Longreads Best of 2018: Arts and Culture

Rebecca SchumanRebecca Schuman is the author of “The 90s Are Old,” ask a gen-xer, and Schadenfreude, A Love Story.

丽贝卡·舒曼丽贝卡·舒曼是《一代人问》的《90 年代已经老了》和《幸灾乐祸的爱情故事》的作者。

## Drawing a Line in the Sand Over River Rights (Chris Colin, Outside)

## 在河流权利上划清界限（Chris Colin，外侧）

Maybe it’s because I was born with an innate sense of communitarian justice.

也许是因为我生来就有一种与生俱来的社群正义感。

Maybe it’s because, at the age of 9, I was traumatized for several months after a cranky neighbor screamed me out of her yard when I attempted to sate my (natural, innocent, child’s) curiosity by opening her much-larger-than-usual mailbox.

也许是因为，在我 9 岁的时候，当我试图通过打开她比平常大得多的邮箱来满足我（自然、天真的、孩子的）好奇心时，一位脾气暴躁的邻居把我从她的院子里尖叫起来，这让我受到了几个月的创伤。

Maybe it’s because, as an adult, I now know that the Venn diagram of people who are really into their private property and people who really suck is basically a circle.

也许是因为，作为一个成年人，我现在知道，真正热衷于自己的私有财产的人和真正糟糕的人的维恩图基本上是一个圆圈。

Whatever the reason, I found myself gasping and laughing the whole way through Chris Colin’s journey down the Russian River, as he sought to test the limits of California law against a cross-section of the trespassing-averse.

不管出于什么原因，在克里斯·科林沿着俄罗斯河顺流而下的整个旅程中，我发现自己气喘吁吁，大笑不止，因为他试图测试加州法律对反侵入行为的限制。

It would be like John Cheever’s “The Swimmer,” except “instead of whiskey,” Colin and three friends would be “fueled by a cocktail of righteousness and florid legalese.”

这就像约翰·契弗的《游泳者》，只不过科林和三个朋友“不是喝威士忌”，而是“喝一杯正义和华丽的法律术语的鸡尾酒”。

Yes canoes, thinks Colin, as he docks his canoe under one NO CANOES sign after the next — after all, those signs are technically illegal, since all of California’s river beaches are public up to the “ordinary high-water mark,” a fun fact I now know thanks to this piece.

是的，科林一边想，一边把他的独木舟停在一个又一个“禁止独木舟”标志下——毕竟，这些标志在技术上是非法的，因为加州所有的河滩都是公共的，直到“普通高水位线”为止，这是一个有趣的事实，多亏了这篇文章，我现在知道了。

Sure, the fascinating confluence of property owners — aging hippies; aging California working class; new-money tech folk from San Francisco — maybe have a point about the costs of constant docking of the hoi polloi (“broken glass, poop in the bushes, and bad music blaring”).

当然，还有业主——上了年纪的嬉皮士——的迷人融合；加州工人阶级老龄化；来自旧金山的新贵科技人士——对于民众不断对接的成本（“破碎的玻璃、灌木丛中的粪便和刺耳的音乐”）也许有自己的看法。

But, wonders Colin, isn’t the real answer to enforce the laws that exist, instead of expecting everyone to obey the self-created shadow laws of property owners, who have mean dogs and sometimes really good aim with golf balls?

但是，科林想知道，真正的答案不就是执行现有的法律，而不是期望每个人都遵守业主自己制定的影子法律，这些业主养着卑鄙的狗，有时还用高尔夫球瞄准了很好的目标？

This piece was one of the only things I read in 2018 where I both hung on every word and didn’t hate myself at the end — because it was neither vapid celebrity nonsense, nor an enraging new development in the Trump shit-show.

这篇文章是我在 2018 年读到的唯一一篇让我既坚持每一个字又在最后不恨自己的文章之一——因为它既不是乏味的名人废话，也不是特朗普狗屎秀中令人愤怒的新发展。

Like a canoe trip down the Russian River itself, Colin’s tale was both beautifully escapist and a perfect microcosm of much of what ails us at this particular moment: the glorification of private property versus the preservation of the public good.

