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VOA慢速英语2012--THIS IS AMERICA - 'Creatures of Light' Come Out of the Dark

时间:2012-05-02 05:53:29

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THIS IS AMERICA - 'Creatures of Light' Come Out of the Dark

FAITH LAPIDUS: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Faith Lapidus.

JUNE SIMMS: And I’m June Simms. This week, we learn about three American artists and their work. And later, we leave the art world to tell about a new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: Anthony Corradetti works with hot, molten glass at a studio in Baltimore, Maryland. He shapes glass in the same way glass blowers before him have done for centuries. But he is not making common household objects. Instead, he is creating works of art.
Glass blowing dates back more than two thousand years. Researchers have found evidence of glass blowing by the first European settlers to North America in the early sixteen hundreds.
Anthony Corradetti says glass blowing has grown in popularity1 in the United States over the past fifty years.
ANTHONY CORRADETTI: “It was kind of a field that got taken over by industry. And they need less glass blowers because everything was made by machines. But in the late sixties or early seventies, people started treating it more as an art form and teaching it in art schools. And now there are just some amazing things being made out of glass in small studios, such as mine, all over the country.”
JUNE SIMMS: The first step of glass blowing is to collect the molten glass on the end of a hollow piece of steel, called a blowpipe. Water is used to cool down the glass.
The object is shaped as air pressure expands the ball of hot glass. Sometimes different colors are added and the object is reheated, with temperatures reaching more than one thousand two hundred degrees Celsius2. Next, the completed piece is separated from the blowpipe. Finally, it is placed in an oven for twenty-four to forty-eight hours to keep it from cooling too quickly and breaking.
FAITH LAPIDUS: The process may seem simple. But Anthony Corradetti says it takes a lot of attention and hard work. He says glass blowing is always a crowd-pleaser.
ANTHONY CORRADETTI: “People are really interested in glassblowing. It’s a kind of thing that everybody has seen it as a child somewhere, and it leaves a big impression. Because when you watch glassblowing, it’s kind of magical. It’s the kind of thing that everybody wants to try once in their life.”
Mr. Corradetti offers glass blowing classes. He also sells his own work in the studio’s gift shop. After more than thirty years as a glass artist, he says he still enjoys what he does.
ANTHONY CORRADETTI: “I like being in the environment. I like everything about it, the heat and just everything that goes along with making glass. The tools and the sounds and the smells and everything about it … I couldn’t do anything else.”
(MUSIC)
JUNE SIMMS: Ginny Ruffner is one of the best-known glass artists in the United States. Her one-of-a-kind pieces are colorful, detailed3 and often humorous. Over the years, she became famous for a method called lamp working, also known as flame working. It involves using a torch to melt and shape the glass instead of blowing on it.
Ginny Ruffner almost died in a three-car accident in nineteen ninety-one. No one thought the Seattle-based artist would ever walk or talk again. An award-winning film documentary4 explores that period of her life.
GINNY RUFFNER: “It’s scary when you can’t talk, you can’t do… all your life.”
FAITH LAPIDUS: Ms. Ruffner was in a coma5 for five weeks and a wheelchair for five years. But she overcame her injuries. And although she still has difficulty walking and talking, she has willed herself back to work. Now, she has a team that helps bring her dream to life.
Her team recently finished an eight point five meter-high flowerpot made of steel and aluminum6. It is now in downtown Seattle. Ms. Ruffner was recently honored in Washington, DC. The Renwick Gallery presented a special showing of the film, “A Not So Still Life, the Ginny Ruffner Story.”
JUNE SIMMS: Ms. Ruffner says it has been a long battle, but the hardest part has not been the physical problems.
GINNY RUFFNER: “I detest7 being taken for granted. Being ignored. The way I talk, people assume that I’m either really old, or kind of retarded8, and that is so frustrating9.”
