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Uncharted Territory

自分が読んで興味深く感じた英文記事を中心に取り上げる予定です

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『失われた時を求めて』発売100周年

 

The only paradise is the paradise lost.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees.

上記の言葉はプルーストのものだそうですが、夏目漱石に通じるものが多いにありそうです。どちらも美術評論家のジョン・ラスキンの影響も受けていますし。。。

さて、そんなプルーストの『失われた時を求めて』の第一巻にあたる『スワン家の方へ』が発売されて今年で100周年にあたるそうです。“À la Recherche du Temps Perdu”は、英語に直訳すると “In Search of Lost Time”ですが、英訳タイトルは “Remembrance of Things Past”でこちらの方が通りがいいそうです。グーテンベルクにあったのもこちらのタイトルでした。
 


May 2
Reading Proust: An Introduction
By SAM TANENHAUS

Over the next week, Sam Tanenhaus, Caroline Weber and John Williams are holding a conversation about “In Search of Lost Time,” and welcome readers to join their discussion by leaving comments on the right-hand side of the blog. Mr. Tanenhaus is reading the translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin revised by D. J. Enright.

One hundred years after its publication, “Swann’s Way,” the first volume in Marcel Proust’s cycle “À la Recherche du Temps Perdu” — “In Search of Lost Time,” better known to many Anglophone readers as “Remembrance of Things Past,” the Shakespearian title used by Proust’s first English translator — doubles as thematic “overture” and Michelin guide to the most captivating, ambitious and elusive of modern novels.

The glittering surface of “Swann's Way” presents a Manet-like canvas of belle époque France, a sumptuous world of fashionable salons and tranquil summer homes populated by characters — old and young, rich and poor, artists and aristocrats, footmen and physicians — who spring at us with comic ferocity: their sufferings and delusions, their petty cruelties, their self-destructive obsessions and corrosive vanities. By the end of the giant cycle (some 4,000 pages) these fictitious beings will seem realer than the members of one’s own family.

この作品は普通の人は、For a long time I used to go to bed early.という書き出しの部分と、同じく最初の章のAnd suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleineというマドレーヌで記憶がよみがえり紅茶のカップから記憶が溢れ出てくるというall the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, (…) the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of teaの箇所を抑えておけばよいのではないかと思っています。

『フリーダム』や『コレクション』などの長編小説で名高いフランゼンが今読んでいる本などを語っているときにいかのように書いていました。

Jonathan Franzen: By the Book
Published: April 25, 2013

What are you planning to read next?
For the past 20 years or so I’ve been planning to read the final four volumes of “In Search of Lost Time” next.

プルーストの本は全部で7巻ありますから、彼は3巻で挫折したことになりますね(苦笑)これだけの大作家でも挫折するような本ですから、以下のような本もあるわけです。


Proust's Way: A Field Guide to Proust's Way: A Field Guide to "In Search of Lost Time"
(2001/07/26)
Roger Shattuck

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If you have ever wanted to tackle Proust's In Search of Lost Time but find it a bit daunting, this field guide will bejust the right thing. Shattuck, who won a National Book Award in 1974 for Marcel Proust, focuses here on Proust's place in 20th-century literature. He then provides a guide through Proust's masterpiece. He explains the major settings of the work, summarizes character and plot, and discusses central themes. Shattuck acknowledges that there is no one right interpretation of In Search of Lost Time but succeeds in providing a framework to help readers get through it. He addresses readers coming to the work for the first time, although those familiar with the work who are still struggling with its various facets will appreciate Shattuck's insights. Shattuck is most helpful in placing Proust and the work in the context of his time, giving a balanced treatment to the novel as a whole. Written in a style that will appeal to both the scholar and the lay reader, Shattuck's field guide should be a standard for years to come.

先ほどご紹介した第一巻の書き出しと有名な紅茶とマドレーヌのシーンです。これを機にまずは日本語で読破を目指してみようかと思いました。

SWANN'S WAY
Remembrance Of Things Past, Volume One

By Marcel Proust

Translated From The French By C. K. Scott Moncrieff
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1922

For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say "I'm going to sleep." And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book: a church, a quartet, the rivalry between François I and Charles V. This impression would persist for some moments after I was awake; it did not disturb my mind, but it lay like scales upon my eyes and prevented them from registering the fact that the candle was no longer burning. Then it would begin to seem unintelligible, as the thoughts of a former existence must be to a reincarnate spirit; the subject of my book would separate itself from me, leaving me free to choose whether I would form part of it or no; and at the same time my sight would return and I would be astonished to find myself in a state of darkness, pleasant and restful enough for the eyes, and even more, perhaps, for my mind, to which it appeared incomprehensible, without a cause, a matter dark indeed.