就像在俄罗斯河上划独木舟一样，科林的故事既是美丽的逃避现实，也是我们在这个特定时刻所困扰的许多问题的完美缩影：赞美私有财产与保护公共利益。

Yes canoes, everyone.

是的，大家都划独木舟。

Yes canoes.

是的，独木舟。

Dan KoisDan Kois edits and writes for Slate.

丹·科伊斯 (Dan Kois) 丹·科伊斯 (Dan Kois) 为 Slate 编辑和撰稿。

He co-authored with Isaac Butler The World Only Spins Forward, a history of Angels in America, and is writing a book called How to Be a Family.

他与艾萨克·巴特勒（Isaac Butler）合着了《世界只会向前旋转》（The World Only Spins Forward），讲述了美国天使的历史，并正在撰写一本名为《如何成为一个家庭》（How to Be a Family）的书。

## All 41 Broadway Theaters, Ranked (Natalie Walker, Vulture)

## 所有 41 家百老汇剧院，排名（Natalie Walker、Vulture）

## Do Men Enter Bathtubs on Hands and Knees So Their Balls Hit the Water Last?

## 男人是否会用手和膝盖着地进入浴缸，以便他们的蛋蛋最后接触到水？

(Kelly Conaboy, The Cut)

（凯利·康纳博伊，The Cut）

I read lots of great things this year, long and important and inspiring reads about Deborah Eisenberg and cruise-ship entertainers and #MeToo.

今年我读了很多很棒的东西，关于黛博拉·艾森伯格、游轮艺人和#MeToo 的长篇、重要且鼓舞人心的读物。

But I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge a different kind of great writing that the current internet-media economy, for all its flaws, fosters quite well: the deranged overlongread.

但我想花点时间承认当前的互联网媒体经济尽管存在种种缺陷，却很好地培育了一种不同类型的伟大写作：疯狂的超长阅读。

This is the piece that, with a wildly entertaining lack of self-control, goes way too deep into a question of perhaps questionable impact, taking advantage of the author’s expertise or tireless interest in the subject.

这篇文章利用作者的专业知识或对该主题的孜孜不倦的兴趣，极其有趣地缺乏自制力，深入探讨了一个可能产生可疑影响的问题。

It’s a chance for a writer to completely lose her sense of perspective and launch into the kind of writing project that no editor would say yes to in the abstract but which no good editor can say no to once she’s read it.

对于作家来说，这是一个完全失去视角的机会，并开始进行那种没有编辑会在摘要中说“是”的写作项目，但没有一个好的编辑在读完它后就可以说“不”。

My two favorite examples this year were both published on nymag.com.

今年我最喜欢的两个例子都发表在 nymag.com 上。

Natalie Walker’s exhaustive ranking of all 41 Broadway theaters on Vulture is nearly 5,000 words long, but is so densely packed both with jokes and with absurdly detailed knowledge that it never stops being delightful to read.

娜塔莉·沃克 (Natalie Walker) 在 Vulture 上对所有 41 家百老汇剧院进行了详尽的排名，长达近 5,000 字，但其中充满了笑话和极其详细的知识，读起来总是令人愉悦。

And in a piece on The Cut that is pegged to nothing, absurd on its face, inspired by a BabyCenter message board post, 2,500 words long, and festooned with amateurish drawings, Kelly Conaboy interviews, at my count, 15 different men to answer, once and for all, the question, “Do Men Enter the Bathtub on Their Hands and Knees So Their Balls Hit the Water Last?” It’s the kind of investigation that the internet was made for.

在 The Cut 上的一篇文章中，这篇文章毫无意义，表面上很荒谬，其灵感来自 BabyCenter 的留言板帖子，长 2,500 字，并饰有业余绘画，凯利·康纳博伊 (Kelly Conaboy) 采访了 15 个不同的男人，据我所知，一劳永逸地回答了这个问题：“男人是用手和膝盖进入浴缸，所以他们的蛋蛋最后才落到水里吗？”互联网就是为这种调查而生的。

Tom MaxwellTom Maxwell is a writer, musician, and author of the Longreads series, “Shelved.”

