Longreads Best of 2016: Arts & Culture Writing

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories.

我们请几位作家和编辑在不同类别中选择一些他们今年最喜欢的故事。

Here, the best in arts and culture writing.

这里有最好的艺术和文化写作。

* * *

** **

Tobias Carroll

托比亚斯·卡罗尔

Freelance writer, managing editor of Vol.1 Brooklyn, and author of the books Reel and Transitory.

自由撰稿人、《布鲁克林》第 1 卷执行编辑以及《卷轴》和《瞬态》两书的作者。

## Michael Jackson: Dangerous (Jeff Weiss, Pitchfork)

## 迈克尔·杰克逊：危险（杰夫·韦斯、Pitchfork）

Earlier this year, Pitchfork began publishing Sunday reviews that explore albums released in the time before said site debuted.

今年早些时候，Pitchfork 开始发布周日评论，探讨该网站首次亮相之前发行的专辑。

This, in turn, has led to a whole lot of smart writers weighing in on the classics, the cult classics, the interesting failures, and the historically significant.

这反过来又导致了很多聪明的作家对经典、邪典经典、有趣的失败和具有历史意义的作品进行权衡。

Jeff Weiss’s epic take on “Jackson’s final classic album and the best full-length of the New Jack Swing era” is the sort of narrative music writing that’s catnip for me, the kind of work that sends me deeply into my own memories, and leaves me rethinking my own take on the album in question.

杰夫韦斯对“杰克逊的最后一张经典专辑和新杰克摇摆时代最好的全长专辑”的史诗般的诠释是一种对我来说很有吸引力的叙事音乐写作，这种作品让我深深地陷入自己的记忆中，让我重新思考我自己对这张专辑的看法。

Sara Benincasa

萨拉·贝宁卡萨

Screenwriter, comedian, and writer, whose books include Agorafabulous, Great, DC Trip, and Real Artists Have Day Jobs.

编剧、喜剧演员和作家，著作包括《Agorafabulous》、《Great》、《DC Trip》和《Real Artists Have Day Jobs》。

## The Fight of Your Life (Lyra McKee, Mosaic Science)

## 你生命中的战斗（Lyra McKee，马赛克科学）

This may on its surface appear to be a sports story, and it is, but it’s also about culture–the culture of boxing, and the culture of idealized masculinity–those men who never speak up about what hurts.

从表面上看，这似乎是一个体育故事，事实确实如此，但它也与文化有关——拳击文化，以及理想化的男子气概文化——那些从不说出伤害的男人。

It’s a sad story, and an important one.

这是一个悲伤的故事，也是一个重要的故事。

It also helped me understand chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) a bit more, particularly as it occurs among boxers.

它还帮助我更多地了解慢性创伤性脑病（CTE），特别是它发生在拳击手身上。

McKee goes to Belfast, Boston, Chicago and a small town in western Canada to talk to the people who study CTE and those who’ve experienced its horrific effects among deceased loved ones who were boxers.

麦基前往贝尔法斯特、波士顿、芝加哥和加拿大西部的一个小镇，与研究 CTE 的人们以及那些在已故拳击手亲人中经历过 CTE 可怕影响的人们进行交谈。

You don’t need to know that McKee is a Northern Irish girl or the history of Irish boxing as a whole to understand the compassion she brings to the piece along with her reportorial eye.

你不需要知道麦基是一个北爱尔兰女孩，也不需要了解整个爱尔兰拳击的历史，就能理解她为这篇文章带来的同情心以及她的报道眼光。

## What Is The Best Night Any Celebrity Has Ever Had At Madison Square Garden?

## 名人在麦迪逊广场花园度过的最美好的夜晚是什么？

(Sam Donsky, The Ringer)

（山姆·唐斯基，《铃声》）

This piece is incredibly long, detailed, and hilarious.

这篇文章非常长、详细且搞笑。

Sam Donsky published it on The Ringer on October 14th, at which point I was already sorely in need of sheer laughter.

萨姆·唐斯基 (Sam Donsky) 于 10 月 14 日在《The Ringer》上发表了这篇文章，此时我已经非常需要纯粹的笑声了。

This piece delivered.

