每一份情緒，都有它的時光
最美好的事，都是沒有原因的
Hedy Lamarr
Try to think of a handful of people who have excelled in two entirely unconnected fields. A prime minister with his own boutique fashion line, say. Or perhaps an NBA championship-winning basketball player who was also a chess grandmaster. It isn’t easy to compile a convincing catalogue, but one who should undoubtedly appear on any such list is the Hollywood sex symbol Hedy Lamarr, who took time out from playing smouldering femmes fatales to invent an unjammable missile-guidance system for use by the Allies in the Second World War.
Born Hedwig Kiesler in Vienna, she rose to fame at the age of eighteen when she became the first actress to portray an orgasm onscreen. For anyone interested, the exuberant and oddly touching scene, which appeared in the 1933 movie Ekstase, can be found on YouTube. Soon afterwards, she married a jealous munitions manufacturer named Friedrich Mandl who tried to destroy every copy of the film. Marital life could be tense, with Hedy expected to play the dutiful wife while her husband had the likes of Hitler and Mussolini to dinner at his schloss. It was while listening to his conversations that the girl, who had always been scientifically minded, first developed a serious interest in weapons technology. Yet the shared enthusiasm wasn’t enough to save the marriage. In the late 1930s, she did a runner, making her way to Hollywood where, performing as Hedy Lamarr, she became a huge star.
Billed as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’, she was dazzling to look at, with perfect bow lips, a delicate nose, and knowing eyes. Few, though, would claim she was a brilliant actress. In any case, she was bored by the boozing and the schmoozing required to sustain her career. In her spare time, Hedy liked nothing better than to hunker over her drafting table and invent things. (Her devices included a traffic light and a tablet for creating a carbonated drink.) In 1940, working with the avant-garde composer George Antheil, she came up with a ‘spread spectrum’ system for directing torpedoes. Because it continually altered the frequency of the radio waves it used, no one could block it. The US Defense Department didn’t adopt the new technology at the time, but dug it out in the 1960s. A version of Hedy’s system is now used in all wireless communication, including mobile phones and wifi. It wasn’t until decades later that the former film star began to receive the credit for her work. When a communications company gave her an award in the 1990s, she observed drily, ‘It’s about time.’
P209 海蒂·拉瑪
請你想想看有幾個人能在兩個完全不相關的領域都有出色的表現。比如，一位擁有自己的精品時裝品牌的首相。或者一位同時也是國際象棋大師的NBA冠軍籃球運動員。匯編一個令人信服的目錄並不容易，但毫無疑問，好萊塢性感女神海蒂·拉瑪(Hedy Lamarr)應該出現在任何一個這樣的名單上，她從扮演悶悶不樂的蛇蠍美人中抽出時間來發明了一種不受幹擾的導彈製導係統，供二戰中的盟軍使用。
她出生在維也納，原名海德薇·凱斯勒， 18歲時成為第一個在銀幕上描繪性高潮的女演員，並一舉成名。有興趣的人可以在YouTube上找到1933年的電影《神魂顛倒》中出現的這一熱情洋溢的動人場景。後來，她嫁給了一個善妒的軍火製造商，名叫弗裏德裏希·曼德爾，他試圖銷毀這部電影的每一份拷貝。婚姻生活可能很緊張，海蒂被期望扮演一個盡職的妻子，而她的丈夫有希特勒和墨索裏尼這樣的人來他的城堡吃飯。正是在聽他談話的過程中，這個一直具有科學頭腦的女人第一次對武器技術產生了濃厚的興趣。然而，共同的熱情並不足以挽救這段婚姻。在20世紀30年代末，她逃離家庭來到了好萊塢，在那裏她扮演海蒂·拉瑪，成為了一名巨星。
被譽為“世界上最美麗的女人”，她有著迷人的外表，完美的彎嘴，精致的鼻子和通曉世故的眼睛。然而，很少有人會說她是一位才華橫溢的女演員。無論如何，她對維持她的職業生涯所需要的豪飲和閑扯倍感厭煩。在她的業餘時間，海蒂最喜歡坐在她的繪圖桌旁發明東西。(她的發明包括一個交通燈和一個用來製造碳酸飲料的片劑。)1940年，她與前衛作曲家喬治·安泰爾(George Antheil)合作，提出了一種“展頻”魚雷導航係統。因為它能不斷地改變它所使用的無線電波的頻率，沒人能阻攔它。美國國防部當時並沒有立刻采用這項新技術，20世紀60年代才又將其挖掘出來。海蒂係統的一個版本現在被用於所有的無線通信，包括移動電話和wifi。直到幾十年後，這位前電影明星才開始因她的作品而獲得讚譽。1990年代，當一家通訊公司頒獎給她，海蒂幹癟癟地說了一句“是時候了”。
The Independent Principality of Sealand
Seven miles off the east coast of England, there is a country. It isn’t a very big country. To be precise, it’s the smallest country in the world, with a surface area that extends to no more than 6,000 square feet, which is about twice the size of a tennis court. You won’t find it on Google Maps and it isn’t a member of Nato or the EU. But I know it exists, because I’ve been there. The full name of this obscure speck of territory is the Independent Principality of Sealand and it has a history that is about as rock ’n’ roll as could be imagined.
