杜然的blog——i'm blinded by blackness

楼在一座小山上，这座山名叫珞珈山。山名原本很俗，据说是闻一多改成了现在的名字。楼面朝东湖，几年前还没有那么多楼房的时候，在阳台上是能直接看见日出的，伴随着湖对岸驻军的早号声。部队驻扎的那座山，把倒影留在了湖面上，云烟氤氲中，有皮划艇划过。

楼下有一排不知道名字的树，春天，它们的枝头开满白色的大花，有点香，却并不浓郁；树叶则是在花事过后才长出来。正对着阳台的那棵树，总有点迫不及待，在春雨把其他的树唤醒之前，它就已经花满枝。这棵树总让我想起1974年的那个女人，她穿着露背的衣服，从上海的五原路走到乌鲁木齐路，身后是上千个看热闹的人。据说，那个女人后来以“流氓罪”获刑。

不写了，这样的夜晚可以拿来睡觉，可以拿来看书，但绝对不是拿来写博客的。

15号二点就出门去了机场，听说今天下午三四点很多地方要交通管制。我就奇了怪了，既然人民堵车，人民的代表为什么就不能堵车！今天是新安检措施出台的第一天，机场排队安检的队伍很长，行进缓慢，这是因为：尽管不停有工作人员来回提醒，液体和化妆品必须托运，还是有许多心存侥幸的乘客在X光机面前被拦下，嘟囔着打开行李；看来原来的安检真是不严，现在一严起来，什么东西都给搜出来了。上了飞机，发现严格安检的最大好处就是，飞机上的行李厢空了许多，我想这个新举措将会帮助中国人养成把行李托运的习惯。

朋友一大早打电话过来，笑着说在今天的新京报上看到一个标题：《“英国版刀郎”詹姆斯·布朗特》。到这份报纸的网站上看了一下那篇文章，文章的第一句是这么说的：“有着乐坛‘上尉诗人’美誉的英国当红歌手詹姆斯·布朗特（James Blunt）即将展开首次中国之旅。”我一下糊涂了，那则标题究竟是在羞辱James Blunt呢，还是在夸耀刀郎呢？那位记者说，把刀郎和詹姆斯·布朗特放在一起比较，是因为两人的走红程度、时间以及历程确实非常类似。如果Boy George来中国演出，不知道这家报纸会不会用这样的标题：《“英国版蔡国庆”乔治男孩》；如果路易斯·阿姆斯特朗还活着并且来中国演出，又不知道这家报纸会不会用这样的标题：《“美国版李双江”路易斯·阿姆斯特朗》。要问阿姆斯特朗和李双江怎么放到了一起，答案是：阿姆斯特朗是爵士乐大师，而李双江老师的《我爱五指山,我爱万泉河》当年也很红啊。还有美国的家政女王玛莎·斯图尔特，肯定可以被称为“美国的刘晓庆”，因为这两位姐姐都坐过牢，又都勇敢地站了起来；还有香港的陈先生，也可以被称为“香港的巴黎的希尔顿”……

幽默的来源之一，就是不搭界事物之间的类比；愚蠢也是。

Paul Constant在西雅图的一家独立书店工作了八年。在这八年里，他已经记不的自己有多少次追着偷书贼大喊“把书放下”。对于独立书店来说，因为请不起保安，猖獗的小偷甚至能让他们破产。在Paul Constant看来，抓书贼的过程充满了乐趣与危险；有一家独立书店的老板特别爱和陌生人聊偷书贼，而且一聊就是几个小时，Paul Constant说，“许多人只有在说艳遇的时候才会如此绘声绘色，事无巨细。”

Paul Constant曾经在一家大型的连锁书店工作过，因为书店有钱请得起保安，所以作为员工，他从来不用操心偷书贼的问题。但是保安有时也会惹麻烦，他工作的那家书店就把一个保安开出了，因为这名保安在儿童图书区“打手枪”。