这件作品交付了。

I grew up in Jersey and have been to dozens of events at Madison Square Garden over the years.

我在泽西州长大，多年来参加过麦迪逊广场花园的数十场活动。

This is a goofy pop culture hallucinogenic mushroom trip that should be savored.

这是一次愚蠢的流行文化致幻蘑菇之旅，值得细细品味。

Elisabeth Donnelly

伊丽莎白·唐纳利

A journalist and the co-author of the depressingly prescient young adult trilogy The Misshapes, under the name Alex Flynn (Polis Books).

一名记者，也是令人沮丧的有先见之明的年轻人三部曲《畸形》的合著者，名字为亚历克斯·弗林（Polis Books）。

## Is Everything Wrestling?

## 一切都是摔跤吗？

(Jeremy Gordon, The New York Times Magazine)

（杰里米·戈登，《纽约时报》杂志）

Donald Trump has been the media’s own chaos monkey, ably controlling the narrative with unstudied precision, due to all the cracks in the ice.

唐纳德·特朗普一直是媒体自己的混乱猴子，由于冰面上的所有裂缝，他以未经研究的精确性巧妙地控制了叙事。

He was a reliable source of hits when he was an outsider billionaire with a Twitter feed, his rallies were a place where a slew of writers could feed their ego nobly playing Cassandra, sneering at the Pandora’s Box of racism and fascism that he opened (an exception: Jeff Sharlet’s clear-eyed view of the religiosity of Trump’s appeal and its relation to the American tradition of self-help hucksters), and even when his campaign should have been over, he was still being talked about a billion times more than everybody else – and any terrifying high school queen bee could tell you that’s how you matter.

当他还是一个推特上的局外亿万富翁时，他是一个可靠的点击来源，他的集会是一大批作家可以高尚地扮演卡桑德拉来满足他们的自我的地方，嘲笑他打开的种族主义和法西斯主义的潘多拉魔盒（一个例外：杰夫·沙利特对特朗普吸引力的宗教性及其与美国自助小贩传统的关系有清晰的看法），甚至当他他的竞选活动应该已经结束了，但他仍然受到比其他人多十亿倍的谈论——任何可怕的高中蜂王都可以告诉你，这就是你的重要性。

But one often glossed-over aspect of Trump’s viability is that he is a pure product of our celebrity culture.

但特朗普的生存能力经常被掩盖的一个方面是，他纯粹是我们名人文化的产物。

He’s been a pseudo-celebrity for decades, using his business acumen to be a cartoony rich guy in the 80s and riding the reality TV train with The Apprentice (thus, NBC the corporation treats him as news on one end; ruffles his hair on late night).

几十年来，他一直是个伪名人，利用自己的商业头脑成为 80 年代的卡通富翁，并与《学徒》一起乘坐真人秀列车（因此，NBC 公司一方面把他当作新闻；在深夜揉乱他的头发）。

We gawk at reality TV, but we hardly interrogate it for the values that it brings into our living rooms.

我们目瞪口呆地观看电视真人秀，但我们几乎不会去探究它给我们的客厅带来的价值。

That’s why Jeremy Gordon’s New York Times Magazine essay, “Is Everything Wrestling?” has stuck with me.

这就是为什么杰里米·戈登在《纽约时报》杂志上发表文章“一切都在摔跤吗？”一直困扰着我。

It gets to a truth of “the Donald” persona and that’s the aspect that he’s “playing a bad guy” in the narrative, or “a heel“ in wrestling parlance, and that’s why he’s been remarkably Teflon when it comes to scandals and, well, qualifications, things that would’ve sunk previous candidates.

这触及了“唐纳德”角色的真相，这就是他在叙述中“扮演坏人”，或者用摔跤用语来说“扮演一个脚后跟”，这就是为什么他在丑闻和资历方面表现得非常特氟隆，这些都会让以前的候选人陷入困境。

Scandals stick when they sully a so-called good guy – Trump, however, has always leaned into his larger-than-life reputation, becoming bigger than any possible narrative.

当丑闻玷污了一个所谓的好人时，丑闻就会持续存在——然而，特朗普总是倾向于利用他传奇般的声誉，变得比任何可能的叙述都更重要。

Cartoons have that power.