During the Second World War, the Navy built a handful of fortresses in the North Sea and kitted them out with anti-aircraft guns. They were later abandoned and left to rust away, pounded by the wind and waves. In the 1960s, some were commandeered by so-called radio ‘pirates’, who used them to broadcast rock music to the nation’s teenagers, while making money from advertising. (Commercial radio stations were then banned in the UK, but the forts were outside jurisdiction.) When the British government outlawed the practice, the Bates family from Essex hung on to their fort, which was called Roughs Tower. They rechristened it Sealand and on Christmas Day 1967 they proclaimed it an independent nation.
The Bates family remains in possession of Sealand to this day. The authorities haven’t intervened, at least partly because it isn’t so easy to launch a maritime operation to retake a military structure that is defended by armed occupants. The Bateses are a pugnacious lot. They have a sense of humour, too. They’ve designed a flag, coins, stamps and passports for their fledgling country, and the head of the family – first Major Roy Bates; now his son Michael – styles himself ‘Prince’. In 1987, when the Territorial Sea Act extended the reach of British territorial waters from three miles to twelve (meaning Sealand would now be automatically British), the outraged Bateses responded by declaring that they had also extended their territorial reach to twelve miles. This, they explained, meant the town of Felixstowe on the Suffolk coast now belonged to them.
P211 西蘭獨立公國
在離英格蘭東海岸七英裏的地方，有一個國家，它不是一個很大。確切地說，它是世界上最小的國家，麵積不超過6000平方英尺，大約是一個網球場的兩倍。它不是北約或歐盟的成員，你也不會在穀歌地圖上找到它，但我知道它的存在，因為我去過。這片鮮為人知的小領土全名是西蘭獨立公國，它的曆史可想而知。
第二次世界大戰期間，海軍在北海建起了幾座堡壘，並裝備了高射炮。它們後來被遺棄，在風吹浪打中日漸鏽蝕。在20世紀60年代，堡壘被“海盜”電台征用，他們利用這些電台向全國青少年播放搖滾音樂，並通過廣告賺錢。(當時商業電台在英國被禁止，但堡壘不在司法管轄範圍內。)當英國政府宣布這一行為違法時，來自埃塞克斯的貝茨家族堅守著他們的堡壘“怒濤塔”。他們將其重新命名為“西蘭”，並在1967年聖誕節宣布其為獨立國家。直到今天，西蘭仍歸貝茨家族所有。當局尚未進行幹預的部分原因，至少是因為要發動海上行動收複一個由武裝人員保衛的軍事建築並非易事。
貝茨家族是一群好鬥的人，他們也很有幽默感。他們為這個羽翼未豐的國家設計了國旗、硬幣、郵票和護照，還有主人——羅伊·貝茨少校一世。現在他的兒子邁克爾把自己稱為“王子”。1987年，英國通過《領海法案》將領海範圍從3英裏擴大到12英裏(這意味著西蘭群島現在自動歸英國所有)，憤怒的貝茨家族回應稱，他們也將其領海範圍擴大到了12英裏。他們解釋說，這意味著薩福克海岸的費利克斯托鎮現在隸屬於他們。
Children
A naturalness. A lack of self-consciousness. The absence of the desire to judge. The ability to exist in the present, as if the past hadn’t happened and the future were nothing to fear. A readiness to laugh and to forgive. A lack of side. A disinclination to cliquishness. Near freedom from sexuality. An experimental approach to food and drink. The willingness to try anything. Lack of interest in hygiene. Lightness of touch. Delight in simplicity. An instinct for play. Imagination. Trust.