********

And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before church-time), when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the interval, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the forms of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I was sent before luncheon, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and bend, take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognisable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.

 

Call for Papersってどういう意味

 
さきほど取り上げた水問題に関する国際会議は宣言書を作成して閉幕したようです。こういう文書にも目を通すようにして、会議での決定事項を通知する場合のフォーマルな伝え方の表現を学のも立派な英語学習になります。

The Bonn Declaration of Global Water Security

In the short span of one or two generations, the majority of the 9 billion people on Earth will be living under the handicap of severe pressure on fresh water, an absolutely essential natural resource for which there is no substitute. This handicap will be self-inflicted and is, we believe, entirely avoidable.
After years of observations and a decade of integrative research convened under the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) and other initiatives, water scientists are more than ever convinced that fresh water systems across the planet are in a precarious state. Mismanagement, overuse and climate change pose long-term threats to human well-being, and evaluating and responding to those threats constitutes a major challenge to water researchers and managers alike. Countless millions of individual local human actions add up and reverberate into larger regional, continental and global changes that have drastically changed water flows and storage, impaired water quality, and damaged aquatic ecosystems.
Human activity thus plays a central role in the behavior of the global water system.


研究者の集まりのようで、この会議から本を作成する企画が進んでいるようです。Springerの論文募集の告知を見てみます。普通の人にはこういうのもなかなか見る機会がないので貴重ではないでしょうか。記事タイトルのCall for Papersは下記画像からとりました。英語にあまり触れていない人にとっては、簡単な語で短くさらっと書かれた方が分かりにくい場合もあるんですよね。

Springer.png

Contributions
The book will include around 20 papers, each consisting of 3000- 4000 words. Contributions will be accepted from the range of papers presented at the GWSP Conference Water in the Anthropocene: Challenges for Science and Governance. Indicators, Thresholds and Uncertainties of the Global Water System.
Submitted papers should address the ways in which humans influence the dynamics of the global water system through one of the three major topics of the conference:
Global Water System - Current State and Future Challenges
global water assessments; earth observations, indicators and models; risks, extremes and variability
Global Dimensions of Change in River Basins
adaptive resource management; water security in basins; delta systems; water, energy, food security nexus; IWRM; virtual water trade
Balancing Water Needs for Humans and Nature
water quantity and quality; environmental flows; ecosystem services; conser- vation

Timeline
By 31 August 2013 Full paper submission

By 30 September 2013 Internal reviewing
By 30 November 2013 External reviewing
By 31 December 2013 Revision
By 31 January 2013 Handover to Springer
July 2014 Publishing

Publisher
Springer is one of the leading international scientific and business publishing companies worldwide and the second largest journal publisher in the world. Springer’s new and interdisciplinary Water program provides scientific and professional water communities throughout the world with superior specialist information on all aspects of water-related research. For more information please visit: www.springer.com/water

 

じわじわくるEconomistの威力

 
日経の記事で以下のようなものが目に留まりました。「人新世」という言葉に反応できたのも2年前のEconomistの記事を読み、前のブログで紹介させていただいたからです。
20110528_CUK290.jpg

The geology of the planet
Welcome to the Anthropocene
Humans have changed the way the world works. Now they have to change the way they think about it, too
May 26th 2011 |From the print edition

