Longreads Best of 2020: Arts and Culture
All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of 2020.
整个 12 月，我们都会精选 Longreads 的 2020 年最佳作品。
In an unprecedented, strange, and chaotic year, we’ve leaned on writers’ reflections and commentaries on the world around us to help us make sense of moments, of our lives.
在前所未有、奇怪和混乱的一年里，我们依靠作家对周围世界的反思和评论来帮助我们理解时刻和生活。
We revisited a wide range of arts and culture stories featured by the team this year and selected eight favorites that resonated with us.
我们重新审视了该团队今年推出的各种艺术和文化故事，并选出了八个最能引起我们共鸣的故事。
If you like these, you can sign up to receive our weekly Top 5 email every Friday.
如果您喜欢这些，您可以注册以每周五接收我们的每周前 5 名电子邮件。
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## In Dark Times, I Sought Out the Turmoil of Caravaggio’s Paintings (Teju Cole, The New York Times Magazine)
## 在黑暗时代，我寻找卡拉瓦乔画作中的混乱（Teju Cole，纽约时报杂志）
I’ve always loved how Teju Cole observes and moves through our world: a flâneur of modern life, always with a notebook or a camera in hand.
我一直很喜欢 Teju Cole 对我们世界的观察和移动方式：他是现代生活的漫游者，手里总是拿着笔记本或相机。
Here, we follow Cole on a pilgrimage to Italy as he chases the life of Caravaggio, an artist (and fugitive and murderer) whose emotionally charged, often violent scenes and chiaroscuro technique I studied closely in my AP Art History class.
在这里，我们跟随科尔前往意大利朝圣，追寻卡拉瓦乔的生活。卡拉瓦乔是一位艺术家（也是逃亡者和杀人犯），我在 AP 艺术史课上仔细学习了他充满情感、经常暴力的场景和明暗对比技术。
In Rome and Milan, Cole revisits Caravaggio’s paintings “to learn the truth about doom” — to sit with unease, and to experience the artist’s pain and turmoil (“I would find in him the reprieve certain artists can offer us in dark times”).
在罗马和米兰，科尔重温卡拉瓦乔的画作，“了解厄运的真相”——不安地坐着，体验艺术家的痛苦和混乱（“我会在他身上找到某些艺术家在黑暗时期可以为我们提供的缓刑”）。
Cole then travels south, to Naples and along the coast of Sicily, and later to Malta, to the places where the painter spent his exile; he captures both the mundanity and intimacy of encounters with guides and strangers, like his meeting in Syracuse with D., a young migrant who arrived by boat from Libya eight months earlier.
然后科尔向南旅行，到达那不勒斯，沿着西西里岛海岸，后来到达马耳他，到达画家流放的地方；他捕捉到了与导游和陌生人相遇的平凡和亲密，比如他在锡拉丘兹与 D. 的会面，D. 是一名八个月前从利比亚乘船抵达的年轻移民。
(They share a silent, beautiful moment with “The Burial of St. Lucy.”) Part-travelogue, part-profile, part-art criticism, and part-commentary on the ills and horrors of our world, it’s a stunning piece with masterful scope, but also turns inward — a read you’ll likely sit with quietly long after you’ve finished.
（他们与《圣露西的埋葬》分享了一个安静而美丽的时刻。）一半是游记，一半是个人简介，一半是艺术批评，一半是对我们世界的弊端和恐怖的评论，这是一部令人惊叹的作品，范围宏大，但也转向内心——读完后你可能会静静地坐着读很久。
I sat on a bench in the middle of the room, the two paintings set at a right angle to each other.
我坐在房间中央的长凳上，两幅画相互成直角放置。
I was awe-struck, out of breath, caught between these two immensities.
我感到敬畏，气喘吁吁，夹在这两个巨大的世界之间。
The very act of looking at an old painting can be so strange.
观看一幅老画的行为本身就是如此奇怪。
It is an activity that is often bound up with class identity or social aspiration.
这是一项通常与阶级身份或社会愿望密切相关的活动。
It can sometimes feel like a diverting, or irritating, stroll among white people’s ancestors.
有时，在白人祖先中间漫步感觉像是一种消遣或令人恼火的感觉。
It can also often be wonderful, giving the viewer a chance to be blessed by a stranger’s ingenuity or insight.
它也常常很精彩，让观众有机会被陌生人的聪明才智或洞察力所祝福。
But rarely, something even better happens: A painting made by someone in a distant country hundreds of years ago, an artist’s careful attention and turbulent experience sedimented onto a stretched canvas, leaps out of the past to call you — to call you — to attention in the present, to drive you to confusion by drawing from you both a sense of alarm and a feeling of consolation, to bring you to an awareness of your own self in the act of experiencing something that is well beyond the grasp of language, something that you wouldn’t wish to live without.
但很少有更好的事情发生：几百年前某人在遥远的国家创作的一幅画，艺术家的细心关注和动荡的经历沉积在一张伸展的画布上，从过去中跳出来，呼唤你——呼唤你——关注当下，通过从你身上汲取一种惊慌感和安慰感来让你陷入困惑，让你在体验一些远远超出语言掌握的东西的过程中认识到自己的自我，一些你不希望发生的事情没有生活。
He was a murderer, a slaveholder, a terror and a pest.
他是一个杀人犯、一个奴隶主、一个恐怖分子和一个害虫。
But I don’t go to Caravaggio to be reminded of how good people are and certainly not because of how good he was.
但我去卡拉瓦乔并不是为了提醒人们有多优秀，当然也不是因为他有多优秀。
To the contrary: I seek him out for a certain kind of otherwise unbearable knowledge.
相反：我向他寻求某种原本难以忍受的知识。
Here was an artist who depicted fruit in its ripeness and at the moment it had begun to rot, an artist who painted flesh at its most delicately seductive and most grievously injured.
这位艺术家描绘了成熟时和开始腐烂的水果，这位艺术家描绘了最微妙诱人和最严重受伤的肉体。
When he showed suffering, he showed it so startlingly well because he was on both sides of it: He meted it out to others and received it in his own body.