Children have just got it. No one taught them. They aren’t putting it on. I don’t know how long it lasts. Maybe in some cases, you lose it the first time you’re attracted to a member of the opposite sex. Or it might happen when you engage in competitive sports, the first time you want to win. At the age of four or five, or a little later. But it’s clear some people keep it a lot longer, and there are a few who never let it go. This childlike quality is one of the distinctive features of genius, prominent in its clearest instances in cultural history, such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein. ‘I do not know what I may appear to the world,’ Isaac Newton once remarked, ‘but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary.’
From the eternal student Hamlet* to the school-age heroes played by James Dean*, coolness has found its foremost expression in adolescent types. That has been the age, when the freedoms and physical strength of adulthood meet the spontaneity of childhood. Yet the childishness is key. It can be seen to link not only geniuses, but also many of those who defined and refined an idea of what cool means in the 20th century. Dean, definitely. But also Marlon Brando* and Paul Newman*. Bob Dylan*. Vivienne Westwood*. Richard Branson*. Madonna*. Björk*. In all these cases, it isn’t hard to see the five-year-old concealed within the actor, singer, fashionista and entrepreneur.
P212 孩子們
不飾雕琢, 缺少自我意識, 沒有評判的欲望，活在當下的能力，好像過去什麽都沒發生過，未來沒什麽好害怕的。願意笑，願意原諒。不搞派係，不搞小集團。幾乎沒有性方麵的困擾。用實驗性的理念對待任何食品和飲料，願意嚐試任何事情，對衛生缺乏興趣。輕柔的觸摸，簡單的喜悅，玩耍的本能，富於想象力，能信任人。
孩子們天生就擁有這些品質，沒人教過他們。他們不偽裝。我不知道這種狀態會持續多久。也許在某些情況下，當你第一次被異性吸引時，你就失去了。或者可能發生在你參加競爭性體育運動時，那是你第一次想要贏。時間上看大約是在四五歲或更晚一點的時候，但很明顯的是，有些人持續的時間久一些，也有一些人從未丟失過。這種天真爛漫的品質是天才的獨特特征之一，在文化史上顯而易見的例子很多，如沃爾夫岡·阿瑪德烏斯·莫紮特、巴勃羅·畢加索和阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦。“我不知道我在世人麵前會是什麽樣子，”艾薩克·牛頓(Isaac Newton)曾經說過，“但對我自己來說，我似乎隻是一個在海邊玩耍的孩子，不時為發現一塊比平常更光滑的鵝卵石或更漂亮的貝殼而歡欣鼓舞。”
從永遠的學生哈姆雷特到詹姆斯·迪恩扮演的學齡英雄，‘酷’在青少年身上得到了最好的表現。”這是一個成年人的自由和體力與孩童時的自發性不期而遇的年齡。然而, 童心是關鍵。它不僅與天才息息相關，也與那些對20世紀“酷”的定義和完善的人們聯係在一起：詹姆斯·迪恩肯定是，還有馬龍·白蘭度和保羅·紐曼，鮑勃·迪倫*，薇薇恩·韋斯特伍德*，理查德·布蘭森*，麥當娜*，比約克*。在所有這些例子中，不難看出隱藏在演員、歌手、時尚達人和企業家的內心深處的5歲孩童。
Conchita Cintrón
History’s most famous female bullfighter, Conchita Cintrón was always terrified before a performance. Once she was in the arena, however, her fear used to melt away. This was fortunate, she remarked, since ‘A qualm or a cringe before 1,200 pounds of enraged bull is sure death.’