日経の記事は、人の活動が水環境に与える影響という感じで、水問題に絞って紹介しています。

「人新世」議論活発に 水の危機回避へ6つの行動 
日本総合研究所理事 足達英一郎
2013/6/5 7:00

先週後半には、世界の水問題に立ち向かう研究者や政策決定者を集めて、国際水循環システムプロジェクトがドイツのボンで大規模な国際会議を開いた。そのメインテーマは「人新世における水問題」というものだった。
 「人新世」とは地学などで最近、用いられるようになった新語で「人間が地球の生態系や気候に大きな影響を及ぼすようになった、18世紀後半の産業革命以降の時期」を指す。要するに人間の作り出したダム、灌がい、土地の改変が水循環のあり方を大きく変え、それに気候変動が拍車をかけているというのだ。
 地球上の淡水の循環は、きわめて不安定な状態にあるというのが、多くの研究者の共通認識となっている。農業や畜産業が大量の淡水を費消し、地下水のくみあげが地盤沈下をもたらし、土地の改変が多量の堆積物を発生させ水の流れを変え、不適切な灌がいが河川の水を干上がらせている。こうした現象は、単に人々の飲み水や衛生管理の問題にとどまらず、生態系を持続できるかどうかを左右する脅威になっていると警告が発せられている。

「国際水循環システムプロジェクトがドイツのボンで大規模な国際会議を開いた」とあったので、調べてみたら特設サイトがありました。凝った動画も作成されています。

Water in the Anthropocene from WelcomeAnthropocene on Vimeo.



国際会議の案内はTOEICでもど真ん中のトピックですので、見てみます。

International Conference
Welcome to the GWSP Conference Website on:
'Water in the Anthropocene: Challenges for Science and Governance. Indicators, Thresholds and Uncertainties of the Global Water System'
to be held at Maritim Hotel Bonn, Germany on 21-24 May 2013.
The conference is organized by the Global Water System Project and its International Project Office based in Bonn, Germany. It is kindly supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG).
The focus of the conference is to address the global dimensions of water system changes due to anthropogenic as well as natural influences.
The conference will provide the platform to present global and regional perspectives of world wide experiences on the responses of water management to global change in order to address issues such as variability in supply, increasing demands for water, environmental flows, and land use change. It will help to build links between science and policy and practice in the area of water resources management and governance, related institutional and technological innovations and identify in which ways research can assist policy and practice in the field of sustainable freshwater management.
Participants from all continents and dealing with various water-related problems are expected to attend this conference.


会議の前日に、プロモーション記事としてVOAが取り上げてくれています。音声もあるのでVOAは英語学習向きですね。

News / Africa
Scientists Ponder 'Epoch' of Damage to Global Water System
Joe DeCapua
Last updated on: May 20, 2013 11:47 AM

「15年に国連のミレニアム開発目標を継承する「持続可能な開発目標」に「水に関する安全保障」を盛り込むことも提案している。」とあるように国連でもこのような問題を大きく取り上げるようになるかもしれません。

Economistを読むということは目下の情勢を知るということだけでなく、今回のように大きな時代の流れを知ることもできることでもあると思います。資格disみたいなことは本意ではないのですが、資格はあくまで基本であって、それをどう応用していくかを問わなくてはいけないものです。こういう大きな流れを捉える作業はテストの点などに現れるものではないのですが、丁寧にカバーストーリーを読むということを続けていけば、いろいろと視野が広がります。長期的に見たときにそれをやってきた人とやらなかった人の差は大きくなってしまうでしょう。
 

(予習)サンドバーグがく〜る〜〜

 
5月30日にD11に登場していました。最初の10分はLean inに関連するジェンダー問題を話しています。その後はFacebookの話になっています。WSJでも記事にしていました。



June 3, 2013
After Leaning In
Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg on making it safe to talk about gender in the workplace

Women and Work
MR. MOSSBERG: There are a lot of industries and there are a lot of different governments and social structures that have a gender imbalance, but what about tech?
MS. SANDBERG: The industry numbers range from 11% to 21%, but basically every industry has the same problem. People think it is tech or finance; it is not. Every industry is overwhelmingly led by men.

MR. MOSSBERG:But you work in the tech industry, so what have you observed about it?
MS. SANDBERG: Every industry has the same problem. The tech industry has one particular challenge, which is more women going into STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] fields and particularly computer science. If we got women at the same percentage as men into computer science, you would halve or potentially close the gap in the computer scientists needed right now in our country.

MS. SWISHER: You have gotten a lot of attention for it, the goal would be to bring attention to it, but how do you solve it?
What happens after leaning in?
MS. SANDBERG: The specific thing that I want to do is to make it OK to talk about gender in the workplace and educate people on how gender holds us back.