当他表现出痛苦时，他表现得如此出色，因为他处于痛苦的两面：他把痛苦分给别人，又在自己的身体里接受。
Caravaggio is long dead, as are his victims.
卡拉瓦乔早已去世，他的受害者也早已去世。
What remains is the work, and I don’t have to love him to know that I need to know what he knows, the knowledge that hums, centuries later, on the surface of his paintings, knowledge of all the pain, loneliness, beauty, fear and awful vulnerability our bodies have in common.
剩下的就是作品，我不需要爱他就知道我需要知道他知道什么，几个世纪后，他的画作表面上嗡嗡作响的知识，关于我们身体共有的所有痛苦、孤独、美丽、恐惧和可怕脆弱的知识。
## The Trayvon Generation (Elizabeth Alexander, The New Yorker)
## Trayvon 一代（伊丽莎白·亚历山大，《纽约客》）
In this essay published in June, amid a summer of protest and global uprising, poet and scholar Elizabeth Alexander writes about raising two Black sons who are now in their early 20s, and how Black creativity and communal expression emerge in response to the racism, police violence, and trauma inflicted on Black communities.
在这篇 6 月发表的文章中，正值抗议和全球起义的夏天，诗人兼学者伊丽莎白·亚历山大 (Elizabeth Alexander) 讲述了抚养两个现年 20 岁出头的黑人儿子的故事，以及黑人创造力和社区表达如何应对种族主义、警察暴力和黑人社区遭受的创伤的情况。
In reflections on visual and musical artists, like Kendrick Lamar, whose work is both “joyful and defiant,” Alexander asks: “What does it mean for a black boy to fly, to dream of flying and transcending?” What does it mean for a Black body to dance, to move in protest and joy, in the face of racist violence?
在反思肯德里克·拉马尔（Kendrick Lamar）等视觉和音乐艺术家的作品时，亚历山大问道：“对于一个黑人男孩来说，飞翔、梦想飞翔和超越意味着什么？”面对种族主义暴力，黑人的身体跳舞、抗议和喜悦意味着什么？
Alexander’s words are urgent and powerful, expressing love and rage and hope.
亚历山大的话语紧迫而有力，表达了爱、愤怒和希望。
What does it mean to be able to bring together the naturalistic and the visionary, to imagine community as capable of reanimating even its most hopeless and anesthetized members?
能够将自然主义和远见卓识结合在一起，想象社区能够使最绝望、最麻木的成员复活，这意味着什么？
What does it mean for a presumably murdered black body to come to life in his community in a dance idiom that is uniquely part of black culture and youth culture, all of that power channelled into a lifting?A sibling to Joseph’s work is Hiro Murai’s video for Flying Lotus’s “Never Catch Me.” It opens at a funeral for two children, a black boy and girl, who lie heartbreak-beautiful in their open caskets.
对于一个可能被谋杀的黑人尸体来说，以一种舞蹈习语在他的社区中复活意味着什么，这种舞蹈习语是黑人文化和青年文化的独特组成部分，所有这些力量都转化为一种提升？约瑟夫作品的兄弟是 Hiro Murai 为 Flying Lotus 制作的《Never Catch Me》的视频。影片以两个孩子（黑人男孩和女孩）的葬礼开始，他们心碎地美丽地躺在打开的棺材里。
Their community grieves inconsolably in the church.
他们的社区在教堂里悲痛欲绝。
The scene is one of profound mourning.And then the children open their eyes and climb out of their caskets.
场面充满了深深的哀悼。然后孩子们睁开眼睛，从棺材里爬出来。
They dance explosively in front of the pulpit before running down the aisle and out of the church.
他们在讲坛前爆发性地跳舞，然后沿着过道跑出教堂。
The mourners cannot see this resurrection, for it is a fantasia.
哀悼者看不到这种复活，因为这是一场幻想。
The kids dance another dance of black L.A., the force of black bodily creativity, that expressive life source born of violence and violation that have upturned the world for generations.
孩子们跳着另一种洛杉矶黑人舞蹈，这是黑人身体创造力的力量，是源自暴力和侵犯的富有表现力的生命源泉，这些暴力和侵犯已经颠覆了世世代代的世界。
The resurrected babies dance with a pumping force.
复活的婴儿带着泵动的力量跳舞。
But the community’s grief is unmitigated, because, once again, this is a dreamscape.
但社区的悲痛丝毫没有减轻，因为这又是一个梦境。
The children spring out into the light and climb into a car—no, it is a hearse—and, smiling with the joy of mischievous escapees, drive away.
孩子们跳到灯光下，爬进一辆汽车——不，那是一辆灵车——带着淘气的逃亡者般的喜悦微笑着开走了。
Kids are not allowed to drive; kids are not allowed to die.
儿童不得驾驶；孩子们不被允许死亡。
What does it mean to be able to bring together the naturalistic and the visionary, to imagine community as capable of reanimating even its most hopeless and anesthetized members?
能够将自然主义和远见卓识结合在一起，想象社区能够使最绝望、最麻木的成员复活，这意味着什么？
What does it mean for a presumably murdered black body to come to life in his community in a dance idiom that is uniquely part of black culture and youth culture, all of that power channelled into a lifting?
对于一个可能被谋杀的黑人尸体来说，以一种舞蹈习语在他的社区中复活意味着什么，这种舞蹈习语是黑人文化和青年文化的独特组成部分，所有这些力量都转化为提升？
A sibling to Joseph’s work is Hiro Murai’s video for Flying Lotus’s “Never Catch Me.” It opens at a funeral for two children, a black boy and girl, who lie heartbreak-beautiful in their open caskets.
约瑟夫作品的姊妹作品是 Hiro Murai 为 Flying Lotus 制作的《Never Catch Me》的视频。影片以两个孩子（黑人男孩和女孩）的葬礼开始，他们心碎地美丽地躺在打开的棺材里。
Their community grieves inconsolably in the church.
他们的社区在教堂里悲痛欲绝。
The scene is one of profound mourning.
场面充满了深深的哀悼。
And then the children open their eyes and climb out of their caskets.
然后孩子们睁开眼睛，从棺材里爬出来。
They dance explosively in front of the pulpit before running down the aisle and out of the church.