Brought up in Peru, the daughter of American parents, she became fascinated by the sport after taking riding lessons from a former bullfighter. She fought her first bull at fifteen. By eighteen, she was internationally renowned. Known as La Diosa de Oro (The Golden Goddess) on account of her mane of flowing blond hair, she drew attention as a young, attractive woman operating in a field dominated by men. She earned particular respect for her mastery of two styles of bullfighting: that of the Portuguese rejoneador, who faces the bull on horseback (and so is less likely to be gored), and that of the Spanish toreador, who performs on foot. While performing as a toreador, she was once so badly wounded that she was stretchered off to hospital. But she refused surgery and instead insisted on returning to the arena to kill her bull. This done, she promptly fainted.
It always riled Cintrón that, in Spain, women were forbidden to fight on foot, the supposed justification being that if one were gored, the more intimate parts of her body might have to be revealed by medics in the arena before the prurient eyes of thousands of spectators. In 1950, she was due to deliver what was billed as her last-ever performance, in the town of Jaén in southern Spain. Although down to fight as a rejoneador, she rode up to the official box and asked permission to fight as a toreador. This was refused. With a rush of blood to the head (she later said, ‘I could not help myself ’) The Golden Goddess slipped off her horse and grabbed the cape and sword from the startled novillero (novice) who had been waiting to make the kill. She prepared the bull with a couple of passes; then, as it charged towards her, she dropped the sword, and instead of killing the beast, lovingly caressed it between the shoulders with the tips of her fingers (thereby also showing that she could have killed it). The crowd went wild. Hats and carnations were thrown at Cintrón’s feet. She wept as she left the arena, and was immediately arrested. But the public protested so violently that the local governor released her, fearing a riot.
P212 肯奇塔·辛特隆
曆史上最著名的女鬥牛士肯奇塔·辛特隆在表演前總是會感到害怕。然而，一旦她進入競技場，她的恐懼就退卻了。她說，幸虧如此，因為“在1200磅的被激怒了的公牛麵前感到不安或畏縮必死無疑。”
她在秘魯長大，父母都是美國人，在一位前鬥牛士的教導下，她開始迷上了這項運動。她十五歲時第一次與公牛搏鬥。到18歲時，她已經蜚聲國際。因為她有著飄逸的金色長發，亦被稱為La Diosa de Oro(黃金女神)。作為一個年輕、有魅力的女性，在這個由男性主導的領域中她吸足了眼球。她更因精通兩種鬥牛方式而贏得了特別的尊重:一種是在馬背上麵對公牛的葡萄牙鬥牛(因此不太可能被公牛抵傷)，另一種是徒步表演的西班牙鬥牛。在表演鬥牛時，她曾受了重傷，被擔架送往醫院。但她拒絕手術，而是堅持要回到競技場殺死她的公牛。事畢，她立刻昏厥了過去。
在西班牙，婦女被禁止徒步戰鬥，這一直讓辛特隆很惱火，而所謂的理由是，如果一個女人被牛頂傷了，她身體更私密的部位可能會被醫護人員暴露在成千上萬淫邪的觀眾麵前。1950年，她在西班牙南部的哈恩鎮舉行了據稱是她最後一次表演。雖然她本就是參加戰鬥的鬥牛士，但她還是騎馬來到了官方包廂，請求以鬥牛士的身份參加戰鬥，這一要求被拒絕了。熱血衝向她的頭部(她後來說，“我受不了”)，黃金女神旋身下馬，從驚恐萬狀的正等著殺牛的新手諾維列羅手中奪過鬥篷和。她逗引著牛來回幾圈後，當它朝她衝過來，她沒有殺死這頭猛獸，反而放下了劍用指尖深情地撫摸著牛的雙肩之間(這也表明她本可以殺死它的)。人群瘋狂起來，將帽子和康乃馨扔在了辛特隆的腳邊。她哭著離開了競技場，隨即被捕。但由於公眾強烈抗議，當地官員擔心會發生騷亂，隻好又釋放了她。