ジェンダー問題は感情論になりやすいので厄介ですが、この記事ではIT業界での男女差の統計を載せてくれています。
 

アメリカで影響が大きかったテレビ番組

 
アトランテックで以下のようなアンケートをとっていました。サタデーナイトライブ、エドサリバンショー、60ミニッツ、シンプソンズなど、いろいろな番組名が日本人でも浮かびそうですね。

What was the most … ever?という質問なので、選ばれたのはその番組が基本フォーマットになったものばかりです。こういうのを知らなくても資格もとれますし、テストでも良い点はとれるでしょう。でも、日本人だったら、「頭が高い!控えおろう!」という台詞を聞けば水戸黄門が想像できたり、太陽に吠えろと聞けばパラパ~ パパラ~ パラパ~ パパラパーパパーというテーマが想像できたりする人が多いですよね。

雑学の領域なんで、勉強素材なんかではないのですが、人の気持ちを理解するには、あなどれない要素だったりもします。雑誌Timeなどを定期的に読み続けるメリットはこういう感覚もつくからなんですよね。Yutaが知らなかった番組を中心にYoutube動画を一緒にして一部抜粋したものが以下です。今は、クラシックなテレビ番組もすぐに探せるので便利になりましたね。

THE BIG QUESTION
JUNE 2013
What Was the Most Influential TV Show Ever?
All in the Family, SNL, 60 Minutes, and more
MAY 22 2013, 9:58 PM ET



James Lipton, host, Inside the Actors Studio
All in the Family gave us not stereotypes but archetypes—Archie, Edith, Meathead—and drew a line between all TV comedy that went before and everything that has come after.

Jason Katims, co-creator and show runner, Parenthood
The triumph of All in the Family wasn’t that it introduced a racist character we could shake our heads at and disdain. The triumph was that it introduced a racist character we loved. The show paved the way for complexity on scripted television. It’s when TV started to grow up.



Liz Meriwether, creator and co–show runner, New Girl
Obviously, without a doubt, absolutely Saved by the Bell. Its influence on taste, fashion, and politics has reverberated throughout history and across the globe. Second only to Hey Dude, which aired during the Nickelodeon renaissance of the late ’80s and early ’90s.



Darlene Hunt, creator and show runner, The Big C
As a writer, I was most influenced by M*A*S*H. I watched it in real time when I was a kid, and watched reruns for years afterward. It molded my “laughter through tears” writing sensibility. If somebody ain’t dyin’, I ain’t laughin’.



David Benioff, co-creator and co–show runner, Game of Thrones
Hill Street Blues changed everything. The cops were flawed; the story lines were not resolved in a single episode; characters you loved died while having sex. It showed a generation of writers how ambitious television drama could be.



Beau Willimon, creator and show runner, House of Cards
Deadwood was the first show that made me think television could be a high art form. It took big risks, told bold stories, and employed elevated language—a revelation.



Chuck Lorre, co-creator, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men
Personally, it’s a tie between The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Ed Sullivan Show. Both were windows through which I could see the best singers, dancers, musicians, comedians, vaudevillians, raconteurs—and, of course, the Beatles. In my otherwise cloistered world, it was hugely impactful to have the opportunity to see mastery up close.



Lauren Zalaznick, executive vice president, NBCUniversal
Maude dared to portray a graying, three-times-divorced woman who wore a pantsuit and uttered the word abortion on national TV. Maude even scooped my beloved reality genre when both Bea Arthur and her character got a face-lift—all of this 40 years ago, on broadcast television, during prime time.

 

ラファエロ展を見逃した方も漱石展があります

 




上野の東京芸術大学の大学美術館で『夏目漱石の美術世界』という展示会が開かれています。先週終了したラファエロ展は点数が少なかったので肩すかしの面もあったのですが、漱石の展示会は逆に期待以上のものでした。

今回初めて芸大に併設している美術館にいったのですが、なかなか立派なものでした。展示室も大きくなく、点数も少ないこじんまりした展示会を想像していたので、普通の美術館のようなしっかりした建物だったので驚いてしまいました。展覧会は、漱石の本の装丁、漱石の作品に登場している英国を中心とした世紀末芸術と日本の芸術作品と同時に、漱石と同時代の日本の芸術作品も見ることができました。