他们在讲坛前爆发性地跳舞，然后沿着过道跑出教堂。
The mourners cannot see this resurrection, for it is a fantasia.
哀悼者看不到这种复活，因为这是一场幻想。
The kids dance another dance of black L.A., the force of black bodily creativity, that expressive life source born of violence and violation that have upturned the world for generations.
孩子们跳着另一种洛杉矶黑人舞蹈，这是黑人身体创造力的力量，是源自暴力和侵犯的富有表现力的生命源泉，这些暴力和侵犯已经颠覆了世世代代的世界。
The resurrected babies dance with a pumping force.
复活的婴儿带着泵动的力量跳舞。
But the community’s grief is unmitigated, because, once again, this is a dreamscape.
但社区的悲痛丝毫没有减轻，因为这又是一个梦境。
The children spring out into the light and climb into a car—no, it is a hearse—and, smiling with the joy of mischievous escapees, drive away.
孩子们跳到灯光下，爬进一辆汽车——不，那是一辆灵车——带着淘气的逃亡者般的喜悦微笑着开走了。
Kids are not allowed to drive; kids are not allowed to die.
儿童不得驾驶；孩子们不被允许死亡。
## The Ghost Hunter (Leah Sottile, The Atavist Magazine)
## 幽灵猎人（Leah Sottile，《返祖杂志》）
In this intriguing tale, Leah Sottile brings to life a 17th-century shipwreck and an intensely curious treasure hunter who devotes years and years to uncovering its history.
在这个引人入胜的故事中，莉亚·索蒂尔 (Leah Sottile) 生动地讲述了一艘 17 世纪的沉船和一位好奇心极强的宝藏猎人，他多年来致力于揭开沉船的历史。
In 1694, a Manila galleon, the Santo Cristo de Burgos, wrecked off the coast of Oregon, near the foot of Neahkahnie mountain.
1694 年，一艘马尼拉大帆船 Santo Cristo de Burgos 在俄勒冈州海岸靠近 Neahkahnie 山脚的地方失事。
For more than 150 years, treasure seekers have searched and dug for lost treasures from this galleon, said to transport valuable cargo and exotic goods across the Pacific from the Philippines to Mexico.
150 多年来，寻宝者一直在这艘大帆船上寻找和挖掘失落的宝藏，据说这艘大帆船将贵重货物和异国情调的货物从菲律宾跨越太平洋运输到墨西哥。
“For generations, many Oregonians had indulged that Goonie side of themselves, allowing every single bit of wax and porcelain to restart the song of buried riches,” writes Sottile.
索蒂尔写道：“世世代代以来，许多俄勒冈人都沉迷于自己古尼的一面，让每一块蜡和瓷器重新奏响埋藏财富的歌。”
While the idea of treasure is tantalizing, Sottile turns to another mystery: Who were the men on this ship?
虽然宝藏的想法很诱人，但索泰尔转向了另一个谜团：这艘船上的人是谁？
Who was their captain?
他们的队长是谁？
Her questions lead her to Cameron La Follette, whose extensive research and work with faraway academics and archivists patch together the legendary galleon’s voyage and demise.
她的问题引导她找到了卡梅伦·拉福莱特（Cameron La Follette），他通过广泛的研究以及与遥远的学者和档案管理员的合作，将这艘传奇大帆船的航行和消亡拼凑在一起。
LaFollette’s deep respect for the forgotten people on the Santo Cristo sets her apart from others obsessed with it, while Sottile’s careful portrait of LaFollette as a person “driven by a sense of humanity” makes for a beautifully weaved story of quirky history.
拉福莱特对圣基督号上被遗忘的人们深表敬意，这使她与其他痴迷于此的人们区分开来，而索蒂尔则将拉福莱特精心描绘成一个“受人性意识驱动”的人，从而编织出一个精美的离奇历史故事。
Every time González got back to her, La Follette had new questions.
每次冈萨雷斯回复拉福莱特时，她都会提出新的问题。
They went back and forth like this for a few years—new requests, new reports; new reports, new requests.
就这样来来回回了几年——新的要求，新的报告；新的报告，新的要求。
Between 2015 and 2017, La Follette spent more than $10,000 of her own money paying González, other archivists, and translators in Spain, Mexico City, and Manila.
2015 年至 2017 年间，拉福莱特自掏腰包向西班牙、墨西哥城和马尼拉的冈萨雷斯、其他档案管理员和翻译人员支付了超过 10,000 美元的费用。
“I couldn’t get a new garage door.
“我买不到新的车库门。
I couldn’t get glasses that actually worked very well,” La Follette said.
我买不到实际上效果很好的眼镜，”拉福莱特说。
“I was looking at things blurry in the distance and was like, I really gotta get glasses, but it’s gonna cost $800, and I have to pay Esther’s bill.” Just like Ed Fire, La Follette couldn’t rest until she reached the bottom of her curiosity.Eventually, González unearthed a partial cargo manifest buried deep in the archives, the best evidence yet that the Santo Cristo had, in fact, been packed with treasure: fine bedsheets embroidered with flowers, ivory sculptures of the infant Christ and saints that would be placed in New World churches, gold paper fans, delicate lace.
“我看着远处模糊的东西，心想，我真的得买副眼镜，但要花 800 美元，而且我必须支付埃丝特的账单。”就像艾德·法尔一样，拉福莱特直到好奇心触底为止都无法休息。最终，冈萨雷斯挖出了一份深埋在档案馆中的部分货物清单，这是迄今为止最好的证据，证明圣基督号实际上装满了宝藏：绣有花朵的精美床单、将放置在新世界教堂中的婴儿基督和圣徒的象牙雕塑、金纸扇、精致的蕾丝。
And wax for candles.
还有蜡烛用的蜡。
Every time González got back to her, La Follette had new questions.
每次冈萨雷斯回复拉福莱特时，她都会提出新的问题。
They went back and forth like this for a few years—new requests, new reports; new reports, new requests.
就这样来来回回了几年——新的要求，新的报告；新的报告，新的要求。
Between 2015 and 2017, La Follette spent more than $10,000 of her own money paying González, other archivists, and translators in Spain, Mexico City, and Manila.
