【英语时差8,16】佛罗里达群岛的传统：吹海螺壳

 Playing a Frank Sinatra classic on a conch shell helped a local bicycle tour operator take top honors in an unusual "musical" competition.

Lloyd Mager impressed judges at the 47th annual Conch Shell Blowing Contest with portions of "Strangers in the Night," as well as the classic Hebrew folk song "Hava Nagilah" and "The Alley¹ Cat Song.""The conch shell comes with me on every single tour," said Mager, a 35-year Key West resident. "I love to blast it through the neighborhoods and play songs — and the people on my tour love it."Judges evaluated contest entrants, who ranged from less than 3 years old to seniors, on the quality, novelty, duration and loudness of the sounds they produced.

"To play the conch shell well, you need the lips and the cheek muscles," said Mager, who likened it to playing a brass² instrument. "But it comes from the heart and soul."The winning group entry was an 18-piece "conchestra" whose members blew their shells while dancing to a parody³ of Jimmy Buffett's "Volcano."Conch shell blowing has been practiced in the Florida Keys for generations. Early settlers blew blasts to signal that a sinking ship had been spotted⁴ offshore⁵, and native-born islanders are commonly called Conchs. The shell of the sea mollusk⁶ is a symbol of the island chain, also known as the Conch Republic.

1 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

2 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

3 parody   

n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文

参考例句：

• The parody was just a form of teasing.那个拙劣的模仿只是一种揶揄。
• North Korea looks like a grotesque parody of Mao's centrally controlled China,precisely the sort of system that Beijing has left behind.朝鲜看上去像是毛时代中央集权的中国的怪诞模仿，其体制恰恰是北京方面已经抛弃的。

4 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。

5 offshore   

adj.海面的，吹向海面的；adv.向海面

参考例句：

• A big program of oil exploration has begun offshore.一个大规模的石油勘探计划正在近海展开。
• A gentle current carried them slowly offshore.和缓的潮流慢慢地把他们带离了海岸。

6 mollusk   

n.软体动物

参考例句：

• I swear I have never seen such a mollusk with thorns all over its body.我敢发誓我从来没有见过这种全身长满棘刺的软体动物。
• The colour varies with the mollusk and its environment.颜色因母体及其环境的不同而异。