卡通片就有这种力量。

Or, to quote Gordon: “When everything becomes a story, the value of concrete truth seems diminished.”

或者，引用戈登的话：“当一切都变成故事时，具体事实的价值似乎就会减弱。”

Plus, this piece said we’re in a post-truth world way before everybody else got to it.

另外，这篇文章说，在其他人进入后真相世界之前，我们就已经进入了后真相世界。

## What Happened to ‘The Most Liberated Woman in America’?

## “美国最自由的女性”发生了什么？

(Alex Mar, Atlas Obscura)

（亚历克斯·马尔，Atlas Obscura）

I perk up when I see Alex Mar’s byline, as I know that what ensues will be both intelligent and searching, making me more curious about the subject.

当我看到亚历克斯·马尔的署名时，我精神抖擞，因为我知道接下来发生的事情将既充满智慧又充满探索性，让我对这个主题更加好奇。

My favorite piece that she wrote this year was What Happened to the Most Liberated Woman in America, which ran on Atlas Obscura [full disclosure: co-funded by Longreads].

她今年写的我最喜欢的文章是《美国最自由的女性发生了什么》，该文章在 Atlas Obscura 上运行（完全披露：由 Longreads 共同资助）。

In it, she visits the septuagenarian Barbara Williamson, a co-founder of a 70s lifestyle experiment that played a leading role in Gay Talese’s Thy Neighbor’s Wife, settling dimly in people’s memories as an artifact of the sexual revolution.

在书中，她拜访了七十多岁的芭芭拉·威廉姆森（Barbara Williamson），她是 70 年代生活方式实验的联合创始人，该实验在盖伊·塔利斯（Gay Talese）的《邻居的妻子》（Thy Neighbor’s Wife）中扮演了主角，作为性革命的产物，模糊地留在了人们的记忆中。

Mar does a wonderful job outlining how Williamson’s life became the stuff of a possible sexual utopia and its fallout, while highlighting the patriarchal attitudes that also shaped this lesson.

马尔出色地概述了威廉姆森的生活如何成为可能的性乌托邦及其后果，同时强调了也塑造了这一教训的父权态度。

There’s a revealing cameo by Talese himself – who, like all of us, has likely had a very bad 2016 – but Mar’s deceptively gentle touch shows that the ethos that drove Thy Neighbor’s Wife is in a very different place in 2016.

塔莱斯本人在片中客串了一番——他和我们所有人一样，可能度过了非常糟糕的 2016 年——但马尔看似温柔的接触表明，推动《邻居之妻》的精神在 2016 年已经发生了很大的变化。

She actually understands how to use people’s quotes to get the point across, a necessary skill when we’re beyond truth and all.

她实际上懂得如何利用人们的引言来表达观点，这是当我们超越事实时的必要技能。

Haley Cullingham

海莉·卡林厄姆

Senior editor, Hazlitt

黑兹利特高级编辑

## Ripping the Veil (Britt Bennett, The New Republic)

## 揭开面纱（布里特·贝内特，《新共和国》）

“What does it mean when white audiences are suddenly so eager to consume narratives of black suffering?” Bennett asks, offering vital context to the ever-growing body of art focusing on the history and legacy of slavery.

“当白人观众突然如此渴望了解黑人苦难的叙述时，这意味着什么？”贝内特问道，为不断增长的关注奴隶制历史和遗产的艺术提供了重要的背景。

Ben Huberman

本·休伯曼

Editor, WordPress.com / Automattic

WordPress.com / Automattic 编辑

## Winona, Forever (Soraya Roberts, Hazlitt)

## 薇诺娜，永远（索拉娅·罗伯茨，黑兹利特）

Back in February, months before Stranger Things reminded me how much I’d missed Winona Ryder on screen, Soraya Roberts’ Hazlitt piece — a mammoth, almost-9000-word, all-in affair — reminded me how much I missed her as a cultural presence, as someone who matters.

早在二月，就在《怪奇物语》提醒我我多么想念银幕上的薇诺娜·瑞德的几个月前，索拉娅·罗伯茨的《黑兹利特》——一部几乎有 9000 字的巨著，全部内容——让我想起了我是多么想念她作为一种文化存在，作为一个重要的人。

The story untangled multiple threads that made up Winona’s ’90s persona, from her signature brand of quirkiness to all the inane gossip stuff, yet you still left the piece with a coherent idea of who Winona was and what made her a pre-Millennial icon.