2015 年至 2017 年间，拉福莱特自掏腰包向西班牙、墨西哥城和马尼拉的冈萨雷斯、其他档案管理员和翻译人员支付了超过 10,000 美元的费用。
“I couldn’t get a new garage door.
“我买不到新的车库门。
I couldn’t get glasses that actually worked very well,” La Follette said.
我买不到实际上效果很好的眼镜，”拉福莱特说。
“I was looking at things blurry in the distance and was like, I really gotta get glasses, but it’s gonna cost $800, and I have to pay Esther’s bill.” Just like Ed Fire, La Follette couldn’t rest until she reached the bottom of her curiosity.
“我看着远处模糊的东西，心想，我真的得买副眼镜，但要花 800 美元，而且我必须支付埃丝特的账单。”就像埃德·法尔一样，拉福莱特在好奇心触底之前就无法休息。
Eventually, González unearthed a partial cargo manifest buried deep in the archives, the best evidence yet that the Santo Cristo had, in fact, been packed with treasure: fine bedsheets embroidered with flowers, ivory sculptures of the infant Christ and saints that would be placed in New World churches, gold paper fans, delicate lace.
最终，冈萨雷斯发现了埋藏在档案深处的部分货物清单，这是迄今为止最好的证据，证明圣基督实际上装满了宝藏：绣有花朵的精美床单、将放置在新世界教堂中的婴儿基督和圣徒的象牙雕塑、金纸扇、精致的蕾丝。
And wax for candles.
还有蜡烛用的蜡。
## TikTok and the Evolution of Digital Blackface (Jason Parham, Wired)
## TikTok 和数字黑脸的演变（Jason Parham，《连线》）
TikTok’s mission is “to inspire creativity and bring joy,” and in the beginning, for many people, it was all about fun.
TikTok 的使命是“激发创造力并带来欢乐”，一开始，对许多人来说，一切都是为了乐趣。
But Black creators on the app, like musician Brianna Blackmon, have reported instances of racism, harassment, and censorship.
但该应用程序上的黑人创作者，如音乐家布丽安娜·布莱克蒙(Brianna Blackmon)，报告了种族主义、骚扰和审查的情况。
Jason Parham digs around, talks to nearly 30 Black creators, and learns that these problems run deep.
Jason Parham 进行了深入挖掘，与近 30 位黑人创作者进行了交谈，并了解到这些问题根深蒂固。
“Blackness is a proven attention getter,” writes Parham.
“事实证明，黑人是一个引人注目的人，”帕勒姆写道。
“Its adoption is racism, custom-fit.” In this incisive, thought-provoking piece, Parham examines a disturbing form of content production on the platform that “suggests a twisted love of Black culture through caricature,” posted primarily by young white women and white gay men.
“它的采用是种族主义、定制化的。”在这篇深刻、发人深省的文章中，帕勒姆探讨了该平台上一种令人不安的内容制作形式，“通过漫画暗示对黑人文化的扭曲热爱”，主要由年轻白人女性和白人男同性恋者发布。
The fundamental elements of TikTok — the borrowing, remixing, and repackaging of content as one’s own — make it easy to blur the lines between flattery and mockery and theft.
TikTok 的基本要素——借用、重新混合和重新包装自己的内容——很容易模糊奉承、嘲笑和盗窃之间的界限。
Is this content a new kind of collaborative performance art — or modern minstrelsy?
这个内容是一种新型的协作表演艺术——还是现代吟游诗人？
It’s a fascinating read for understanding the dynamic, often strange content community on TikTok, the culture of Generation Z, and the appropriation of Black expression.
这是一本引人入胜的读物，有助于了解 TikTok 上充满活力且常常奇怪的内容社区、Z 世代的文化以及黑人表达方式的挪用。
Wearing a mask has long been part of the social internet.
戴口罩早已成为社交网络的一部分。
The web has operated like a Party City costume shop since dotcom-era chat rooms made cool the idea of inhabiting made-up identities and hiding behind usernames.
自从互联网时代的聊天室让使用虚构身份和隐藏在用户名后面的想法变得很酷以来，网络的运作就像派对城的服装店一样。
These personas could be intensely liberating, allowing people to explore hidden ideas or sexualities, or simply enjoy a carnivalesque permissiveness to say or do something outrageous.
这些角色可能具有强烈的解放性，允许人们探索隐藏的想法或性行为，或者只是享受狂欢节般的放纵，说或做一些令人发指的事情。
It’s all just a joke.
这一切都只是一个笑话。
For clout.
为了影响力。
For show.But the mask of Blackness cannot be worn without consequences.
为了表演。但戴上黑色面具是不可能没有后果的。
It can’t be worn as a joke without reaching into some deep cultural and historical ugliness, without opening a wound of abuse and humiliation.What sours this creative repackaging, mutates the joy into hatefulness, is when the content is estranged from its original context.
如果不触及某些深刻的文化和历史丑陋，不打开虐待和羞辱的伤口，就不能把它当作一个笑话。当内容脱离其原始背景时，这种创造性的重新包装就会变质，将欢乐变成仇恨。
The way someone or something can so quickly and easily be warped, diluted, recast as something other.
某人或某物可以如此快速、轻松地被扭曲、稀释、重塑为其他事物。
The way one’s culture can be stolen and made monstrous, made meaningless.
一个人的文化可能被窃取、变得怪异、变得毫无意义。
“TikTok all but eradicates traditional norms about cultural ownership,” the critic Jon Caramanica has written.
“TikTok 几乎消除了有关文化所有权的传统规范，”评论家乔恩·卡拉马尼卡 (Jon Caramanica) 写道。
If you spend a long enough time on the app, as I did over the past few months in lockdown reporting this story, you begin to see it as a prism through which to better understand yourself and the world around you—what draws you in, what makes you laugh, what repels you.
如果你在这款应用上花费了足够长的时间，就像我在过去几个月的封锁期间报道这个故事时所做的那样，你就会开始将它视为一面棱镜，通过它可以更好地了解你自己和周围的世界——什么吸引你，什么让你发笑，什么让你排斥。
There were moments when, scrolling through TikTok, I began to look upon myself not as I am but as blurred projections of a fractured self.
