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VOA慢速英语2010年-American Mosaic - Remembering Lena Hor

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DOUG JOHNSON: Welcome to American Mosaic1 in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I’m Doug Johnson.

Today on our show we listen to the great singer Lena Horne, who died this week at age ninety-two…

And we answer a question about the inventor of the telephone.

But first we report on places people are gathering2 to share food, drink and science.

(MUSIC)

Science Cafes

Lena Horne in the 1946 film "Till the Clouds Roll By"

DOUG JOHNSON: Many people have difficulty understanding complex subjects in science. And scientists often have trouble explaining what they do in language that the public can understand. Now there is a movement to bring scientists out of the laboratory and into the community for talks over dinner and drinks. Shirley Griffith has more.

JULIE BIERACH: "Hello everyone. Welcome to Science Cafe. Thank you so much for coming out tonight."

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Most people learn about science in school, from the media or on the Internet. But at a science cafe, they get to learn about it from the scientists themselves. There are now more than one hundred science cafes at bars and restaurants in the United States.

Visitors enjoy a meal at Herbie's Restaurant before a Saint3 Louis Science Center Science Café

For the past four years, Al Wiman has organized a monthly science cafe for the Saint Louis Science Center in Missouri. Mister Wiman says the idea started in Europe. It is a way to get scientists to talk with the general public about what they do. He says part of what makes the science cafe successful is that the conversations take place at a restaurant called Herbie's.

Saint Louis has two science cafes. The second one is called Science on Tap. Washington University professors talk about their research. Science on Tap meets once a month at a bar called the Schlafly Bottleworks. Many different people attend the events. They include engineers, doctors, students and other people interested in science. So what brings people out to a bar to talk about science?

MIKE STUART: "I like the atmosphere. It's fun to learn things and enjoy a good beer.

RON ROGERS: "I would call this a civilized4 education."

ROBERT PLESS: "Why aren't more science talks in a bar, right? Like this is the place where you learn and you ask and you understand things most quickly, instead of a lecture where it's really just a one-way thing."

Scientists talk about many kinds of subjects -- from black holes to biological clocks to botany. But the evening really gets interesting after the scientist's talk ends and the audience gets to ask questions. Sometimes the questions go on longer than the talk itself. But the scientists do not seem to mind. Ivan Jimenez of the Missouri Botanical Garden says he likes the chance to talk about his work with people outside the scientific community.

(MUSIC)

Alexander Graham Bell

Out listener question this week comes from Vietnam. Le Thuy Kieu wants to know about Alexander Graham Bell.

The inventor was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in eighteen forty-seven. From an early age, Aleck liked to make new things and find new ways of doing work. He was also interested in art, poetry and music. He taught himself how to play the piano.

His mother’s increasing deafness led the young man to study acoustics5 -- the way we hear and how sounds are made. He also found a way to help his mother hear better. Instead of speaking into her ear, he spoke6 toward the top of her face. He also carefully formed the words he spoke.

Alexander Graham Bell believed one day machines would be invented to help deaf people hear and speak. He did not like the idea of sign language. For most of his life, Bell worked with deaf people. In eighteen seventy, the family moved to Canada. The next year Bell moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to teach at a school for the deaf.

Alexander Graham Bell

Bell had begun experimenting with electricity and sound when he was eighteen years old. At that time he invented what he called his “harmonic telegraph.” This electrical machine could send and receive “beeps” and other sounds over a wire.

But it was not until March tenth, eighteen seventy-six that Bell was able to send the human voice over a wire. That moment is famous. Alexander Graham Bell was in one room. His assistant, Thomas Watson, was in another. The inventor said into the device, “Mister Watson, come here. I want to see you.” Watson heard him clearly. The telephone was born. Bell was twenty-nine years old.

Bell Telephone Company made Alexander Graham Bell a rich man. But he spent his whole life continuing to study and invent. Bell experimented with devices that could find bullets and other metal in the body. He developed a machine to aid breathing. He was also interested in vehicles that could move in air and on water. Alexander Graham Bell died in Nova Scotia, Canada, in nineteen twenty-two. He was seventy-five.

