VOA慢速英语 2007 0223b

HOST:

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC¹, in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

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

We answer a question about the Everglades ...

Play some music nominated for an Academy Award ...

And report about an artist who builds boxes.

Joseph Cornell

Have you ever heard of art in a box? Joseph Cornell was an important artist best known for his beautifully constructed boxes. A large collection of his interesting artwork was shown recently at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Faith Lapidus tells us more.

FAITH LAPIDUS:


An unnamed work by Joseph Cornell

You could say that Joseph Cornell became an artist because of his love of collecting. Cornell used to spend his free time exploring the street life of New York City in the nineteen twenties. He soon started collecting old books, prints, postcards and even three-dimensional objects that he found in stores that sold used books.

Cornell also attended many museum shows, gallery openings and dance performances. He was influenced by a group of artists called the Surrealists who combined images in unusual and often strange ways.

Joseph Cornell started making his own works by cutting out different pictures and putting them together in creative and magical combinations. Soon, he started making boxes inside of which were carefully arranged pictures and objects. He worked on his art at night after finishing his day job. Later, when his boxes and images started selling and receiving public recognition, he worked on his art full time.

Joseph Cornell died in nineteen seventy-two.The Smithsonian exhibit showed almost two hundred works made during his forty-year career. One work is called Soap Bubble Set. A box with a glass window shows a map of the moon, several pictures of sea creatures, two glass cups and two white pipes for smoking. In another box, Cornell combines an image of a cockatoo bird with a music box and watch faces.

Joseph Cornell once said his art was based on everyday experiences. He said that with his art he showed the beauty of the commonplace. Visitors who came to this special exhibit found magic in regular objects - and even saw beauty in a box.

The Everglades

HOST:

Our listener question this week comes from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Nguyen Thanh Duc wants to know about the Everglades National Park in the southern state of Florida.


Part of the Everglades

The Everglades National Park is the third largest national park in the mainland United States. President Harry² S. Truman officially established the national park in nineteen forty-seven. He placed almost two hundred thousand hectares of land in the area under federal control.

The parkland has since been expanded several times. The United States now protects more than six hundred thousand hectares of the Everglades. This is only about twenty percent of the Everglades ecosystem³.

The Everglades was the first national park established to protect only biological resources. The wetlands are famous around the world for their diversity of wildlife. The United Nations has called the area a world biological treasure.

The Everglades is really a slow-moving, extremely shallow river that flows south to the ocean. It is filled with sharp, thin sawgrass. This is why the Everglades is sometimes called the River of Grass. The area was also once called the liquid heart of Florida.

Forests of palm, cypress⁴, mangrove⁵ and pine are also a part of the Everglades. It is home to beautiful plants and sweet-smelling flowers. These include several kinds of the highly prized and rare flower, the orchid⁶.

Many kinds of animals live in the Everglades. Many colorful birds and butterflies live there. So do snakes, frogs, foxes and even big cats, called Florida panthers. But the alligators⁷ and crocodiles are probably the animals most identified with the Everglades. No other place in the world is home to both.

However, the Everglades is one of the most endangered national parks in the United States. Human activities and development around the edges of the park threaten the area's health and future. Many of the animals are in danger of disappearing.

More than one million people visit the Everglades National Park each year. The park will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary next December.

Oscar Nominated Songs

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present its seventy-ninth yearly Academy Awards on Sunday. These awards are known as the Oscars. They honor writers, directors, actors and others who helped create the best motion pictures last year. They also honor songs written for those movies. Barbara Klein has more.

BARBARA KLEIN:

One of the five nominated songs was written by Randy Newman for the animated⁸ movie Cars. It is called Our Town, and is performed by James Taylor.

(MUSIC)

A second nominated song was written by Melissa Etheridge. It is called I Need To Wake Up. It is from the documentary about global warming called An Inconvenient⁹ Truth.

The final three nominated songs all were written by Henry Krieger for the musical movie Dreamgirls. The movie is about a group of female singers who become famous during the nineteen sixties. One of the songs is called Listen. Beyonce sings it in Dreamgirls. This song is called Patience. Eddie Murphy sings it in the movie.

(MUSIC)

We leave you now with the third song nominated from the movie Dreamgirls. Jennifer Hudson sings Love You I Do.

(MUSIC)

HOST:

I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today. It was written by Dana Demange, Nancy Steinbach and Caty Weaver¹⁰, who was also our producer. To read the text of this program and download audio, go to our Web site, www.unsv.com.

Send your questions about American life to [email protected]. Please include your full name and mailing address. Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., 20237, U.S.A.

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 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

3 ecosystem   

n.生态系统

参考例句：

• This destroyed the ecosystem of the island.这样破坏了岛上的生态系统。
• We all have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem.维持生态系统的完整是我们共同的利益。

4 cypress   

n.柏树

参考例句：

• The towering pine and cypress trees defy frost and snow.松柏参天傲霜雪。
• The pine and the cypress remain green all the year round.苍松翠柏，常绿不凋。

5 mangrove   

n.(植物)红树，红树林

参考例句：

• It is the world's largest tidal mangrove forest.它是世界上最大的红树林沼泽地。
• Many consider this the most beautiful mangrove forest in all Thailand.许多人认为这里是全泰国最美丽的红树林了。

6 orchid   

n.兰花，淡紫色

参考例句：

• The orchid is a class of plant which I have never tried to grow.兰花这类植物我从来没种过。
• There are over 35 000 species of orchid distributed throughout the world.有35,000多种兰花分布在世界各地。

7 alligators   

n.短吻鳄( alligator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Two alligators rest their snouts on the water's surface. 两只鳄鱼的大嘴栖息在水面上。 来自辞典例句
• In the movement of logs by water the lumber industry was greatly helped by alligators. 木材工业过去在水上运输木料时所十分倚重的就是鳄鱼。 来自辞典例句

8 animated   

adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的

参考例句：

• His observations gave rise to an animated and lively discussion.他的言论引起了一场气氛热烈而活跃的讨论。
• We had an animated discussion over current events last evening.昨天晚上我们热烈地讨论时事。

9 inconvenient   

adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的

参考例句：

• You have come at a very inconvenient time.你来得最不适时。
• Will it be inconvenient for him to attend that meeting?他参加那次会议会不方便吗？

10 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。