,F(xiàn)代銀行向世人宣告的是:"我們像藝術(shù)般的抽象,幾乎像水晶宮般的無形。假如我們還存在的話,我們也只是以一種虛無飄渺的媒介而存在,通過這種媒介您們的交易得以進(jìn)行,您們的財(cái)富得以增值。"

也許這就可以成為現(xiàn)代美學(xué)發(fā)展的邏輯上的極限。如果這樣的話,這個(gè)極限點(diǎn)距離我們還有一段較長(zhǎng)的路程,但其模糊的輪廓透過路上彌漫著的薄霧已依稀可辨。正如物質(zhì)世界的客觀現(xiàn)實(shí)逐漸消失于人們的頭腦中一樣,可以說,現(xiàn)代銀行也正從自己的天窗中逐漸消失。

(摘自《從天窗中消失》)

詞匯(Vocabulary)

skylight (n.) : a window in a roof or ceiling天窗

thermodynamics (n.) : the branch of physics dealing with the reversible transformation of heat into other forms or energy,esp. mechanical energy.and with the laws governing such conversions of energy熱力學(xué)

genetics (n.) : the branch of biology that deals with heredity and variation in similar or related animals and plants 遺傳學(xué)

mutation (n.) : a change,as in form,nature,qualities,etc.(在形式、本質(zhì)等上)變化

discredit (v.) : reject as untrue;disbelieve不相信;懷疑

corollary (n.) : an inference or deduction推理,推論

homogeneous (adj.) : of the same race or kind同類的,同族的

clarity (n.) : the quality or condition of being clear;clearness明晰;清轍

streamline (v.) : design or construct with a contour that offers the least resistance in moving through air,water,etc.把…制成流線型

asset (n.) : anything owned that has exchange value;a valuable or desirable thing to have財(cái)產(chǎn);有交換價(jià)值的占有物;有價(jià)值的東西

cylinder (n.) : the chamber in which the piston moves in a reciprocating engine 汽缸

carburetor (n.) : an apparatus for carbureting air or gas;eap.a device in which air is mixed with gasoline spray to make an explosive mixture in an internal-combustion engine化油器,汽化器;碳化器

transmission (n.) : the part of an automobile,truck,etc.that transmits motive force from the engine to the wheels,usually by means of gears or hydraulic cylinders傳動(dòng);變速器

mall (n.) : a completely enclosed,airconditioned shopping center密閉式空調(diào)商場(chǎng)

cosmopolitan (adj.) : common to or representative of all or many parts of the world;not national or local世界主義的,屬于世界的;不限于國(guó)家或地區(qū)范圍的

imperative (n.) : a binding or compelling rule,duty, requirement,etc.規(guī)則;義務(wù);要求;必須履行的責(zé)任

catastrophe (n.) : a disastrous end,bringing overthrow or ruin;any great and sudden calamity,disaster or misfortune 悲慘的結(jié)局;毀滅;驟然而來的大災(zāi)難

reminisce (v.) : think,talk,or write about remembered events or experiences追憶往事;懷舊

blasphemy (n.) :profane or contemptuous speech,writing。or action concerning God or anything held as divine:any remark or action held to be irreverent or disrespectful瀆神,褻瀆(上帝或圣物);辱罵,謾罵

rehabilitation (n.) : the restoration to reputation,rank,etc.恢復(fù)(名譽(yù)、地位等);雪恥

plasticity (n.) : state or quality of being easily shaped or moulded可塑性;適應(yīng)性

insubstantial (adj.) : not substantial;not real;imaginary;not solid or firm非物質(zhì)的;無實(shí)體的;想象的;不結(jié)實(shí)的

undermine (v.) : wear away at the base or foundation; injure;weaken削弱…的基礎(chǔ);傷害;削弱

molecule (n.) : smallest unit into which a substance can be divided without a change in its chemical nature分子

galaxy (n.) : any of innumerable large groupings of stars, typically containing millions to hundreds of billions of stars星系

artifact (n.) : any object made by human work人工制品

skepticism (n.) : doubting attitude懷疑態(tài)度

particle (n.) : a piece of matter so small as to be considered without magnitude though having inertia and the force of attraction粒子;質(zhì)點(diǎn)

juxtaposition (n.) : the act of placing,or the state of being placed,side by side or close together并列,并置

collage (n.) : an art form in which bits of objects,as newspapers,cloth,pressed flowers,etc.,are pasted together on a surface in incongruous relationship for their symbolic or suggestive effect美術(shù)拼貼(在畫面上拼貼報(bào)紙、布、壓平的花等互不相干的碎片的藝術(shù)形式)

ad hoc ([Latin]) : for this specific parpose;for a special case only,without general application為此目的;特別,特定

static (adj.) : not moving or progressing;at rest;inactive;stationary靜止的;不活動(dòng)的;固定的

virtuosity (n.) : great technical skill in some fine art,esp. in the performance or music,interest in or taste for the fine arts;esp.,a sensitive but amateur interest(音樂演奏的)精湛技藝;對(duì)藝術(shù)的愛好(或淺薄涉獵)

lacy (adj.) : of lace;like lace有花邊的;花邊狀的

etch (v.) : engrave(a metal plate,glass,etc.)by the action of an acid,esp.by coating the surface with wax and letting acid eat into the lines or areas laid bare with a special needle蝕鏤,蝕刻(圖案、圖畫等)

assertive (adj.) : marked by or expressing forceful statements or claims肯定的,斷定的,武斷的

bulldozer (n.) : a large,shovellike blade on the front of a tractor for pushing or moving earth,debris,etc.,a tractor with such a blade推土鏟;推土機(jī)

truss (n.) : an architectural bracket or modillion;a bundle or pack構(gòu)架,托座;束,捆,扎

bleary (adj.) : dim or blurred as the eyes are from lack of rest or when one first awakens睡眼惺忪的;(視力)朦朧的

malice (n.) : active川will;desire to harm another or to do mischief敵意;怨恨

granite (n.) : a very hard,crystalline,plutonic rock,gray to pink in color,consisting of feldspar,quartz,and smaller amounts of dark ferromagnesian minerals花崗巖

vault (n.) : a secure room,often with individual safe-deposit boxes。for the safe keeping of valuables or money.as in a bank(銀行等的)保險(xiǎn)庫;貴重物品儲(chǔ)藏處

slot-machine : a machine,as a vending machine,worked by inserting a coin in a slot投入一枚硬幣即自行開動(dòng)的機(jī)器(如自動(dòng)售貨機(jī))

trailer (n.) : a cart,wagon,or large van,designed to be pulled by an automobile,truck,or tractor,for hauling freight 拖車,掛車

transaction (n.) : something transacted事務(wù)(尤指交易、協(xié)議)

haze (n.) : a thin vapor of fog,smoke,dust,etc.,in the air that reduces visibility陰霾,薄霧

短語 (Expressions)

in the fullness of time: at the appropriate or right time;eventually 在適當(dāng)?shù)臅r(shí)候,時(shí)機(jī)成熟時(shí),終于

例: I'm sure he'll tell us what's bothering him in the fullness of time.我肯定他會(huì)在適當(dāng)?shù)臅r(shí)候告訴我們他的困擾的。

in the middle distance : the normal distance for the eye to observe objects通常肉眼看到物體的距離

例: The building is in the middle distance,so we can see it clear-Iy.樓房跟我們距離適中,我們能很清晰地看到。

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