近代日本を代表する文豪、また国民作家として知られる夏目漱石(1867-1916)。この度の展覧会は、その漱石の美術世界に焦点をあてるものです。漱石が日本美術やイギリス美術に造詣が深く、作品のなかにもしばしば言及されていることは多くの研究者が指摘するところですが、実際に関連する美術作品を展示して漱石がもっていたイメージを視覚的に読み解いていく機会はほとんどありませんでした。
この展覧会では、漱石の文学作品や美術批評に登場する画家、作品を可能なかぎり集めてみることを試みます。私たちは、伊藤若冲、渡辺崋山、ターナー、ミレイ、青木繁、黒田清輝、横山大観といった古今東西の画家たちの作品を、漱石の眼を通して見直してみることになるでしょう。
また、漱石の美術世界は自身が好んで描いた南画山水にも表れています。漢詩の優れた素養を背景に描かれた文字通りの文人画に、彼の理想の境地を探ります。
本展ではさらに、漱石の美術世界をその周辺へと広げ、親交のあった浅井忠、橋口五葉らの作品を紹介するとともに、彼らがかかわった漱石作品の装幀や挿絵なども紹介します。当時流行したアール·ヌーヴォーが取り入れられたブックデザインは、デザイン史のうえでも見過ごせません。
漱石ファン待望の夢の展覧会が、今、現実のものとなります。

影響を与えた芸術作品と漱石の著作の抜粋が並べて展示してあるので、アールヌーボやラファエル前派などが漱石に影響を与えたことはこの展覧会を見ることで実感できます。漱石の著作の影響とは別に漱石と同時代の日本絵画も展示してあって、1900−10年あたりは印象主義やポスト印象主義の影響が日本にも強くあったことがわかりました。


世紀末と漱石 (岩波人文書セレクション)世紀末と漱石 (岩波人文書セレクション)
(2010/12/11)
尹 相仁

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そこでふと思ったのは、漱石はなぜ印象主義やポスト印象主義は作品に取り入れなかったのかという疑問です。この展覧会と同じように世紀末芸術と漱石の関係を考察した著名な『世紀末と漱石』という著作によれば、印象主義も少し取り上げていて漱石はその芸術動向は理解していたようです。

まあ、印象主義やポスト印象主義は、当時の現代芸術といえども、目に見えるものを扱う印象主義よりは、目に見えないものを扱う象徴主義のようなものを好んでいた漱石の趣味にはあわなかったから作品にはそれほど登場しなかったのでしょうかね。もちろん、フロベールが『ボヴァリー夫人』のような写実主義だけでなく、『サランボー』『聖アントワーヌの』などの幻想的な作品を描いた二面性は漱石にもあるようですが。。。

英国留学で生の芸術作品に触れただけでなく、帰国後もStudioという美術・工芸雑誌を定期購読して熱心に読んでいたようです。

Studio (1893-1988)
Published in London and devoted to the fine and applied arts, Studio magazine was founded in 1893 by Charles Holme, an artistically well-connected businessman who lived in William Morris's Red House. With an international readership it did much to promote British design abroad, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when many illustrated articles on the graphic artist Aubrey Beardsley, architect-designers Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Charles Annesley Voysey, and others appeared. Similarly, it did much to introduce its British readers to Art Nouveau and a wide range of other European developments surveyed in articles and notices. Its first editor was C. Lewis Hind, although he was soon replaced by the influential and effective Gleeson White. So successful was the magazine in its early years that an American version, entitled International Studio, was launched in 1897, a series of Special Issues produced from 1898 until 1939, and, from 1907 until the 1980s (with some adjustments of title), The Studio Yearbooks of Decorative Art provided useful surveys of international design and interiors. The First World War seriously affected the magazine's readership and, under the editorship of Geoffrey Holme (son of the founder), a generally conservative line was pursued in the interwar years. In the 1960s the magazine was retitled Studio International and devoted itself to modern art.