汤姆·麦克斯韦 (Tom Maxwell) 汤姆·麦克斯韦 (Tom Maxwell) 是一位作家、音乐家，也是 Longreads 系列《搁置》的作者。

## The Untold Stories of Paul McCartney (Chris Heath, GQ)

## 保罗·麦卡特尼不为人知的故事（克里斯·希思，GQ）

## In Praise of ‘Good As Hell,’ The Song That Believes In You Even When You Don’t (Hanif Abdurraqib, NPR)

## 赞美“Good As Hell”，即使你不相信你的歌曲（Hanif Abdurraqib，NPR）

## I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life (Heather Havrilesky, The Cut)

## 我身无分文，几乎没有朋友，我已经浪费了我的一生（Heather Havrilesky，The Cut）

I have three pieces for you to read at this closing of the year.

我有三篇文章供你在今年年底阅读。

They all trade in perception and value.

它们都以感知和价值进行交易。

The first is Chris Heath’s lengthy interview with Paul McCartney for GQ.

第一篇是克里斯·希思 (Chris Heath) 对《GQ》保罗·麦卡特尼 (Paul McCartney) 的长篇采访。

“The Untold Stories of Paul McCartney” is a litany of the rock legend’s “less manicured” anecdotes — including the as-yet unshared John Lennon circle jerk story.

《保罗·麦卡特尼不为人知的故事》一连串地讲述了这位摇滚传奇人物的“不那么精心修饰”的轶事，其中包括尚未分享的约翰·列侬圈子的混蛋故事。

Mostly it’s about a man, largely responsible for redefining popular culture, slowly revealing himself as a bit of a weirdo.

主要是关于一个男人，他在很大程度上负责重新定义流行文化，慢慢地暴露出自己有点怪异。

Next is a piece of luminous writing by Hanif Abdurraqib for NPR’s “American Anthem” series.

接下来是 Hanif Abdurraqib 为 NPR 的“美国国歌”系列撰写的一篇精彩的文章。

“In Praise of ‘Good As Hell,’ The Song That Believes In You Even When You Don’t” is a flat-out pleasurable read.

“赞美‘好得要命’，即使你不相信你的歌曲也相信你”是一本非常令人愉快的读物。

“Without erasing the unique specifics of the song’s message,” Abdurraqib writes, “there is another message rattling below: Anyone who desires wings can go out and get them.”

“在不抹去这首歌所传达的独特信息的情况下，”阿卜杜拉吉布写道，“下面还有另一个信息在响动：任何想要翅膀的人都可以出去得到它们。”

Lastly, I commend to you “I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life,” by Heather Havrilesky in her “Ask Polly” column in The Cut.

最后，我向您推荐希瑟·哈夫里尔斯基 (Heather Havrilesky) 在 The Cut 的“问波莉”专栏中写的“我身无分文，几乎没有朋友，我浪费了一生”。

This to me is pure culture — the culture of perceived value and conferred worth.

对我来说，这就是纯粹的文化——感知价值和赋予价值的文化。

The piece is in response to a 35-year-old woman who feels as if her picaresque life has been wasted.

这件作品是对一位 35 岁女性的回应，她觉得自己的流浪汉生活已经被浪费了。

“Learn to treat yourself the way a loving older parent would,” Havrilesky counsels.

“学会像慈爱的年长父母那样对待自己，”哈夫里尔斯基建议道。

“Tell yourself: This reckoning serves a purpose.

“告诉自己：这种计算是有目的的。

Your traveling served a purpose.

你的旅行是有目的的。

Your moving served a purpose.

你的搬家是有目的的。

You’re sitting on a pile of gold that you earned through your own hard work, you just can’t see it yet.

你坐在一堆靠自己辛勤工作赚来的金子上，只是你还看不到它。

You can’t see it because you’re blinded by your shame.” Read this and be refreshed.

你看不到它，因为你被羞耻蒙蔽了双眼。”阅读本文并焕然一新。

Justin HeckertJustin Heckert is a writer living in Charleston, South Carolina.

贾斯汀·赫克特贾斯汀·赫克特是一位住在南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿的作家。

## ‘That had to hurt.’ Lessons learned on the diving board in summer’s final days.

## “那肯定很痛。”夏季最后几天在跳水板上学到的教训。

(Taylor Telford, The Washington Post)

（泰勒·特尔福德，《华盛顿邮报》）

The diving board in this story is ominous, a tongue.

