Aside from inspiration, this was hard physical work, often 22)tedious and occupying 14 hours a day and 6 days a week. The powerful young sculptor, a little over five feet tall, must have felt that he was the David, facing a giant enemy.
A year into the commission, the Cathedral elders pay a visit to view the work in progress. They're amazed at what they see, whether they expected a 23)nude is questionable but were known to have been delighted, they had commissioned a masterpiece after all.
杰作的诞生
--大卫雕像
如果说有哪件艺术品给曝光过度，那就是在佛罗伦萨市中心赤身露体了近五个世纪的米开朗基罗的大卫。近年来，他的阳刚美态又见诸于明信片、冰箱磁贴、甚至鼠标垫上。自然，这座雕像就是米开朗基罗·博纳罗蒂的代名词，不过成为了大卫的这块大理石，早在米开朗基罗出生前十年就已经给在琢磨了。
大理石是从佛罗伦萨北部60英里外对立城邦的阿普亚卑高山上开采的。文艺复兴时期意大利各城邦间的竞争为这个故事拉开序幕；米兰的繁荣辉煌敦使佛罗伦萨的当权者也找人来制作巨型雕像，以放在他们的大教堂顶上，这是一个雄心勃勃的计划。
一个名叫阿加提诺·迪杜奇奥的人当时是著名雕刻大师唐纳特罗的副手，雕刻大卫的任务正是被首先委派给他的。他计划分别开采四块大理石：一块做头，两只手各一块，还有一块做身体。另外的三块大理石下落不明。只有要用来造躯干的石块给保留了下来，即便这块，也是一千多年以来罗马帝国为制作巨型雕像所首次开采的最大大理石块。
迪杜奇奥从来没有接过这么大规模的工程，他更擅长处理比较简单的浮雕，但他没有退缩，选择了刻一个穿衣服的大卫。他在胸前刻了许多衣摺，塑造出脚，在两腿之间打了个洞眼，可是很快他就不得不放弃这种做法了，可能是大理石的体积或薄度难倒了他。
又过了12年，当权者才重拾信心，委托另一名雕刻家来琢磨这个麻烦的雕像。安东尼奥·罗索里诺是个足智多谋的能工巧匠，但他也败下阵来，成为该尺寸刁钻的石块的第二名牺牲者。
米开朗基罗可能是做出了一个蜡模型，和其他想得到这份工作的人竞争，他游说他们让他来接这个活儿。结果我想他凭借聪明才智从激烈的竞争中脱颖而出，赢得了这项委任。
合约给米开朗基罗两年的时间来完成大卫雕像。他每个月固定领取3个金币，那是一名好工匠的薪酬。
石块横着放太大了，只能竖起来。这意味着尘土和石屑像雨点似地飘落在雕刻者的身上。大理石的单薄构成最大的挑战，有些地方仅厚两尺，下手不容有任何闪失。雕琢必须经过精确计算，否则石块会被毁掉，或者造成比例失调的后果。大卫甚至有可能失去平衡，坠倒在地上成为一堆20吨重的石砾。根据建筑学理论，要刻一根树干置于腿后来支撑雕像，大卫两腿对立站着，一条腿直立。如果雕刻家由雕像的喉咙向脚垂测，便看到因符合重力原理，雕像是平衡的。
除了要有灵感外，这还是相当累人而乏味的体力工作，每周工作六天，每天工作14小时。身高五英尺多一点、年轻强壮的雕刻家当时一定觉得他自己就是面对巨人的大卫。
委任一年后，教堂的长老前来参观工作的进度。眼前所见令他们叹为观止，无论之前他们是否期望看到一座裸体雕像，但我们知道他们感到很高兴，毕竟他们的委任塑造了一个杰作。
注释：
1) manhood n. 男子气概
2) appropriate v. 挪用，盗用
3) synonymous a. 同义的
4) extract v. 费力地取到
5) rivalry n. 竞争，竞赛
6) renaissance n. 文艺复兴
7) put sth. in motion 使某物开始运转
8) provoke v. 煽动，惹起
9) colossal a. 巨大的，庞大的
10) cathedral n. 大教堂
11) renowned a. 有名的，有声誉的
12) torso n. 裸体雕像的躯干部分
13) quarry v. 挖出，苦心找出
14) drapery n. 织物，布料
15) resourceful a. 足智多谋的
16) intimidating a. 威胁的，恐吓的
17) florin n. 弗罗林，一种金币
18) horizontally adv. 地平地，水平地
19) tackle v. 固定，处理
20) contrapposto n.（雕塑或绘画中以对立方式表现出人体各部分的）对应
21) plumb line 用铅垂线检查垂直度
22) tedious a. 单调乏味的
23) nude n. 裸体
★★《2003年01月号-第38期-Disc01-09》★★
eBay
[原文]
Meg Whitman: It is incredibly unique, I mean, before eBay there was no way to connect businesses and individuals on a 24-7 basis in an efficient market to trade goods and services.