絶対あり得ないことですが、もし漱石が英国でなく、パリに留学していたとしたら、作品で取り上げた美術作品も変わったのかもしれないなとそんなことも思ってしまいました。
 

サンドバーグがく〜る〜〜

 
日経新聞からのメールで知ったのですが、Lean Inを出版したFacebookのサンドバーグが「グローバル・ウーマン・リーダーズ・サミット」で講演するそうです。日本語版の出版記念で来日するのでしょうかね。

2013年7月2日(火)
19:00~(開場18:00)
ヒカリエホール(東京都渋谷区渋谷2-21-1 渋谷ヒカリエ9階)

19:00~ 基調講演
「LEAN IN~勇気ある一歩が社会を変える」(仮題)
シェリル・サンドバーグ 氏
(「LEAN IN」著者、フェイスブック最高執行責任者)

19:30~ 特別講演
「ことに向かう力~ダイバーシティで求められるもの」
南場 智子 氏
(ディー・エヌ・エー取締役、ファウンダー)

19:55~ パネルディスカッション
「ウーマノミクス~女性経済の可能性と未来」(仮題)
シェリル・サンドバーグ 氏
(「LEAN IN」著者、フェイスブック最高執行責任者)
南場 智子 氏
(ディー・エヌ・エー取締役、ファウンダー)
キャシー・松井 氏
(ゴールドマン・サックス証券マネージング・ディレクター・
チーフ日本株ストラテジスト)
川本 裕子 氏
(早稲田大学大学院教授)

30分ほどの短い講演なのが残念ですが、生の英語を聞くチャンスですね。電話で事務局に確認したところ男性でも参加していいようです。とりあえず申し込んでみました。抽選に当たるといいなと思っています。
 

Allez! Nishikori-kun!

 
ナダルと錦織の試合がまさに行われている最中のようですね。ナダルは今日が誕生日なんですね。

二人の試合の英語ラジオを今まさに聞けます。

ラジオキャスターも今のところ好意的に錦織君のことも取り上げてくれています。
 

映画『リンカーン』を何度でも楽しむための本

 
映画リンカーンのTony Kushnerが6年かけてスピルバーグに見せながら何度も書き直したエピソードを語ってくれています。



こちらのアドバイスも素晴らしいものです。知っているものを書くのではなく、書くことによって自分の内側にありながらも、気づけなかったものを発見していくことこそが素晴らしい点だと語っています。こちらの動画は機会があれば改めてご紹介したいと思います。



何年もかけて練り込んでいった脚本だけあってか、映画リンカーンはいろいろなものが盛り込まれています。当時のインターネットだった電報、マクベス夫人ともいわれた悪妻としてのリンカーン夫人、リンカーンのユーモア、夢にうなされるリンカーンなどなど、さまざまなエピソードをアメリカ史や当時の状況などを交錯させながら紹介してくれている本が以下の本です。


リンカーンの世紀 アメリカ大統領たちの文学思想史 増補新版リンカーンの世紀 アメリカ大統領たちの文学思想史 増補新版
(2013/04/24)
巽孝之

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映画で取り上げるリンカーンの時期は短かったですが、この本は大統領になるまでの逸話LoghouseからWhitehouseまでの立身出世話から、暗殺後から21世紀になるまでのアメリカを取り上げてくれています。英語学習者的には、貧しさゆえに本を借りるしかなかったからか、暗唱が得意になったことというエピソードが興味を引きました。少し内容は難しいかもしれませんが、このような本を読んでから映画リンカーンを見ればまた違った角度から楽しめるようになるでしょう。

この本は2002年に出た本にオバマ大統領を扱った最終章を付け足した物です。最終章は南北戦争150周年にあたって書かれた以下の書評が紹介されていました。南北戦争に祝福すべきことがあるのかという批判的なアメリカ史の振り返りの論考です。個人的にこの書評で興味を引いたのは、最後の2012年大統領選挙でも、南北戦争の陰を感じ取ることができることです。僕たち日本人にとっては過去にあったということさえ実感がわかない出来事かもしれませんが、アメリカにとってはやっとかさぶたになった傷口なのかもしれません。

From Civil War to Civil Rights
Ari Kelman
Published: 22 February 2012
Meanwhile, it’s election season, and Rick Perry, until recently a leading presidential candidate, has in the past extolled the virtues of secession. Given the chance, he may commemorate the Civil War by recapitulating it. Newt Gingrich, for the moment still a leading presidential candidate and a trained historian to boot, has just released the final novel in his jointly authored trilogy on the conflict. An exploration of the notorious Battle of the Crater, where Confederate troops massacred African American soldiers fighting for the Union, Gingrich’s book nevertheless portrays Southerners in a favourable light. With his co-author, Gingrich focuses on characters opposed to the slaughter and invents an order issued by General Lee, whom they depict demanding that his subordinates treat the enemy, regardless of race, equally: “I want the full honor of war observed”, Lee says. Gingrich has found the Lost Cause and recycled it as political outreach to Southern partisans. The serving President, for his part, appears to have adopted a Kennedyesque attitude to the sesquicentennial. Although he never misses an opportunity to express deep admiration for Abraham Lincoln, President Obama now seems loath to engage with the ongoing clash over Civil War memory. It may be that, with the nation bitterly divided and a tough campaign on the horizon, it’s more expedient for him to forget than to remember.