这个故事理清了构成薇诺娜 90 年代形象的多条线索，从她标志性的古怪风格到所有愚蠢的八卦，但你仍然在这篇文章中对薇诺娜是谁以及是什么使她成为千禧一代之前的偶像有一个连贯的想法。

(It also fills me with joy that the only person who might think, “Wow, 2016 was an amazing year!” is Winona Ryder.)

（唯一一个可能会想“哇，2016 年真是了不起的一年！”的人就是薇诺娜·瑞德（Winona Ryder），这也让我感到非常高兴。）

Krista Stevens

克里斯塔·史蒂文斯

Editor, Automattic

自动编辑器

## Speak, Memory (Casey Newton, The Verge)

## 说话，记忆（凯西·牛顿，The Verge）

When her friend Roman Mazurenko died unexpectedly, Eugenia Kuyda created a digital memorial — a bot that responds to communication using a neural network of Roman’s text messages.

当她的朋友 Roman Mazurenko 意外去世时，Eugenia Kuyda 创建了一个数字纪念馆——一个使用 Roman 短信神经网络对通信做出响应的机器人。

Speak, Memory made me think more about the anthropological, historical, and sentimental value of the seemingly mundane interactions we all have with family and friends via text.

《说吧，记忆》让我更多地思考我们与家人和朋友通过文字进行的看似平凡的互动的人类学、历史和情感价值。

Fascinating and poignant, Newton’s article parses an emerging human conundrum: what could and should happen to our digital artifacts after we die?

牛顿的文章引人入胜且令人心酸，解析了一个新兴的人类难题：我们死后我们的数字文物可能会发生什么，应该发生什么？

## The Secret Life of Tumblr Teens (Elspeth Reeve, New Republic)

## Tumblr 青少年的秘密生活（Elspeth Reeve、新共和）

Who doesn’t want to know more about the generation that will eventually be in charge?

谁不想更多地了解最终掌权的一代人呢？

Reeve’s piece illuminates Tumblr, a sphere where anonymity gives teens immediate social acceptability.

Reeve 的文章阐释了 Tumblr，在这个领域，匿名可以让青少年立即获得社会认可。

It’s a place to share bizarre yet benign fetishes and absurd jokes alongside your deepest anxieties and social insecurities.

这是一个分享奇怪但良性的恋物癖和荒唐笑话以及最深的焦虑和社会不安全感的地方。

What I loved most about this piece is how emotionally intelligent teens have proven how just being yourself is enough; you can find success in creating, sharing, and curating the “relatable,” those awkward moments of human existence we all share.

我最喜欢这篇文章的是，高情商的青少年如何证明，做自己就足够了；你可以在创造、分享和策划“相关”的过程中获得成功，这些“相关”是我们共同经历的人类存在的尴尬时刻。

## By the Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead (John Hofsess, Toronto Life)

## 当你读到这篇文章时，我已经死了（约翰·霍夫塞斯，多伦多生活）

John Hofsess was part of a secret assisted suicide society.

约翰·霍夫塞斯是一个秘密协助自杀协会的成员。

Before orchestrating his own death, he helped eight terminally ill people — including the poet Al Purdy — to die on their own terms.

在策划自己的死亡之前，他帮助八名身患绝症的人——包括诗人阿尔·珀迪——按照自己的方式死去。

I’ve witnessed terminal cancer — the pain, suffering, and indignity of futile treatment.

我亲眼目睹了癌症晚期——无效治疗带来的痛苦、折磨和侮辱。

Hofsess’ strong case for returning control to the ill resonates with me.

霍夫塞斯关于恢复对疾病的控制的有力论据引起了我的共鸣。

If we’re terminal, shouldn’t we have the right to sidestep death’s timetable and organize a gentle exit, with a favourite playlist and a glass of good wine?