有时候，在浏览 TikTok 时，我开始不再把自己看作是真实的自己，而是破碎的自我的模糊投影。
Wearing a mask has long been part of the social internet.
戴口罩早已成为社交网络的一部分。
The web has operated like a Party City costume shop since dotcom-era chat rooms made cool the idea of inhabiting made-up identities and hiding behind usernames.
自从互联网时代的聊天室让使用虚构身份和隐藏在用户名后面的想法变得很酷以来，网络的运作就像派对城的服装店一样。
These personas could be intensely liberating, allowing people to explore hidden ideas or sexualities, or simply enjoy a carnivalesque permissiveness to say or do something outrageous.
这些角色可能具有强烈的解放性，允许人们探索隐藏的想法或性行为，或者只是享受狂欢节般的放纵，说或做一些令人发指的事情。
It’s all just a joke.
这一切都只是一个笑话。
For clout.
为了影响力。
For show.
为了表演。
But the mask of Blackness cannot be worn without consequences.
但戴上黑色面具是不可能没有后果的。
It can’t be worn as a joke without reaching into some deep cultural and historical ugliness, without opening a wound of abuse and humiliation.
如果不触及某些深刻的文化和历史丑陋，不打开虐待和羞辱的伤口，就不能把它当作一个笑话。
What sours this creative repackaging, mutates the joy into hatefulness, is when the content is estranged from its original context.
当内容脱离其原始背景时，这种创造性的重新包装就会变质，将欢乐变成仇恨。
The way someone or something can so quickly and easily be warped, diluted, recast as something other.
某人或某物可以如此快速、轻松地被扭曲、稀释、重塑为其他事物。
The way one’s culture can be stolen and made monstrous, made meaningless.
一个人的文化可能被窃取、变得怪异、变得毫无意义。
“TikTok all but eradicates traditional norms about cultural ownership,” the critic Jon Caramanica has written.
“TikTok 几乎消除了有关文化所有权的传统规范，”评论家乔恩·卡拉马尼卡 (Jon Caramanica) 写道。
If you spend a long enough time on the app, as I did over the past few months in lockdown reporting this story, you begin to see it as a prism through which to better understand yourself and the world around you—what draws you in, what makes you laugh, what repels you.
如果你在这款应用上花费了足够长的时间，就像我在过去几个月的封锁期间报道这个故事时所做的那样，你就会开始将它视为一面棱镜，通过它可以更好地了解你自己和周围的世界——什么吸引你，什么让你发笑，什么让你排斥。
There were moments when, scrolling through TikTok, I began to look upon myself not as I am but as blurred projections of a fractured self.
有时候，在浏览 TikTok 时，我开始不再把自己看作是真实的自己，而是破碎的自我的模糊投影。
## What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
## 如果生活的中心是友谊而不是婚姻怎么办？
(Rhaina Cohen, The Atlantic)
（雷纳·科恩，《大西洋月刊》）
What constitutes a “real” partnership?
什么构成“真正的”伙伴关系？
Why are marriages and other monogamous romantic relationships still generally viewed as the nucleus of one’s life?
为什么婚姻和其他一夫一妻制的浪漫关系仍然普遍被视为一个人生活的核心？
Rhaina Cohen examines friendships throughout history, from the intimate same-sex friendships of the 18th to early 20th centuries to today’s platonic partnerships.
雷纳·科恩 (Rhaina Cohen) 审视了历史上的友谊，从 18 世纪到 20 世纪初的亲密同性友谊，到今天的柏拉图式伙伴关系。
We’re introduced to Kami West and Kate Tillotson, two women who bonded in Marine Corps boot camp and have since built a deep and complex friendship, one that involves child care and emotional and social support.
我们认识了卡米·韦斯特和凯特·蒂洛森，这两位女性在海军陆战队新兵训练营中结下不解之缘，自此建立了深厚而复杂的友谊，这种友谊涉及儿童保育以及情感和社会支持。
There’s also John Carroll and Joe Rivera, platonic partners who met at a gay bar, who have similarly broken free from the confines of traditional thinking.
还有约翰·卡罗尔和乔·里维拉，这对在同性恋酒吧相识的柏拉图式伴侣，他们同样摆脱了传统思维的束缚。
The idea here is that it’s impossible to expect a single person to satisfy all of one’s needs, and the people Cohen describes have custom-designed partnerships that work for them.
这里的想法是，不可能指望一个人满足一个人的所有需求，而科恩描述的人拥有适合他们的定制合作伙伴关系。
They “can be models for how we as a society might expand our conceptions of intimacy and care,” especially now, in a pandemic that has forced us to reimagine our lives and support networks.
它们“可以成为我们作为一个社会如何扩展我们对亲密和关怀的概念的典范”，尤其是现在，在一场迫使我们重新构想我们的生活和支持网络的大流行中。
People expect to pile emotional support, sexual satisfaction, shared hobbies, intellectual stimulation, and harmonious co-parenting all into the same cart.
人们期望将情感支持、性满足、共同爱好、智力刺激和和谐的共同养育全部放入同一个购物车中。
Carroll, 52, thinks this is an impossible ask; experts share his concern.
52 岁的卡罗尔认为这是一个不可能完成的任务；专家们也有同样的担忧。
“When we channel all our intimate needs into one person,” the psychotherapist Esther Perel writes, “we actually stand to make the relationship more vulnerable.”In many ways, Americans are already redefining what loving and living can look like.
心理治疗师埃丝特·佩雷尔写道：“当我们将所有亲密需求传递给一个人时，我们实际上会让这种关系变得更加脆弱。”在很多方面，美国人已经在重新定义爱和生活的样子。
Just in the past several months, experts and public intellectuals from disparate ideological persuasions have encouraged heterosexual couples to look to the queer and immigrant communities for healthy models of marriage and family.
就在过去的几个月里，来自不同意识形态派别的专家和公共知识分子鼓励异性恋夫妇向酷儿和移民社区寻求健康的婚姻和家庭模式。
The coronavirus pandemic, by underscoring human vulnerability and interdependence, has inspired people to imagine networks of care beyond the nuclear family.