这个故事中的跳水板是不祥的，是一条舌头。

The swimming pool below it “a churning ecosystem of youth.” We are dropped into the summer glow, in with the sunbathers and the divers and the lifeguard, and get to spend a few unforgettable moments inside this day with them, as readers — a world rendered in the third dimension by the sights and sounds and in the movements captured by Taylor Telford.

它下面的游泳池是“一个翻腾的青年生态系统”。作为读者，我们沉浸在夏日的阳光中，与日光浴者、潜水员和救生员在一起，并在这一天与他们一起度过一些难忘的时刻——这是一个由泰勒·特尔福德捕捉到的景象、声音和动作在三维空间中呈现的世界。

The water dripping off shiny skin, the concrete blazing, people hopping back and forth so their feet don’t burn.

水从闪亮的皮肤上滴下来，混凝土在燃烧，人们来回跳跃，以免脚被烧伤。

This story is wonderful, from the lede to the end, and though it’s a short story that reads like a more ambitious one, it never commits the sin of boring writing: it’s always entertaining, and it demands to be read all the way through.

这个故事从头到尾都很精彩，虽然这是一个短篇小说，读起来像是一个更雄心勃勃的故事，但它从来没有犯下无聊写作的罪过：它总是很有趣，而且需要从头到尾读完。

I marvel at the little observations and how she uses them, at what it took to write this and how many people there she must’ve interviewed to make it feel like she didn’t need to interview a soul.

我惊叹于这些小小的观察以及她如何使用它们，惊叹于写这篇文章需要付出什么代价，以及她必须采访了多少人才能让她感觉自己不需要采访一个灵魂。

That she must’ve stared at people’s faces, toes, hands, the concrete of the pool itself, the counting of steps, the height of the board, the shadows and the sun, the way people were positioned and how they were talking to one another, a great reminder of the type of observation required for this kind of work, and how fun and vivid nonfiction can be.

她一定盯着人们的脸、脚趾、手、泳池本身的混凝土、步数、木板的高度、阴影和太阳、人们的姿势以及他们如何彼此交谈，这很好地提醒了我们这种工作所需的观察类型，以及非小说类作品是多么有趣和生动。

Anne ThériaultAnne Thériault is a Toronto-based feminist killjoy.

安妮·泰里奥 (Anne Thériault) 安妮·泰里奥 (Anne Thériault) 是多伦多的一位令人扫兴的女权主义者。

She is currently raising one child and three unruly cats.

她目前正在抚养一个孩子和三只不守规矩的猫。

If she has a looming deadline, you can find her procrastinating on Twitter @anne_theriault.

如果她的最后期限迫在眉睫，你可以在 Twitter 上@anne_theriault 发现她在拖延。

## Living With Slenderman (Kathleen Hale, Hazlitt)

## 与 Slenderman 一起生活（凯瑟琳·黑尔、黑兹利特）

I’m one of those cynical pedants who feels especially exasperated by click-baity social media posts that swear that whatever they’re linking to is the best thing you’ll read all year.

我是那些愤世嫉俗的书呆子之一，我对那些点击诱饵的社交媒体帖子感到特别恼火，这些帖子发誓他们所链接的任何内容都是你全年读到的最好的东西。

More often than is probably (definitely) healthy for me, I find myself rolling my eyes and thinking, “it’s April, my friend, and this year has eight whole months left in it!” So it’s probably poetic justice that the piece that wound up being my favourite long-form essay of the year was published way back in January.

通常，对我来说（绝对）健康的情况是，我发现自己翻白眼并想：“现在是四月，我的朋友，今年还剩下八个月！”因此，这篇最终成为我今年最喜欢的长篇文章的文章早在一月份就发表了，这可能是诗意的正义。

I can’t remember how I first stumbled across Kathleen Hale’s “Living With Slenderman.” I’m sure I opened it because I thought it was going to be a lurid read that scratched my true crime itch.

我不记得我是如何第一次偶然发现凯瑟琳·黑尔的《与瘦人同住》的。我确信我打开它是因为我认为这将是一本耸人听闻的读物，能够触动我真正的犯罪欲望。

Instead, it was a complex narrative about childhood, mental illness, and the carceral system.