But she is firm.
GINNY RUFFNER: “Fortunately I’ve done a lot of stuff in my life, so I know that the best thing is to be open to the mystery, who knows what great things will happen. I’m sure they're many more to come.”
Ginny Ruffner’s art can be seen in more than forty museums around the world. Her work and her life continue to motivate people of all ages. 
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: It is often said that one person's trash is another person’s treasure. That is true for Debby and Joel Arem of Gaithersburg, Maryland. Twenty years ago, they started creating jewelry10 and office products from old, recycled computer circuit boards. Today, they have plenty of "green," environmentally-friendly products.
There is no shortage11 of recycled material for Debby Arem's creations12. She uses everything, from pieces of metal and electronic parts, to computer circuit boards and chips.
DEBBY AREM: "In nineteen ninety-two, my husband had a company that made computers. And I saw a circuit board for the very first time in my life and I went out of my mind. I said that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen with all the intricate13 circuitry and the colors. And the first thing that came to my mind was you could make jewelry out of that.”
JUNE SIMMS: Debby Arem has a college degree in fine arts. She and her husband Joel formed a company called Three Ring Circuits and began offering their jewelry and other products at a local craft show.
DEBBY AREM: “The first night we sold out of our clipboards, completely sold out. People would come by the booth and do a double take and they would say, that is a circuit board from a computer? Oh, what a clever idea.”
The number of products has grown. The Arems use unwanted prototype14 circuit boards in most everything they make. Then they add colorful old beads15, small pieces of metal, and anything else they find interesting.
DEBBY AREM: “If I hadn’t rescued them or if we hadn’t rescued the circuit boards from these companies, they would have ended up potentially in a landfill or had been burned.”
Circuit boards recovered from telephones are popular.
DEBBY AREM: "I come up with ideas many times but I can’t quite figure out how to engineer it. And Joel is a master at taking an idea that I come up with and figuring out how to actually put it together.”
FAITH LAPIDUS: Debby and Joel Arem say working together for twenty years has strengthened their marriage.
JOEL AREM: "You get to know a person a lot better when you spend that much time and overcoming not only the challenges of the relationship but the stress of business really puts the strain on a relationship. If you can get through it, it [marriage] gets stronger.”
DEBBY AREM: “We have a lot of fun, we really do. I don’t consider this work. That's the best part of it."
Now, instead of traveling to craft shows, the Arems use the Internet to sell their artwork. That way they can spend more time in their home studio, meeting the increasing demand from around the world for the creations.
(MUSIC)
JUNE SIMMS: Living things of all kinds have qualities that help them to survive. One example is the ability of some animals to create light to find food, or avoid being eaten or, in some cases, to identify a mate. A new exhibit in New York explores this ability, known as bioluminescence. The exhibit, called “Creatures of Light,” can be seen at the American Museum of Natural History. It shows jellyfish that produce a greenish light or glow. It also includes anglerfish whose lantern-like lights hang from their foreheads.
Museum Provost Michael Novacek says he is interested in the bioluminescent creatures that live deep in the ocean.
MICHAEL NOVACEK: “They are probably the most inventive of the bioluminescent creatures because they have to be. Because it’s totally dark. So that’s probably where the greatest potential for discovery is, too. There are so many things down there we haven’t even described.”
FAITH LAPIDUS: Surprisingly, up to ninety percent of the areas where living things can survive is underwater. Most of the animals that live in the water below depths of seven hundred meters are bioluminescent. That is where the anglerfish and hatchetfish live.
John Sparks organized the exhibit. Mr. Sparks is a marine16 biologist who specializes in pony17 fish, which live closer to the surface. They can give off light during the daytime that appears similar to their surroundings. This makes them extremely difficult for other fish to see.