文学研究者の方なので、アメリカ文学の巨匠も数多く紹介されています。ホイットマンのリンカーン追悼詩も大きく取り上げてくれていました。



以下は、ウォルト・ホイットマン詩集というサイトから引用させていただきます。

おお船長! わが船長!
船長! 船長! つらい旅も終わりました、
船は嵐にも耐え抜き、欲しかったものも手に入れました、
もうすぐ港です、あれは鐘の音ですよ、みんなの祝福が聞こえます、
みんながこの頑丈な竜骨と、大胆不屈の船体を目で追っています。
 なのに心は! 心は! 心は!
  赤い滴りが流れる甲板の、
   その上には船長が横たわり、
    冷たくなって倒れてるなんて。
船長! 船長! 起きてあの鐘を聞いてください。
起きてください――あなたに向かって旗が振られ――ラッパが鳴らされています、
あなたに向けた花束と豪華な花輪も――海岸には人だかりです、
あなたに向かって呼んでいます、揺れる群衆が、期待に満ちて振り返っています。
 ねえ船長! お願いです!
  この腕で頭を支えましょう!
   なにかの夢です甲板の上で、
    冷たくなって倒れているなんて。
船長は答えない、唇は青ざめて閉じたまま、
ぼくの腕にも触れず、脈も意識もない、
船は無事に錨を降ろし、航海は終わりを迎え、
望みを手に入れ堂々とつらい旅から戻ってきた。
 喜べ海岸のみんな、鳴り響け鐘の音!
  でもぼくは死を悼む足取りで、
   船長が横たわり、冷たくなって
    倒れている甲板を歩いている。

O Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, 
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; 
But O heart! heart! heart! 
O the bleeding drops of red, 
Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; 
Rise up --for you the flag is flung --for you the bugle trills, 
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths --for you the shores a-crowding, 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; 
Here Captain! dear father! 
This arm beneath your head! 
It is some dream that on the deck, 
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, 
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; 
Exult O shores, and ring O bells! 
But I with mournful tread, 
Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead.

映画『いまを生きる』のCarpe Diem(Seize the Day)のシーンでもO Captain! My Captain!が使われていたのですね。ラストシーンが有名ですが、このシーンではホイットマンがリンカーンを読んだことに触れていますね。





相変わらず英語業界は、受験英語は「役立つ」、TOEFLやTOEICは「役立つ」という話ばかりを嬉しそうにしていますが、詩の素晴らしさを伝えることのできる英語教師にも活躍してもらいたいものです。
 

オブリビオンとワイエス

 


映画オブリビオンを観に行ってきました。以下が最新の米国ボックスオフィスです。4月公開から1ヶ月たってもベスト10に入っていますが、興行成績は伸び悩んでいるようです。

映画の感想としては、下記の動画がすべて言ってくれている感じです。過去のSFの寄せ集めという批判はできますが、このところ、アルゴ、ゼロダークサーティ、リンカーンと歴史物・ノンフィクションを中心に観てきたのでオリジナル脚本ならではの楽しみを味わうことはできました。



ニューヨークタイムズの映画評でもit’s been stitched together from bits and pieces that evoke numerous otherと寄せ集め批判をしていました。

MOVIE REVIEW
After the Apocalypse, Things Go Downhill
‘Oblivion,’ With Tom Cruise
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: April 18, 2013

All genre fictions build, self-consciously or not, on their progenitors. The problem with “Oblivion,” which is based on an unpublished graphic novel Mr. Kosinski wrote and used to pitch the studio, is that it’s been stitched together from bits and pieces that evoke numerous other, far better far-out tales and ideas, conceits and characters from the likes of Philip K. Dick, the Wachowskis, J. G. Ballard and Duncan Jones, specifically his elegant, elegiac movie, “Moon.” No matter how hard Mr. Cruise squares his jaw or flings his body over and against the scenery, and despite the presence of Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who trickle into the story to aid in Jack’s journey, “Oblivion” never transcends its inspirations to become anything other than a thin copy.