冠状病毒大流行凸显了人类的脆弱性和相互依存性，激发了人们想象核心家庭之外的护理网络。
Polyamory and asexuality, both of which push back against the notion that a monogamous sexual relationship is the key to a fulfilling adult life, are rapidly gaining visibility.
一夫多妻制和无性恋都反对一夫一妻制的性关系是充实的成年生活的关键这一观念，它们正在迅速获得关注。
Expanding the possible roles that friends can play in one another’s lives could be the next frontier.
扩大朋友在彼此生活中可能扮演的角色可能是下一个前沿领域。
People expect to pile emotional support, sexual satisfaction, shared hobbies, intellectual stimulation, and harmonious co-parenting all into the same cart.
人们期望将情感支持、性满足、共同爱好、智力刺激和和谐的共同养育全部放入同一个购物车中。
Carroll, 52, thinks this is an impossible ask; experts share his concern.
52 岁的卡罗尔认为这是一个不可能完成的任务；专家们也有同样的担忧。
“When we channel all our intimate needs into one person,” the psychotherapist Esther Perel writes, “we actually stand to make the relationship more vulnerable.”
心理治疗师埃丝特·佩雷尔写道：“当我们将所有亲密需求传递给一个人时，我们实际上会让这种关系变得更加脆弱。”
In many ways, Americans are already redefining what loving and living can look like.
在很多方面，美国人已经重新定义了爱和生活的样子。
Just in the past several months, experts and public intellectuals from disparate ideological persuasions have encouraged heterosexual couples to look to the queer and immigrant communities for healthy models of marriage and family.
就在过去的几个月里，来自不同意识形态派别的专家和公共知识分子鼓励异性恋夫妇向酷儿和移民社区寻求健康的婚姻和家庭模式。
The coronavirus pandemic, by underscoring human vulnerability and interdependence, has inspired people to imagine networks of care beyond the nuclear family.
冠状病毒大流行凸显了人类的脆弱性和相互依存性，激发了人们想象核心家庭之外的护理网络。
Polyamory and asexuality, both of which push back against the notion that a monogamous sexual relationship is the key to a fulfilling adult life, are rapidly gaining visibility.
一夫多妻制和无性恋都反对一夫一妻制的性关系是充实的成年生活的关键这一观念，它们正在迅速获得关注。
Expanding the possible roles that friends can play in one another’s lives could be the next frontier.
扩大朋友在彼此生活中可能扮演的角色可能是下一个前沿领域。
## ‘High Maintenance’ and the New TV Fantasy of New York (Willy Staley, The New York Times Magazine)
## “高维护”和纽约的新电视幻想（威利·斯塔利，《纽约时报杂志》）
Willy Staley’s razor-sharp critique explores television’s depiction of New York City these days, commenting specifically on High Maintenance, Master of None, and Russian Doll.
威利·斯塔利 (Willy Staley) 的尖锐批评探讨了当今电视对纽约市的描述，特别评论了《高维护》(High Maintenance)、《无为大师》(Master of None) 和《俄罗斯娃娃》(Russian Doll)。
While critics have praised High Maintenance for its accurate representation of the city, Staley writes that its reality, as well as the worlds in the other two Netflix shows, ignore economic inequalities and class differences between characters.
虽然评论家称赞《高度维护》对这座城市的准确描述，但斯特利写道，它的现实以及其他两部 Netflix 剧集中的世界忽视了经济不平等和角色之间的阶级差异。
Instead, New York City on screen is an idealized composite of the experiences of young, creative-class New Yorkers and Brooklyn transplants: a fantasyland where strangers from all walks of life connect.
相反，银幕上的纽约是年轻、富有创意的纽约人和布鲁克林移民的理想化经历：一个来自各行各业的陌生人相互联系的幻想世界。
It’s no longer a melting pot, writes Staley, but some kind of hot tub.
斯特利写道，它不再是一个熔炉，而是某种热水浴缸。
On High Maintenance:
关于高维护：
The show is brilliant at sending up the anxieties and pathologies of the city’s yuppies, but characters outside this circle are often made relatable to HBO’s audience by being supplied with some quirk, hidden talent or non-normative sexuality.
该剧出色地表达了这座城市雅皮士的焦虑和病态，但这个圈子之外的角色往往通过提供一些怪癖、隐藏的才能或非规范的性取向而与 HBO 的观众产生共鸣。
In this way, the show depends on its audience’s prejudices in order to undercut them.
通过这种方式，节目依靠观众的偏见来削弱他们。
On Russian Doll:
关于俄罗斯套娃：
The actual, transactional quasi friendships that New Yorkers have with their bodega guys are plenty interesting.
纽约人与他们的杂货店老板之间真正的、交易性的准友谊非常有趣。
Like a priest, a bodega guy gets to know the shameful weaknesses of his regulars, who must assume on some level that he’s not secretly writing their stories in his own head.
就像一个牧师一样，一个杂货店的人会了解他的常客的可耻弱点，他们必须在某种程度上假设他没有在自己的脑海里秘密地写下他们的故事。
His perspective would be an interesting one to get to know, but in “Russian Doll,” what’s curious about this relationship is rendered null with a couple of lines of dialogue.
他的观点将是一个有趣的观点，但在《俄罗斯娃娃》中，对这种关系的好奇心被几行对话所掩盖。
In trying to counteract harmful stereotypes, the show has succeeded in doing something altogether stranger: erasing diversity through the act of depicting it.
为了消除有害的刻板印象，该剧成功地做了一件完全奇怪的事情：通过描绘多样性的行为消除多样性。
By making Farran an aspirant to the same sort of success the show’s writers value, by making him a guy who thinks working at a cannery is inherently absurd, something you’d put in a novel, “Russian Doll” suggests that everyone in this city, at the end of the day, is ultimately the same, sharing identical aesthetic and professional aspirations, and we’d know that if we only paid closer attention.
