VOA慢速英语20060825b

AMERICAN MOSAIC¹ - 'Grandmother to the Nation' Celebrated² in Traveling Art ShowBy Nancy Steinbach and Caty Weaver³

Broadcast: Friday, August 25, 2006

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week:

We answer a question about America's capital city ...

Play some music that honors the city of New Orleans ...

And report about a new Grandma Moses art show.

Grandma Moses

HOST:

The American artist known as Grandma Moses did not begin painting until she was more than seventy-five years old. But her work was soon popular all over the world. Barbara Klein tells about a new show of her work.

BARBARA KLEIN:


Grandma Moses

The new show is at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York. It is called Grandma Moses: Grandmother to the Nation. Critics say the new exhibit of thirty-eight paintings makes it clear why her work was and still is so popular. They say her colorful paintings show American life in a more simple time.

Anna Mary Robertson Moses painted happy pictures of everyday life in small farming villages. Her paintings include farms, houses, mountains, fields, animals and people. Sometimes she painted the same scene many times at different times of the year -- in the snowy winter and the green summer.

People say Grandma Moses painted the past as she remembered it. But not all the paintings were made from memory. Art experts say she used pictures in magazines and newspapers to help create her paintings.


Sugaring Off

One of the best known of these paintings is called Sugaring Off. She painted it in nineteen forty-five. It shows people working on a snowy farm gathering⁴ and processing maple⁵ syrup⁶ from trees. Sugaring Off was based on a work of art by the famous artists Currier and Ives.

Sugaring Off is one of the paintings included in the new show at the Fenimore Art Museum. Another is called A Country Wedding, painted in nineteen fifty-one. It shows a bride and groom⁷ and guests at an outdoor wedding in the summer.

Grandma Moses began painting such pictures when the disease arthritis⁸ forced her to stop creating art with wool and other materials. She showed her paintings at county fairs and stores in New York State where she lived. An art collector from New York City saw them in a drug store window in nineteen thirty-nine. He bought ten paintings. One year later, Grandma Moses had her first art show. It was called What a Farmer's Wife Painted.

Grandma Moses died in nineteen sixty-one at the age of one hundred one. She had produced more than one thousand six hundred paintings in the last twenty years of her life. The exhibit in Cooperstown will travel to four other American cities next year.

Washingtons

HOST:

Our VOA listener question this week comes from Bangladesh. Shafiqul Islam asks about the difference between Washington and Washington, D.C.




Washington, D.C., is the capital city of the United States. The city is also known simply as Washington. It was named for the country's first president, George Washington.

That story goes back to the beginning of the United States more than two hundred years ago. The states approved a constitution in seventeen eighty-eight. But they could not decide where to build the permanent capital. Northern states did not want the capital in the South because slavery existed there. The southern states did not want the capital in the North.

Finally, after much negotiation⁹, the United States Congress agreed to build the capital along the Potomac River between the states of Virginia and Maryland. The city would be built in a federal area on land provided by the two states. The city would be called Washington. The larger federal area would be named the District of Columbia.

Columbia was another name for the United States, used mostly by poets and other writers. The name came from Christopher Columbus, the explorer who sailed from Europe across the Atlantic Ocean to the western hemisphere.So the city became known as Washington, the District of Columbia or Washington, D.C.

Many other places in the United States are named after President George Washington. They include the western state of Washington and the town of Washington, Pennsylvania.

In fact, twenty-four different American states have towns named Washington. Many other townships and counties within states are also called Washington. And at least fifteen mountains in the United States are called Mount Washington.

So you can find many places in the United States called Washington, but only one called Washington, D.C.

The River in Reverse

HOST:

Rock musician Elvis Costello and rhythm and blues¹⁰ artist Allen Toussaint have released an album that honors New Orleans, Louisiana. Mario Ritter tells about The River in Reverse, and plays some of its songs.

MARIO RITTER:

Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint appear to be an unlikely pair. Allen Toussaint's
'Allen

professional life in music began in the late nineteen-fifties in his hometown of New Orleans. He played piano in clubs in that southern city while still a teenager. He later wrote many rhythm and blues hit songs and became a successful producer.

Elvis Costello began recording¹¹ in London in the late nineteen seventies. He helped build a musical bridge between punk and pop music. Later he explored many other kinds of music including classical and jazz.

The River in Reverse, includes seven songs Toussaint wrote years ago and five new songs that he and Costello wrote together. Here is the title song, the only one Costello wrote by himself.

(MUSIC: The River in Reverse)

Many of the songs were written long before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans last year on August twenty-ninth. However, the men perform them in a way that creates a musical link to the tragedy. The old song, Tears, Tears and More Tears, is a good example.

(MUSIC)

Elvis Costello's band, the Imposters, and the Crescent City Horns also perform on the album. Crescent City is a nickname for New Orleans.

We leave you now with another song from The River in Reverse. Here is Ascension Day.

(MUSIC)

HOST:

I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.

This show was written by Nancy Steinbach and Caty Weaver, who also was our producer. To read the text of this program and download audio, go to our Web site, www.unsv.com. Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA's radio magazine in Special English.

1 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

2 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

3 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

4 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

5 maple   

n.槭树，枫树，槭木

参考例句：

• Maple sugar is made from the sap of maple trees.枫糖是由枫树的树液制成的。
• The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。

6 syrup   

n.糖浆，糖水

参考例句：

• I skimmed the foam from the boiling syrup.我撇去了煮沸糖浆上的泡沫。
• Tinned fruit usually has a lot of syrup with it.罐头水果通常都有许多糖浆。

7 groom   

vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁

参考例句：

• His father was a groom.他父亲曾是个马夫。
• George was already being groomed for the top job.为承担这份高级工作，乔治已在接受专门的培训。

8 arthritis   

n.关节炎

参考例句：

• Rheumatoid arthritis has also been linked with the virus.风湿性关节炎也与这种病毒有关。
• He spent three months in the hospital with acute rheumatic arthritis.他患急性风湿性关节炎，在医院住了三个月。

9 negotiation   

n.谈判，协商

参考例句：

• They closed the deal in sugar after a week of negotiation.经过一星期的谈判，他们的食糖生意成交了。
• The negotiation dragged on until July.谈判一直拖到7月份。

10 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

11 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。