如果我们临终了，难道我们不应该有权避开死亡的时间表，带着最喜欢的播放列表和一杯好酒，温和地退出吗？

Sari Botton

纱丽波顿

Writer, contributing editor to Longreads, editorial director of the non-profit TMI Project, and owner of Kingston Writers’ Studio.

作家、Longreads 的特约编辑、非营利组织 TMI 项目的编辑总监以及 Kingston Writers’ Studio 的所有者。

## Why the Literati Love Muhammad Ali (Janan Ganesh, Financial Times)

## 为什么文人喜爱穆罕默德·阿里（Janan Ganesh，金融时报）

Written less than four months before Ali’s passing in June–on the occasion of the release of Davis Miller’s second book about the icon–Ganesh’s piece explores his popularity as a literary subject.

加内什的这篇文章写于阿里六月去世前不到四个月的时间，恰逢戴维斯·米勒关于阿里的第二本书出版之际，加尼什的文章探讨了阿里作为文学主题的受欢迎程度。

He decides that the heroic sports figure and activist appeals most to writers not just because of his heroism, because of his demons as well.

他认为这位英雄的体育人物和活动家对作家最有吸引力，不仅因为他的英雄主义，还因为他的恶魔。

That he could be mean-spirited, and was a womanizer and negligent father, added to his complexity as a character.

他可能心胸狭窄，是一个好色之徒，也是一个疏忽大意的父亲，这增加了他性格的复杂性。

## Prince’s Women and Me: The Collaborators Who Inspired a Generation (Porochista Khakpour, The Village Voice)

## 王子的女人和我：激励一代人的合作者（Porochista Khakpour，乡村之声）

Since Prince’s sudden passing in April, there’s been no shortage of articles and essays about him as an artist, icon, and human being, and rightfully so.

自从普林斯于四月突然去世以来，关于他作为艺术家、偶像和人类的文章和散文不乏其人，这是理所当然的。

But here novelist and essayist Porochista Khakpour pays homage instead to the women who surrounded him–the musical collaborators, the wives, the lovers.

但在这里，小说家兼散文家波罗奇斯塔·卡普尔向他周围的女性致敬——音乐合作者、妻子、恋人。

Khakpour says that those women–many of them women of color–and Prince’s shows of respect for them, helped her to define and understand herself as a woman.

卡克普尔说，这些女性——其中许多是有色人种女性——以及普林斯对她们表现出的尊重，帮助她定义和理解自己作为一个女人。

## Sex, Drugs, And Bestsellers: The Legend Of The Literary Brat Pack (Jason Diamond, Harper’s Bazaar)

## 性、毒品和畅销书：文学小子的传奇包（杰森·戴蒙德，《时尚芭莎》）

Searching for John Hughes author Jason Diamond deconstructs the publishing industry’s mythologizing of the “literary brat pack”–Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz, Donna Tartt, Jill Eisenstadt and other writers in the 1980s as famous for their coke-fueled late nights at the Odeon as they were for publishing celebrated novels before the age of thirty.

《寻找约翰·休斯》的作者贾森·戴蒙德解构了出版业对“文学小子群”的神话——杰·麦金纳尼、布雷特·伊斯顿·埃利斯、塔玛·贾诺维茨、唐娜·塔特、吉尔·艾森斯塔特以及其他 20 世纪 80 年代的作家，他们因在 Odeon 喝可乐深夜而闻名，就像他们在 30 岁之前出版著名小说一样。

## “This Is Just What Success Looks Like”: The Illuminating Work of Saeed Jones (Molly McArdle, Brooklyn Magazine)

## “这就是成功的样子”：萨伊德·琼斯的启发性作品（莫莉·麦卡德尔，布鲁克林杂志）

An inspiring profile of Saeed Jones–author of the poetry collection Prelude to Bruise, and the forthcoming memoir, How Men Fight for Their Lives who’s also a BuzzFeed editor and champion of emerging writers, committed to promoting diversity in publishing.

赛义德·琼斯 (Saeed Jones) 的鼓舞人心的简介，他是诗集《伤痕前奏》和即将出版的回忆录《男人如何为生命而战》的作者，他也是 BuzzFeed 编辑和新兴作家的拥护者，致力于促进出版业的多样性。

See more from our Best of 2016 series

查看我们的 2016 年最佳系列的更多内容