JUNE SIMMS: Many bioluminescent animals use light to trick other creatures. The glowing shape on the underbelly of the large cookie cutter shark, for example, looks like the sun or moonlight on the surface of the water. From below, other creatures can mistake the small dark areas between the shark’s lights for small fish. When an attacking fish moves in for what it thinks will be a quick meal, it can become a meal for the shark instead.
The show also includes some of the many bioluminescent organisms that live on land. The “Creatures of Light” exhibit continues at the American Museum of Natural History in New York until early next year.
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: Our program was produced by Mario Ritter, with reporting by Medeeha Anwar, Julie Taboh, June Soh and Adam Phillips. I'm Faith Lapidus.
JUNE SIMMS: And I'm June Simms. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 popularity bO4xU     
n.普及,流行,名望,受欢迎
参考例句:
  • The story had an extensive popularity among American readers.这本小说在美国读者中赢得广泛的声望。
  • Our product enjoys popularity throughout the world.我们的产品饮誉全球。
2 Celsius AXRzl     
adj.摄氏温度计的,摄氏的
参考例句:
  • The temperature tonight will fall to seven degrees Celsius.今晚气温将下降到七摄氏度。
  • The maximum temperature in July may be 36 degrees Celsius.七月份最高温度可能达到36摄氏度。
3 detailed xuNzms     
adj.详细的,详尽的,极注意细节的,完全的
参考例句:
  • He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
  • A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。
4 documentary wsxx5     
adj.文献的;n.纪录片
参考例句:
  • This case lacked documentary proof.本案缺少书面证据。
  • I watched a documentary on the Civil War.我看了一部关于内战的纪录片。
5 coma vqxzR     
n.昏迷,昏迷状态
参考例句:
  • The patient rallied from the coma.病人从昏迷中苏醒过来。
  • She went into a coma after swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.她吃了一整瓶安眠药后就昏迷过去了。
6 aluminum 9xhzP     
n.(aluminium)铝
参考例句:
  • The aluminum sheets cannot be too much thicker than 0.04 inches.铝板厚度不能超过0.04英寸。
  • During the launch phase,it would ride in a protective aluminum shell.在发射阶段,它盛在一只保护的铝壳里。
7 detest dm0zZ     
vt.痛恨,憎恶
参考例句:
  • I detest people who tell lies.我恨说谎的人。
  • The workers detest his overbearing manner.工人们很讨厌他那盛气凌人的态度。
8 retarded xjAzyy     
a.智力迟钝的,智力发育迟缓的
参考例句:
  • The progression of the disease can be retarded by early surgery. 早期手术可以抑制病情的发展。
  • He was so slow that many thought him mentally retarded. 他迟钝得很,许多人以为他智力低下。
9 frustrating is9z54     
adj.产生挫折的,使人沮丧的,令人泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的现在分词 );挫败;使受挫折;令人沮丧
参考例句:
  • It's frustrating to have to wait so long. 要等这么长时间,真令人懊恼。
  • It was a demeaning and ultimately frustrating experience. 那是一次有失颜面并且令人沮丧至极的经历。 来自《简明英汉词典》
10 jewelry 0auz1     
n.(jewllery)(总称)珠宝
参考例句:
  • The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
  • Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。
11 shortage 1yrwh     
n.缺少,缺乏,不足
参考例句:
  • The city is suffering a desperate shortage of water.这个城市严重缺水。
  • The heart of the problem is a shortage of funds.问题的关键是缺乏经费。
12 creations 6976f8b639991512d1b1f3141ce68849     
创造( creation的名词复数 ); 创造物; (尤指所述由上帝)创造天地; 宇宙
参考例句:
  • This artist's creations are worth collecting. 这个艺术家的作品值得收藏。
  • The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. 各民族的精神产品成了公共的财产。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言
13 intricate maczy     
adj.错综复杂的,复杂精细的
参考例句:
  • We were able to thread but slowly through the intricate reports.我们能弄懂这些复杂的报告,只是很慢。
  • The plot of the novel is intricate and fascinating.这部小说的情节错综复杂,引人入胜。
14 prototype iR8xI     
n.原型,典型,范例
参考例句:
  • This is the prototype for future school buildings.这是未来的学校建筑的蓝本。
  • He was the prototype of the elder statesman.他是老一辈政治家的典型。
15 beads 894701f6859a9d5c3c045fd6f355dbf5     
n.(空心)小珠子( bead的名词复数 );水珠;珠子项链
参考例句:
  • a necklace of wooden beads 一条木珠项链
  • Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. 他的前额上挂着汗珠。
16 marine 77Izo     
adj.海的;海生的;航海的;海事的;n.水兵
参考例句:
  • Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
  • When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时,他自愿参加了海军陆战队。
17 pony Au5yJ     
adj.小型的;n.小马
参考例句:
  • His father gave him a pony as a Christmas present.他父亲给了他一匹小马驹作为圣诞礼物。
  • They made him pony up the money he owed.他们逼他还债。

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