相反，这是一个关于童年、精神疾病和监狱系统的复杂叙述。

In her essay, Hale tells the story of Morgan Geyser who, when she was 12, acted with her friend Anissa to try to kill their classmate Bella.

黑尔在她的文章中讲述了摩根·盖瑟 (Morgan Geyser) 的故事，摩根·盖瑟 (Morgan Geyser) 12 岁时与朋友阿妮莎 (Anissa) 一起试图杀死同学贝拉 (Bella)。

The case has generated many sensationalist headlines, especially since the defendants claimed that they had hurt their friend in an effort to appease the internet bogeyman “Slenderman;” many people believed that Morgan and Anissa should serve a maximum prison sentence for such a senseless, horrifying crime.

此案引起了许多耸人听闻的头条新闻，特别是因为被告声称他们为了安抚网络妖怪“Slenderman”而伤害了他们的朋友；许多人认为摩根和阿妮莎应该因为这种毫无意义、可怕的罪行而被判处最高刑期。

But Hale neatly lays out all the details — from Geyser’s early hallucinations and delusions, to her diagnosis of early-onset schizophrenia, to explanations of why American children can be tried as adults in the courts — in a way that’s both engaging and deeply unsettling.

但黑尔以一种既引人入胜又令人深感不安的方式，巧妙地列出了所有细节——从盖瑟早期的幻觉和妄想，到她对早发性精神分裂症的诊断，再到为什么美国儿童可以像成年人一样在法庭上受审的解释。

I came to this essay because I wanted some kind of voyeuristic thrill over something I didn’t really know about and certainly didn’t understand.

我写这篇文章是因为我想要对一些我并不真正了解、当然也不理解的事情感到某种窥淫癖的快感。

I keep coming back to this essay because of the layered truths it tells: that stigma against mental illness can be deadly; that revenge is not a recipe for justice; that prisons chew up and spit out literal children and not many people seem very bothered by that fact.

我不断地回顾这篇文章，因为它讲述了分层的事实：针对精神疾病的耻辱可能是致命的；复仇并不是正义的良方；监狱会咀嚼并吐出真正的儿童，似乎没有多少人对此感到非常困扰。

I can’t stop re-reading it and don’t imagine that I will be able to any time soon.

我无法停止重读它，并且不认为我很快就能做到。

Seyward DarbyEditor in Chief, The Atavist.

赛沃德·达比 (Seyward Darby) 《返祖派》主编。

## For One Last Night, Make It a Blockbuster Night (Justin Heckert, The Ringer)

## 最后一晚，让它成为一鸣惊人的夜晚（贾斯汀·赫克特，《The Ringer》）

I didn’t know I needed a gorgeously written feature about Blockbuster nostalgia until this one popped up on my newsfeed.

直到这篇文章出现在我的新闻推送中之前，我并不知道我需要一篇关于百视达怀旧情怀的精彩文章。

Turns out, I really needed it.

事实证明，我真的需要它。

All movie-lovers probably needed it.

所有电影爱好者可能都需要它。

Certainly, all kids from small towns who once combed the store’s white shelves each weekend needed it.

当然，所有曾经每个周末都在商店白色货架上梳理的小镇孩子都需要它。

Justin Heckert’s superb story for The Ringer about one of the last Blockbusters in Alaska — where the once-hegemonic rental chain went to die — is an elegy for a distinctly 20th century way of consuming culture.

贾斯汀·赫克特 (Justin Heckert) 为《The Ringer》撰写的精彩故事讲述了阿拉斯加最后一批大片之一——曾经霸主的租赁连锁店在那里消亡——是对 20 世纪独特的消费文化方式的挽歌。

Transactional, tactile, conversational, illuminating, and relatable.

交易性、触觉性、对话性、启发性和相关性。

Rooted in real places, yet also in our imaginations.

植根于真实的地方，但也存在于我们的想象中。

Situated at the intersection of the fantastic and the mundane.

位于梦幻与平凡的交汇处。

Like my favorite movies, I could rewind this story and read it again, and again, and again.

就像我最喜欢的电影一样，我可以倒带这个故事并一遍又一遍地阅读。