Paul Constant声称，偶尔有偷书贼跑得比他快；这个时候，他就会在小偷的后面大喊：“混蛋，有种你就去偷连锁书店！”他说，这种时候，小偷不会有任何回应，只顾着往前跑。

看看原文吧，贼好玩儿。

Flying Off the Shelves
The Pleasures and Perils of Chasing Book Thieves

by Paul Constant

In my eight years working at an independent bookstore, I lost count of how many shoplifters I chased through the streets of Seattle while shouting "Drop the book!" I chased them down crowded pedestrian plazas in the afternoon, I chased them through alleys at night, I even chased one into a train tunnel. I chased a book thief to the waterfront, where he shouted, "Here are your fucking books!" and threw a half-dozen paperbacks, including Bomb the Suburbs and A People's History of the United States, into Puget Sound, preferring to watch them slowly sink into the muck rather than hand them back to the bookseller they were stolen from. He had that ferocious, orgasmic gleam in his eye of somebody who was living in the climax of his own movie: I suppose he felt like he was liberating them somehow.

To work in an independent bookstore is to always be aware of shoplifters. It can devour you; you can spend all your time watching people, wondering if they're watching you. Every shoplifter caught is a major victory against the forces of darkness; every one who escapes is another 10 minutes kept awake at night with gnashing teeth.

I know a few booksellers who have literally been driven a little bit crazy at the thought of their inventory evaporating out the door, and with good reason: An overabundance of shoplifters can put bookstores out of business. One local bookstore owner can famously talk about shoplifters with total strangers for hours, with the detail and passion that some people reserve for sexual conquests.

There's an underground economy of boosted books. These values are commonly understood and roundly agreed upon through word of mouth, and the values always seem to be true. Once, a scruffy, large man approached me, holding a folded-up piece of paper. "Do you have any Buck?" He paused and looked at the piece of paper. "Any books by Buckorsick?" I suspected that he meant Bukowski, but I played dumb, and asked to see the piece of paper he was holding. It was written in crisp handwriting that clearly didn't belong to him, and it read:

1. Charles Bukowski

2. Jim Thompson

3. Philip K. Dick

4. William S. Burroughs

5. Any Graphic Novel

This is pretty much the authoritative top five, the New York Times best-seller list of stolen books. Its origins still mystify me. It might have belonged to an unscrupulous used bookseller who sent the homeless out, Fagin-like, to do his bidding, or it might have been another book thief helping a semi-illiterate friend identify the valuable merchandise. I asked the man whether he preferred Bukowski's Pulp to his Women, as I did, and whether his favorite Thompson book was The Getaway or The Killer Inside Me. First the book chatter made him nervous, but then it made him angry: He bellowed, "You're just a little bitch, ain't'cha?" and stormed out.

Most used bookstores try to avoid buying unread-looking books from the list above, but they do always sell, and so any crook who figures out how to roll a spine can turn a profit pretty easily. The list of popular books is surprisingly static, although newer artists have earned their place in the pantheon with Hunter S. Thompson and the Beats: Palahniuk, Murakami, and Danielewski have become hugely popular antisellers in the last five years. I've had hundreds of dollars of graphic novels—Sandman, Preacher, The Dark Knight Returns—lifted from right under my nose all at once. Science fiction and fantasy are high in demand, too: The coin of the realm is now, and has always been, the fiction that young white men read, and self-satisfied young white men, the kind who love to stick it to the man, are the majority of book shoplifters.

When I worked at a big-box chain bookstore, shoplifters never crossed my mind; the corporation paid security guards for that. Employees were told not to get involved. The legal issues were too Byzantine for us peons to understand. The guards, instead, created problems: We had to fire one for masturbating in the children's section.

But independent booksellers, understanding that the line between profit and failure is so fine, take it personally, and sprint after thieves all the time. On the rare occasion when a shoplifter would run faster than I could, I would shout at his back as he escaped into the city: "Why don't you steal from a fucking corporate bookstore, you asshole?" None of them ever responded. They just kept running.