(MUSIC)

Lena Horne

DOUG JOHNSON: Celebrated7 performer Lena Horne died Sunday at a hospital in New York City. The singing star broke racial barriers in movies and live theater. In the nineteen forties, she was the first black woman to sign a long-term agreement with a major Hollywood movie studio. The deal included a famous agreement. It said she would never have to play a maid.

Faith Lapidus has more on Lena Horne, her music and her rich life.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Lena Horne was born in nineteen seventeen in Brooklyn, New York. She was the great-granddaughter of a freed slave. Her mother was an actress. Lena’s grandmother helped raise her. Her grandmother was a social worker and an activist8 for women’s voting rights.

At sixteen, Lena began dancing and singing in the famous Cotton Club in the Harlem area of New York. A few years later she went to Hollywood. She starred in an African-American musical film called “Stormy Weather” in nineteen forty-three. “Stormy Weather” also became Lena Horne’s best known song.

(MUSIC)

Lena Horne also made movies with white actors in the nineteen forties. She always played a nightclub singer. And she was always filmed so that her part could be cut out for versions shown in the American South. Racial separation laws were still in place in the South at the time.

Lena Horne said the experience and other discrimination led to her work in the civil rights movement.

LENA HORNE: “When I went to the South and met the kind of people who were fighting in such an unglamorous fashion, I mean, fighting to just get someplace to sit and get a sandwich. I felt close to that kind of thing because I had denied it and had been left away from it so long. And I began to feel such pain again.”

Lena Horne had a rich, raw, deep voice that was famous for blues9 singing. But she was skilled in many styles. Here she adds a Latin beat to the song “Night and Day.”

(MUSIC)

In nineteen eighty-one, she opened her one-woman show on Broadway in New York. It was called “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music.” It ran for three years. She won a Tony award, two Grammys and other honors.

Lena Horne was ninety-two when she died. We leave you with her performing “What’ll I Do.”

(MUSIC)

DOUG JOHNSON: I'm Doug Johnson. Our program was written by Shelley Gollust, with reporting by Veronique la Capra, Jim Tedder10 and Caty Weaver11 who was also the producer.

You can find transcripts12, MP3s and podcasts of our shows at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and iTunes at VOA Learning English.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.

 


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 mosaic CEExS     
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 gathering ChmxZ     
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。
3 saint yYcxf     
n.圣徒;基督教徒;vt.成为圣徒,把...视为圣徒
参考例句:
  • He was made a saint.他被封为圣人。
  • The saint had a lowly heart.圣人有谦诚之心。
4 civilized UwRzDg     
a.有教养的,文雅的
参考例句:
  • Racism is abhorrent to a civilized society. 文明社会憎恶种族主义。
  • rising crime in our so-called civilized societies 在我们所谓文明社会中日益增多的犯罪行为
5 acoustics kJ2y6     
n.声学,(复)音响效果,音响装置
参考例句:
  • The acoustics of the new concert hall are excellent.这座新音乐厅的音响效果极好。
  • The auditorium has comfortable seating and modern acoustics.礼堂里有舒适的座椅和现代化的音响设备。
6 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
7 celebrated iwLzpz     
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。
8 activist gyAzO     
n.活动分子,积极分子
参考例句:
  • He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
  • He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。
9 blues 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。
10 tedder 2833afc4f8252d8dc9f8cd73b24db55d     
n.(干草)翻晒者,翻晒机
参考例句:
  • Jim Tedder has more. 吉姆?特德将给我们做更多的介绍。 来自互联网
  • Jim Tedder tells us more. 吉姆?泰德给我们带来更详细的报道。 来自互联网
11 weaver LgWwd     
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。
12 transcripts 525c0b10bb61e5ddfdd47d7faa92db26     
n.抄本( transcript的名词复数 );转写本;文字本;副本
参考例句:
  • Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样,都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
  • You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书,你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

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