通过让法兰成为剧作家所看重的同样成功的渴望者，通过让他成为一个认为在罐头厂工作本质上是荒谬的人，就像你在小说中放入的东西，“俄罗斯娃娃”表明，这个城市的每个人，在一天结束时，最终都是一样的，有着相同的审美和职业抱负，如果我们更仔细地关注，我们就会知道这一点。
## Between Russell Simmons and The World and Oprah (Kevin Powell, Utne Reader)
## 拉塞尔·西蒙斯与世界和奥普拉之间（凯文·鲍威尔，《Utne 读者》）
Kevin Powell’s unconventional profile of Def Jam Recordings co-founder Russell Simmons, the “godfather of hip-hop,” is also a deep introspection on being a Black man in America, power in the time of #MeToo, and the culture of misogyny and violence in the music industry.
凯文·鲍威尔 (Kevin Powell) 对 Def Jam Recordings 联合创始人、“嘻哈教父”拉塞尔·西蒙斯 (Russell Simmons) 的非传统描写，也是对美国黑人、#MeToo 时代的权力，以及音乐行业中厌女症和暴力文化的深刻反思。
“I struggled mightily, through the 1990s, through the heyday of my years at Vibe, as I participated in a culture that I knew was loaded with disgusting examples of manhood,” writes Powell.
鲍威尔写道：“在整个 90 年代，在 Vibe 的鼎盛时期，我经历了巨大的挣扎，因为我参与了一种我知道充满了令人厌恶的男子气概的文化。”
To date, 20 women have come forward to accuse Simmons of sexual assault, including rape; since 2018 he has reportedly lived in Bali to protect himself from prosecution, as Indonesia has no extradition treaty with the U.S. Powell also examines Oprah Winfrey’s withdrawal as executive producer from the On the Record documentary about Simmons, ultimately distancing herself from the Black women who have accused him.
迄今为止，已有 20 名女性站出来指控西蒙斯性侵犯，包括强奸；据报道，自 2018 年以来，由于印度尼西亚与美国没有引渡条约，他一直住在巴厘岛，以保护自己免受起诉。鲍威尔还研究了奥普拉·温弗瑞 (Oprah Winfrey) 退出有关西蒙斯的纪录片《记录在案》(On the Record) 执行制片人一职的情况，最终与指控他的黑人女性保持距离。
HBO has purchased On The Record post-Sundance, and you will have to decide for yourself what all this is, was, and could be.
HBO 在圣丹斯电影节之后收购了 On The Record，你必须自己决定这一切是什么、过去是什么以及可能是什么。
But if you watch this film the way I watched it, you wonder how and why Oprah Winfrey would walk away, searching for the real reason, and how and why she could separate herself from these Black women and this film, which is like separating herself from herself.
但如果你像我一样看这部电影，你会想知道奥普拉·温弗瑞如何以及为什么会离开，寻找真正的原因，以及她如何以及为什么能够将自己与这些黑人女性和这部电影分开，这就像将自己与自己分开一样。
Only Oprah knows the whole truth, and perhaps Russell Simmons, godfather of hip-hop, does too—And, honestly, this has been the most difficult piece I have ever written in my life.
只有奥普拉知道全部真相，也许嘻哈教父拉塞尔·西蒙斯也知道——而且，老实说，这是我一生中写过的最困难的作品。
My emotions are bleeding, I have had painfully sleepless nights, as this story has dragged on, and on, and on.
我的情绪在流血，我度过了痛苦的不眠之夜，因为这个故事一直拖着，拖着，拖着，拖着。
As a Black man, I do not ever want to see another Black man go down in a world already seemingly designed for us to fall.
作为一名黑人，我不想看到另一个黑人在一个似乎已经为我们设计的堕落世界中倒下。
But by the same token I do not want to see Black women—or any women of any background—sacrificed just to spare a Black man—or any man of any background—accused of wrongdoing.This hurts me from all sides, every part of it.
但出于同样的原因，我不希望看到黑人女性——或任何背景的女性——仅仅为了避免黑人男性——或任何背景的男性被指控犯有不法行为而牺牲。这从各个方面、各个方面都伤害了我。
I have been a combination of angry and sad, because of the very real and very vivid stories of the many women who’ve come forth, and because Russell Simmons had been a hero of mine, a hero for many of us boys in the ‘hood.When he made it, we made it.
我的心情既愤怒又悲伤，因为许多女性的真实而生动的故事，也因为拉塞尔·西蒙斯是我心目中的英雄，也是我们许多男孩的英雄。当他成功时，我们也成功了。
When he dreamed big, we dreamed big.
当他有远大的梦想时，我们也有远大的梦想。
He was us and we were him.
他就是我们，我们就是他。
I could not have imagined these kinds of allegations against him when I first saw him in person at some New York City event in the early 1990s, when I just stared, because there he was, and I was too timid to greet him.
当我在 20 世纪 90 年代初纽约市的一些活动中第一次见到他本人时，我无法想象对他的这些指控，当时我只是盯着看，因为他就在那里，而我太胆怯了，不敢和他打招呼。
I just stared, hoping whatever magic he had rubbed off on me, a poor boy from the ghetto.
我只是盯着看，希望他能对我这个来自贫民窟的可怜男孩施展魔法。
Nor could I have imagined, all these years later, that he would be a fallen hero, desperately trying to prove his innocence, thanking me just for listening to him, me, the writer who had found his voice, long ago, because of the culture—our culture—Russell Simmons helped to bring to the entire world.
我也无法想象，这么多年后，他会成为一个倒下的英雄，拼命地试图证明自己的清白，感谢我倾听他的声音，我，这位作家，很久以前就找到了自己的声音，因为拉塞尔·西蒙斯帮助给整个世界带来了文化——我们的文化。
HBO has purchased On The Record post-Sundance, and you will have to decide for yourself what all this is, was, and could be.
HBO 在圣丹斯电影节之后收购了 On The Record，你必须自己决定这一切是什么、过去是什么以及可能是什么。
But if you watch this film the way I watched it, you wonder how and why Oprah Winfrey would walk away, searching for the real reason, and how and why she could separate herself from these Black women and this film, which is like separating herself from herself.
但如果你像我一样看这部电影，你会想知道奥普拉·温弗瑞如何以及为什么会离开，寻找真正的原因，以及她如何以及为什么能够将自己与这些黑人女性和这部电影分开，这就像将自己与自己分开一样。
Only Oprah knows the whole truth, and perhaps Russell Simmons, godfather of hip-hop, does too—
只有奥普拉知道全部真相，也许嘻哈教父拉塞尔·西蒙斯也知道——
And, honestly, this has been the most difficult piece I have ever written in my life.