Interviewer: Did you have any idea going into this thing that it would be as successful as it has been?
Whitman: No, I mean, I thought that this was largely going to be a collectables web site. I thought the 1)homerun was if this was someday a 100 hundred million dollars in 2)revenue company, so obviously it has grown way beyond what I think any of us had anticipated.
Interviewer: "Way beyond" is an 3)understatement. Last year eBay has $748 million in revenue, up 74% from the year before, $90 million in profit and nearly 90% gain. And collectables were just the beginning, today eBay is the largest online seller of goods ranging from automobiles to computers to sporting goods, a total of 18 thousand categories in all.
Whitman: We followed the users everyday, now 6 million users come to the site and they're 4)entrepreneurs from around the globe who figure out how to best use the site. And if we watch what they do very carefully and help make them more successful then we, by definition, are successful.
Interviewer: Explain the role of the customer who uses eBay, how important that customer is and what they do for eBay.
Whitman: Well, the customer has really built eBay because we don't hold any of the 5)inventory. They pick the inventory, they merchandise it, they pick, pack and ship it, they handle their own customer support and they actually list all of the items on eBay. So, we are the market place manager but it is the customer that really has built the company.
And the customers keep building and coming. Right now, eBay has more than 42 million registered users, according to Whitman, that's about 25% of Americans online and they're leading eBay into new markets. Fixed price sales now 6)account for nearly 20% of eBay's business, up from zero just a year and a half ago and big business, including Home Depot, IBM and Disney, are now selling products there, but Whitman says the core of eBay will always be small and medium size businesses.
eBay网络奇谈
[译文]
梅格·惠特曼：eBay实在独一无二，我是说，在它之前，没有哪家公司能24小时不停地运作，让商家和个人得以在一个高效率的市场里完成交易与服务。
记者：当时你有没有想过它会创造出这样大的成功？
惠特曼：没有，当时以为这只是个收藏家的天地。我想如果哪天公司的收入达一亿就算是大获丰收了，所以说它现在的发展显然略高出了我们所有人的预想。
记者：“略高”是保守的说法，去年eBay创收7.48亿美元，比前年上升了74%，利润达9千万美元，增幅将近90%。eBay起初只是个收藏家的网站，今天则成为最大的网上集市，销售范围由汽车到电脑到体育用品，全部货种有1.8万类之多。
惠特曼：我们每天都关注着用户，现在登陆网站的用户有6百万，他们是来自全球的企业家，懂得很好地利用我们的网站。如果我们密切关注他们的做法，帮助他们成功，那么从定义上来说，我们也就成功了。
记者：请说说eBay用户的角色，用户有多重要以及他们对eBay的贡献是什么？
惠特曼：实际上eBay是用户建立起来的，因为我们并不拥有任何货品。他们亲自挑选货品，他们交易、选货、包装并运输，负责自己的客户服务，实际上eBay所有的货种全是他们列出来的。我们只要管理市场，而公司则由用户来建立。
用户在不断建立eBay的同时，用户数量也在增加。eBay现在有超过4200万名注册用户，惠特曼说，这大约相当于25%的美国人是eBay的用户，而且他们正成为eBay开拓着新的市场。一年半前，eBay还没有正价货品销售，如今上升到公司20%的业务份额。像Home Depot、IBM还有迪斯尼这样的大公司现在都在eBay上销售商品，但惠特曼说，ebay的核心业务将永远围绕中小型企业。
注释：
1) homerun n. [棒球]本垒打
2) revenue n. 收入，税收
3) understatement n. 保守或简略的陈述
4) entrepreneur n. 企业家
5) inventory n. 详细目录，存货
6) account for （在数量、比例方面）占
★★《2003年01月号-第38期-Disc01-10》★★
Denzel Washington
[原文]
Denzel first learned to fight growing up on the streets of Mount Vernon, a working-class suburb outside of New York City. His mother, Lenis, managed her own Beauty Shop, his father Denzel Senior was a Penacostel Preacher who 1)held down two other jobs. Denzel went to church every Sunday but dreamed of becoming a professional athlete. He spent all of his free time here, at what was then "The Boy's Club".
Journalist: This was an important place for you?
Denzel: Yep, I lived here! My mother had to come get me.
Journalist: So you had a time when you had to come home?
Denzel: Nine O'clock, man, I had it timed. I knew how to get to the fish market by 8:54 and by the chicken joint by 8:56 in order to make it home by 9 o'clock.
Journalist: Did she ever have to come looking for you?
