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HOST:

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC1 in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

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

We play music by singer/songwriter Emily Jane White …

Answer a listener’s question about the place where America holds its gold …

And report about a dreamy exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington...

(MUSIC)

Hirshhorn Art Exhibit

HOST:
 
From Anthony McCall's ''Your and I Horizontal''

This spring in Washington D.C., you can visit a video art exhibit called “The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image.” The exhibit can be seen at the Hirshhorn Museum, the modern art center of the Smithsonian Institution.

The first part of the show is called "Dreams." It explores the way in which movies have changed the way people experience reality. As we hear from Faith Lapidus, it also looks at how movies can take us away from our normal lives to a world of dreams and imagination.

FAITH LAPIDUS:

Some videos in the exhibit show peaceful worlds that are beautiful in an unusual way. In “Overture” by Stan Douglas, you seem to travel through a mountain environment like an engineer sitting in the front of a train. The train and the quality of the recording2 suggest the film is very old. Douglas included a recording of a man talking about his thoughts and dreams. You cannot tell if the calm voice is talking about reality or if the man is asleep.

In another video, the video projector3 itself is part of the art. A large, old projection4 device from the nineteen sixties shows the video on a wall. Canadian artist Rodney Graham made the film in black and white. It shows a white material falling like snow on an old Rheinmetall typewriter. The snow slowly covers the machine until it becomes unrecognizable.

Not much happens at all in another video, Andy Warhol’s famous movie “Sleep." It shows a man as he sleeps. The recording lasts for several hours.

Other videos in the exhibit are frightening. The German artist Christophe Girardet used a few seconds of the actress Fay Wray in the nineteen thirty-three movie “King Kong.” In one part of the movie, the actress shouts when she sees the huge creature. The artist worked with the video so that the images are repeated again and again. Fay Wray seems to be doing a strange dance as she shouts.
 

An example of a work by Tony Oursler

The American artist Tony Oursler has three works in the exhibit. He places videos of human faces on round objects to make unusual talking creatures. In one work, a video of a person’s eye can be seen on a ball. If you look carefully, you can see a moving image like a television in the eye. As the eye sees brighter and darker images, the pupil of the eye increases and decreases in size.

In June, the Hirshhorn Museum will show the second part of this video exhibit. It will be called “Realisms.”

Fort Knox

Host:

Our question this week comes from Nigeria. A listener named Funsho asks about Fort Knox.

Fort Knox is the name of an Army base in the southern state of Kentucky. But the name is better known for its link to gold.
 

The United States Bullion5 Depository at Fort Knox

Since nineteen thirty-seven, the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox has housed a large portion of the government’s gold reserves. The depository is next to, but not part of, the Army base. The building is under the control of the United States Mint, which is part of the Treasury6 Department.

The Fort Knox Bullion Depository holds over one hundred forty-seven million troy ounces of gold. A troy ounce is a measurement used for jewels and metals like gold and silver.

The amount at Fort Knox is equal to more than four and one-half million kilograms of gold. The gold is in the form of coins and bars. The bars measure about seventeen centimeters long and nine centimeters wide.

In nineteen thirty-three, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered an end to the use of gold as money. The newly elected president did this as part of his New Deal economic plan during the Great Depression. Private ownership of gold that was not in the form of jewelry7 or collectable coins became illegal.

So people who owned gold exchanged it with the government for paper money. Soon, the government needed a safe place to store its growing amounts of gold. The Treasury Department started building the Fort Knox depository in nineteen thirty-six.

As you can imagine, the building has very high security. In fact, the term “Fort Knox” is used in popular language to describe something that is carefully protected.

The gold is housed in a two-level vault8 made of concrete and steel. The Treasury Department Web site says no one person knows the code that opens the vault. Instead, several people must each enter a separate code to unlock it.

Other valuable objects have been stored at Fort Knox over the years. These include the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta and three versions of the Gutenberg Bible. The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed in Europe with movable type.

Don’t get too excited about visiting Fort Knox. The bullion depository is not open to the public.

Emily Jane White

HOST:
 

Emily Jane White

Emily Jane White performs richly descriptive songs that often tell dark and mysterious stories. The twenty-six year old singer says her music attempts to reach out for an understanding of other people’s experiences. One critic says the music is filled with a warm physicality.

Her first collection of songs, “Dark Undercoat,” combines the sounds of blues9 and folk music. Barbara Klein has more about White in this report.

(MUSIC: "Bessie Smith")

BARBARA KLEIN:

That was Emily Jane White with “Bessie Smith.” The song honors one of the great blues singers of the twentieth century.

White grew up playing the piano and listening to her father play the guitar. But it was not until she started attending the University of California-Santa Cruz that she decided10 to teach herself to play the guitar. She also began writing music. In her classes, she learned more about the political roots of folk music. She says most of her songs are not political. Yet they express an interest in and reaction to the lives of other people.

After college, Emily Jane White moved to France for a year and performed with a group called the Diamond Star Halos. Crowds of listeners were very supportive and asked her when she would make a record.

White moved to San Francisco in two thousand six. After five years of songwriting, she had many choices for her album. The poetic11 songs describe a dreamy world of night skies, strong desire, and even death.

Here is her song “Hole in the Middle.” White says she wrote it to answer the American government’s decision to invade Iraq.

(MUSIC)

Emily Jane White is back in France again this month. Crowds there might hear her play this song, “Time on Your Side.” It was influenced by her love of American country music.

(MUSIC)

HOST:

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

It was written and produced by Dana Demange. For transcripts12, MP3s and podcasts of our programs, go to voaspecialenglish.com.

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 recording UktzJj     
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。
3 projector 9RCxt     
n.投影机,放映机,幻灯机
参考例句:
  • There is a new projector in my office.我的办公室里有一架新的幻灯机。
  • How long will it take to set up the projector?把这个放映机安放好需要多长时间?
4 projection 9Rzxu     
n.发射,计划,突出部分
参考例句:
  • Projection takes place with a minimum of awareness or conscious control.投射在最少的知觉或意识控制下发生。
  • The projection of increases in number of house-holds is correct.对户数增加的推算是正确的。
5 bullion VSryB     
n.金条,银条
参考例句:
  • In the London bullion market yesterday,the price of gold was steady.昨天伦敦金银市场黄金价格稳定。
  • Police have launched a man-hunt for the bullion robbers.警方已大举搜捕抢劫金条的罪犯。
6 treasury 7GeyP     
n.宝库;国库,金库;文库
参考例句:
  • The Treasury was opposed in principle to the proposals.财政部原则上反对这些提案。
  • This book is a treasury of useful information.这本书是有价值的信息宝库。
7 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。
8 vault 3K3zW     
n.拱形圆顶,地窖,地下室
参考例句:
  • The vault of this cathedral is very high.这座天主教堂的拱顶非常高。
  • The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。
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 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
11 poetic b2PzT     
adj.富有诗意的,有诗人气质的,善于抒情的
参考例句:
  • His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
  • His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。
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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