老实说，这是我一生中写过的最困难的作品。
My emotions are bleeding, I have had painfully sleepless nights, as this story has dragged on, and on, and on.
我的情绪在流血，我度过了痛苦的不眠之夜，因为这个故事一直拖着，拖着，拖着，拖着。
As a Black man, I do not ever want to see another Black man go down in a world already seemingly designed for us to fall.
作为一名黑人，我不想看到另一个黑人在一个似乎已经为我们设计的堕落世界中倒下。
But by the same token I do not want to see Black women—or any women of any background—sacrificed just to spare a Black man—or any man of any background—accused of wrongdoing.
但出于同样的原因，我不希望看到黑人女性——或任何背景的女性——仅仅为了避免黑人男性——或任何背景的男性被指控犯有不当行为而牺牲。
This hurts me from all sides, every part of it.
这从各个方面、每个部分都伤害了我。
I have been a combination of angry and sad, because of the very real and very vivid stories of the many women who’ve come forth, and because Russell Simmons had been a hero of mine, a hero for many of us boys in the ‘hood.
我的心情既愤怒又悲伤，因为许多女性的真实而生动的故事，也因为拉塞尔·西蒙斯是我心目中的英雄，是我们许多男孩的英雄。
When he made it, we made it.
当他成功时，我们也成功了。
When he dreamed big, we dreamed big.
当他有远大的梦想时，我们也有远大的梦想。
He was us and we were him.
他就是我们，我们就是他。
I could not have imagined these kinds of allegations against him when I first saw him in person at some New York City event in the early 1990s, when I just stared, because there he was, and I was too timid to greet him.
当我在 20 世纪 90 年代初纽约市的一些活动中第一次见到他本人时，我无法想象对他的这些指控，当时我只是盯着看，因为他就在那里，而我太胆怯了，不敢和他打招呼。
I just stared, hoping whatever magic he had rubbed off on me, a poor boy from the ghetto.
我只是盯着看，希望他能对我这个来自贫民窟的可怜男孩施展魔法。
Nor could I have imagined, all these years later, that he would be a fallen hero, desperately trying to prove his innocence, thanking me just for listening to him, me, the writer who had found his voice, long ago, because of the culture—our culture—Russell Simmons helped to bring to the entire world.
我也无法想象，这么多年后，他会成为一个倒下的英雄，拼命地试图证明自己的清白，感谢我倾听他的声音，我，这位作家，很久以前就找到了自己的声音，因为拉塞尔·西蒙斯帮助给整个世界带来了文化——我们的文化。
## Wonder Women (Soraya Roberts, Hazlitt)
## 神奇女侠（索拉娅·罗伯茨、黑兹利特）
Was 2020 really the year of the female superhero?
2020年真的是女超级英雄年吗？
Looking back on films like Catwoman, Elektra, and Captain Marvel, and considering this year’s movies like Birds of Prey, the soon-to-be-released Wonder Woman 1984, and the upcoming Black Widow, on the surface you’d think Hollywood finally gets it.
回顾《猫女》、《艾丽卡》和《惊奇队长》等电影，再考虑今年的《猛禽小队》、即将上映的《神奇女侠 1984》和即将上映的《黑寡妇》等电影，表面上你会认为好莱坞终于明白了。
But Soraya Roberts argues that today’s female superheroes still operate within a world ruled by white men.
但索拉娅·罗伯茨认为，今天的女性超级英雄仍然在白人统治的世界中运作。
Having spoken in May to the original Supergirl herself — Helen Slater, who starred in the 1984 film — Roberts explores the legacy of female superhero films and asks what has changed in the past 30+ years, and what has unfortunately stayed the same.
5 月份，罗伯茨与原版女超人——1984 年电影中的主演海伦·斯莱特 (Helen Slater) 进行了交谈，探讨了女性超级英雄电影的遗产，并询问过去 30 多年里发生了哪些变化，以及不幸的是哪些保持不变。
Catwoman paws at feminism—“Catwomen are not contained by the rules of society,” Berry’s character says—but this soft-core fantasy is still bound by the limits of the male imagination.
猫女触动了女权主义——“猫女不受社会规则的约束，”贝瑞扮演的角色说道——但这种软核幻想仍然受到男性想象力的限制。
The film is very much an expression of a popular brand of feminism from the early aughts, just as Elektra would be a year later (another spin-off afterthought rush job, this time from Marvel’s Daredevil, with Jennifer Garner playing a bustier-clad assassin).
这部电影在很大程度上表达了早期流行的女权主义品牌，就像一年后的《艾丽卡》一样（另一部衍生作品，这一次是漫威《夜魔侠》，詹妮弗·加纳扮演一名穿着紧身胸衣的刺客）。
While real activism could be found that year in Washington’s birth control march and in personal blogs by a diverse array of young women, popular culture preferred a more photogenic brand of lipstick feminism.
虽然当年在华盛顿的节育游行和各种年轻女性的个人博客中可以找到真正的激进主义，但流行文化更喜欢更上镜的口红女权主义品牌。
Practitioners performed their sexuality as a means of subverting male strictures on women’s bodies, except that their behaviour happened to play into the very male gaze it claimed to be challenging.
实践者们将性行为作为一种颠覆男性对女性身体限制的手段，只不过他们的行为恰好迎合了据称具有挑战性的男性目光。
As Ariel Levy writes in Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture: “Proving that you are hot, worthy of lust, and—necessarily—that you seek to provoke lust is still exclusively women’s work.” Has a male superhero ever been asked, like Elektra, if he has time to get laid?
正如阿里尔·利维 (Ariel Levy) 在《女性沙文主义猪：女性与不修边幅文化的兴起》中所写的那样：“证明你很性感、值得欲望，并且——必然地——你试图激起欲望，仍然完全是女性的工作。”有没有像艾丽卡这样的男性超级英雄被问过是否有时间上床？
Female superheroes may be immortal, but the Gods remain men.
女性超级英雄可能是不朽的，但众神仍然是男人。
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