几个月前，就有朋友向我推荐独立摇滚乐队The Hoosiers的歌，当时听了听，没留下什么印象。这段时间，设置为自动选择的播放器总是挑出他们的歌，那种英式带着幽默感的唱腔，让人听起来忍不住嘴角就向上。

推荐两首：

Worried About Ray

观看视频

兔斯基有一个经典动作，就是用手指做出“二”的姿势，在眼前划过；这首歌过门的节拍特别适合做这个动作。

Goodbye Mr.A

观看视频

《Astrid & Veronika》如果拍成了电影，一定是欧洲的大闷片。

故事来得很清淡，Veronika是一名新西兰的文艺女青年，在某个冬天独自来到瑞典，一方面为了找一个安静的地方忘却一些记忆，另一方面完成小说创作。她租下了被村里人成为巫婆的孤老太Astrid的房子。慢慢地，两人有了接触，有了友谊，双方说出了内心的秘密，两个人的一生被永远改变了……

《The Memory Keeper's Daughter》的作者Kim Edwards如此评价这本小说：“Evokes, with great beauty and precision, the landscape of a friendship.”一字不多，一字不少，精炼地概括了这本小说所有的特点。

《Astrid & Veronika》是新西兰作家Linda Olsson的第一本小说。与故事同样清淡的，还有她的文字。当小说中的女主人公Veronika刚来到这个冬雪中安静的小村落时，作者是这么描写的：“The sounds of darkenss were faint but familar. She could hear the snow adjusting to the slowly rising temperature...”对于融雪，我没有见过比这个更美、更独特的描述，一副"great beauty"的意象在Linda Olsson简单却另辟蹊径的用词中呈现了出来。我看到用在这里的“adjusting”，产生了一种充满绝望的妒忌。

在这趟旅行开始的时候，Linda Olsson描绘了Veronika的旅行心境：“It had been a slow journey, but it had given her time to think.（这是一趟漫长的旅行，但却让她有时间去想一些问题。）”这句话人人都会说，但Linda Olsson在这句话之后又出人意料地补上一句：“Or erase thoughts.（或者，让她把一些牵挂放下。）”看得出，Linda Olsson是一个对文字表达异常、异常敏感的人，这种敏感还体现在她对环境、对一些小动作细致入微地刻画，比如“i would watch the river flow so eagerly on its way...”“When there was a moment of comfortable silence, the music expanded to fill the space”“She closed her eyes, took a sip and let the sweetness fill her mouth”“She lifted her eyes and looked out the window. She felt as if she were suspended between two worlds, belonging to neither”……

在新西兰，有许多书评家说Linda Olsson的文字非常的“斯堪地纳维亚”。的确，小说安静得就像北欧的风景。英文并不是Olsson的母语，她是瑞典人。在斯德哥尔摩大学拿到法律学士学位后，从事金融方面的工作。1986年起，她先后居住在肯尼亚、新加坡、英国和日本，在伦敦期间，她进行了创作方面培训，后来移民到新西兰，开始写短篇小说。她似乎对用英文写作比对瑞典语写作更有信心，她说自己的英文写作更为成熟。在这本小说翻译成瑞典文的时候，她曾经尝试亲自操刀，但很快就放弃了，改由他人翻译，她发现自己在瑞典语里面找不到许多英语的对应表达。

人与人之间的关系、安静，都是Olsson感兴趣的。“安静”在《Astrid & Veronika》一书中，呈现出不同的颜色和姿态。至于下一部小说，Olsson将以男性为主人公，她说自己为此正在研究波兰的历史；那部小说很有可能叫《The Consequence of Silence》。

补充：
刚才又看到一个巨牛掰的句子 But he smiled at me across the bar, pushed a beer my way and the world shifted a little.
爱死这个作家了。还从来没看过哪位作家，能如此准确地捕捉到你我都无法用语言描述出来的、最微妙、最细腻的情绪和心态。她抓住了那个转瞬即逝的瞬间，然后用文字呈现。