Denzel: She did! She would! We were in a park and she came and they're like "Ahh D, your mom's here." And I got in the car and she was screaming. So I kinda look at everybody out the window like, you know, I got this. As I was turning around - POW! So I put my head under the 2)dashboard, "Just drive, ma, just drive."
Journalist: Your mother was important in you life?
Denzel: Oh yeah.
Journalist: She set the tone in the house? I mean, she was the 3)disciplinarian, not your father?
Denzel: Yeah, no, he was working, all the time.
Denzel says his mother Lattice saved his life when she 4)scraped together enough money to send him to Oakland Academy, a small 5)boarding school for boys in upstate New York.
Journalist: How did you end up here?
Denzel: I was in a public school, Malburnham High School, and my mother decided it was best to get me outta there before I ended up like where a lot of my friends are now. You know in the grave, in the 6)penitentiary. My mother had a good understanding what exposure would do for her children, and she tried to expose us to things. She used to ride us around in Scarsdale and we'd pick out houses that we wanted. "That one's gonna be mine! Oh, I'm going to get one like that！" You know, or "Take me to see the Nutcracker Sweet."
Journalist: You owe her a lot?
Denzel: I owe her everything!
Journalist: I assume you told her that?
Denzel : In many ways! Yeah.
Journalist: When you come back here with all the success you've had today and all the confidence you have today, do you still see you? The kid who was here and the man who is there now?
Denzel: It's and in a way, no, and I'll tell you why, because I'm an actor, so I'm 7)schizoid anyway. You know, you play and become so many... I've been so many people between then and now. I've played so many different roles. It's not a smooth line from there to here.
The roughest point on that line, Densel says, was when he was 20, 8)floundering 9)flunking out of college. Then he told us he was touched by an angel.
Denzel: I was in my mother's beauty shop and I was looking in the mirror, and I saw a woman sitting across the room from me. And she said to my mother, "Bring me a piece of paper, I have a 10)prophecy."-- It's the God honest truth, I've got the piece of paper, I keep it with me all the time -- and she wrote down, she said, "This boy is gonna speak to millions of people." I asked my mother afterwards, I said, "Who the hell is this? You know what she's talking about?" She said, "Well, she is one of the oldest church members in my branch and people say she has the gift of prophecy." I'm like, well, why didn't I meet her a year ago before I got kick out of school or something. You know, so I don't talk about that a lot, but I've kinda felt like maybe I've got some job to do.
With that job in mind, Denzel returned to New York's Fordham University where he found he had a gift, acting, and he's never looked back. He now lives in Los Angeles with Pauletta, his wife, and their 4 children in a house bigger than anything he might have seen in Scarsdale. This gifted, 11)purposeful man says he has found his voice through the men he plays and those voices speak to millions of people. That's the part of the job he cares about.
丹泽·华盛顿
[译文]
丹泽原本在弗农山--纽约市郊一个工薪阶层区--的街道上打架长大。他的母亲列宁思开有一家美容院，父亲老丹泽是名传教士，还兼有两份其他的工作。丹泽每个星期天都上教堂做礼拜，可他的梦想是成为一名职业运动员。他把所有的空余时间都泡在一个叫“男孩俱乐部”的地方。
记者：这地方对你的意义很重大吧？
丹泽：对，我以前就住在这儿！母亲还得来接我回家。
记者：那么说你还要按时回家？
丹泽：我9点钟就要到家。我还知道要在8点54分赶到鱼市，8点56分赶到鸡市，这样9点钟才能准时到家。
记者：她有没有出来找过你？
丹泽：有啊！她会来找我！我们在公园里，她来了，他们说“啊，阿丹，你妈来了。”我上了车，她便大声吆喝。我就望着车窗外的大伙儿，瞧吧，我妈就这样。然后我一转头--啪！挨了一记。我抱着头躲到仪表板底下，“开车吧，妈，你开车吧。”
记者：你母亲对你的一生影响深远吗？
丹泽：噢，是的。
记者：在家里是她说了算吗？我是说，你家里是严母而不是严父？
丹泽：是严母不是严父，父亲总是工作又工作。
丹泽说他的母亲拉蒂思苦苦攒下足够的钱送他上奥克兰学院，是挽救了他的命运，那是在纽约州北部的一所小寄宿学校。
记者：你是怎么来到这的？
丹泽：我原来是在马本翰公立中学念书，后来妈妈认为最好还是趁我没步其他朋友后尘之前转学的好。他们现在有的躺在坟墓里，有的进了监狱。我妈妈很清楚地知道该让孩子看什么有好处，她会带我们去多面接触。从前她常开车带我们上斯卡德尔逛，让我们挑选合心意的房子。“我要这一套！喔，我要买套那样的！”或者说“带我去看《甜胡桃夹》吧。”
记者：你很感激她吧？
丹泽：我感激她的一切。
记者：我想你向她表达过了？
丹泽：是的，以许多方式表达了！
记者：今天你取得了巨大成功，带着满满的自信来重游旧地，你是否仍然能看到自己呢？我是说，当初那个小男孩的影子和现在的这个男子汉？
丹泽：从某方面来说，看不到了，我跟你解释这原因：因为我身为演员，会有多重性格。演出过很多……一直以来我扮演过很多人，演过许多不同的角色。由彼及此的路途不是平平稳稳的。
丹泽说，这条路上最难走的一段是他20岁的时候从大学退学，一筹莫展。然后他说他遇到一位天使。
丹泽：那时我到妈妈的美容院去，从镜子里看到对面坐着一个女人。她对我妈妈说：“给我一张纸，我有预言。”--这件事千真万确，我保留着那张纸，一直随身带着--接着她往纸上写字，她说：“这个男孩将会对无数人说话。”后来我问妈妈：“这人到底是谁？你知道她说了什么吗？”她说：“她是我这支教会中年纪最大的教友之一，别人说她有预言的能力。”我就在想，啊，一年前被学校开除之前我怎么没遇到她。我没怎么提过这件事，可那多少让我觉得，或许天生我材必有用吧。
丹泽带着这样的想法回到纽约福德罕大学，在那里，他发现了自己的表演天分，从此一往无前。现在他和妻子宝丽塔以及四个孩子一起住在洛杉矶，他的住房比从前在斯卡德尔看到的任何一座都大。这个聪明坚毅的人说，他通过自己扮演过的角色找到了自己的声音，并用此声音向无数人说话。那是他所热爱的工作。
注释：
1) hold down （非正式）保住工作
2) dashboard n. 汽车等的仪表板
3) disciplinarian n. 厉行纪律的人
4) scrape v. 艰难地积攒
5) boarding school 寄宿学校
6) penitentiary n. 收容所，教养所
7) schizoid a. 精神分裂的
8) flounder v. 挣扎，辗转
9) flunk out （口）因不及格而退学
10) prophecy n. 预言
11) purposeful a. 有目的，坚定
★★《2003年01月号-第38期-Disc01-11》★★
Teacher Shortage
[原文]
Tina Millington: Teaching is, to me, the greatest profession. It is a profession, it's not a job. It's something that many teachers choose at the beginning and do for the rest of their lives.
But fewer people than ever are choosing the profession. That's why Tina Millington is leading this literature class at Brooklyn's Sheep's Head Bay High School and not in her native Barbados, where she's a 1)certified teacher.
Tina Millington: They came to us and invited us, basically, to bring what we had to offer.
They are recruiters from the New York City's Public School system, which is facing its worse teacher shortage ever.
Harold Levy: This year we have a large number of teachers from Barbados, from Spain, from Canada, and from the other English-speaking Caribbean countries.
750 international teachers to be exact, all hired by Chancellor of New York City schools, Harold Levy.
Harold Levy: We have a national teacher shortage.
A shortage indeed. At the start of this school year, 2)nearly a quarter of a billion teaching jobs were unfilled nationwide, sending the 3)Big Apple and other big cities looking internationally. Philadelphia's Board of Education, dealing with a shortfall of 800 teachers, 4)scoured India. Chicago went to 35 countries to help fill three thousand jobs and Huston needing one thousand teachers, searched Russia and Poland. What's the problem? Some say money.
Ed Eubanks: We go overseas for two reasons: because we don't have the skill base here in America to fulfill the positions or the people who have the skill aren't willing to work in the salary working conditions that are being offered and we believe that it's the latter.
Ed Eubanks is a recruiter for the National Education Association Union and feels that 42 thousand dollars average year starting salary is too small.
Ed Eubanks: Teachers are paid considerably less than professions that require a similar amount of education and skill.
How much less? In the 1970s the difference in starting pay between teachers and lawyers here in New York City was only about $2,000 a year. Today, it's more than 100 thousand and the gap is widening.
Ed Eubanks: There was a time in this country where we paid an appropriate amount for what they did, today we talk a good game about doing that but in fact, we don't.
In New York, the average starting salary is only 32 thousand dollars, 10 thousand below the national average. But lack of pay isn't the only issue, growth is another. Over the next 4 years, 20 million students will enter the nation's high schools, a third more than the current enrolment, and at the same time, more than a million teachers will retire. 5)Attrition is yet another issue of those teachers who are hired, 20% are lost within 3 years.
Randi Weigarten:The problem with the system and the problem across the country is, can you recruit who you want, can you retain the good ones and can you 6)winnow out the ones you want to get rid of? And at each step of the way we're hindered.