この映画でアンドリューワイエスの『クリスティーナの世界』が登場していました。ストーリーにほとんど絡まないと思うので、紹介してもいいのではないかと判断させていただきました。記事の最初に紹介した予告編の始めに出てくる自然の景色にも通じる、監督にとっての故郷的イメージだったのかもしれません。または、MOMAの説明にあるように困難な状況にも毅然として立ち向かう精神力に共感を覚えたのかもしれません。



Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917–2009)
Christina's World

The woman crawling through the tawny grass was the artist's neighbor in Maine, who, crippled by polio, "was limited physically but by no means spiritually." Wyeth further explained, "The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless."

(枯れた草の上を這って歩く女性はメーン州の画家の近所に住んでいた。ポリオのため足が不自由なので肉体的には制限を受けているが、だからといって精神的に制限を受けているわけではない。ワイエスはさらに説明を加える。「私にとって課題だったのは、彼女の人生にとって大変な遠征を正当に扱うことでした。多くの人は希望を見いだせなかったでしょう」)

結構な言われようの映画でしたが、ワイエスのメッセージにも似た、思いの大切さを訴えかけるメッセージには共感を覚えました。
 

夏に読む本

 
今週のニューヨークタイムズの書評はSummer Reading特集でCooking / Gardening / Travelといったものが紹介されている感じです。その中で夏の読書の思い出を作家に語ってもらっているコーナーがありました。ジョブズの伝記を書いたアイザックソンとジュノディアスのものを見てみます。

What I Read That Summer
Published: May 31, 2013

The rites of summer are, by definition, fleeting: the summer romance, the summer job or vacation. Only the books seem to stick. Twelve writers recall their most memorable experiences of summer reading, proving perhaps that if you’re looking for an enduring summer romance, a good book might be your best bet.

Walter Isaacson
When I was growing up in New Orleans, my friend Thomas and I used to go fishing across Lake Pontchartrain. We’d stop for lunch at his uncle’s house on the Bogue Falaya, a lazy river teeming with turtles. I was baffled about what “Uncle Walker” did for a living, since he always seemed to be at home, sipping bourbon. He was a kindly gentleman, whose placid face seemed to know despair but whose eyes nevertheless often smiled. His daughter said he was a writer. One summer I read Walker Percy’s “The Moviegoer,” and it dawned on me that writing was something you could do for a living, just like being a doctor or a fisherman. The novel’s wry philosophical depth opened my eyes to what Percy called “the search,” poking around for clues about why we are here. At the end of that summer, I tried to get him to expound on the religious themes in the book, but he fended me off. “There are two types of people who come out of Louisiana,” he said. “Preachers and storytellers.” It was better to be a storyteller.

Walter Isaacson is the president of the Aspen Institute and the author of biographies of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin.

Junot Díaz
Junior year I spent my summer working at a steel mill. All my boys were taking it easy and my girl was down at the shore with her family, writing me sketchy letters about all the guys who were “into her.” She was at the beach, planning to leave me I was sure, and there I was wearing thermal greens and metatarsal boots five days a week. When we went into the melt shop I had to put on thermals under the greens to keep my inner organs from being cooked. What was even worse, though, were some of my co-workers. A couple of them tried to sell me paper targets with drawings of “blacks” on them. Their idea of a joke.
It was seriously a lousy job and an even lousier summer.

Still, you got to fight — so I fought. Every lunch break I sat on the deck overlooking the scrap yard and read me some Toni Morrison. I’d brought all of her novels back from Rutgers, vowing to finish them all by summer’s end, and that’s exactly what I did. I read with a concentration I have never again matched. I’ll sure as hell never forget those lunch hours, turning those pages, the Komatsu loader cranking in the distance. I’ll never forget the books or all those heartbreaking lines. “How loose the silk. How jailed down the juice.” I’ll never forget having to close the books, all the strength that took and getting back to work.

I survived the summer. The girlfriend didn’t leave me. And Toni Morrison’s novels took hold of me the way books are wont to do when you’re a certain age. Took hold and never let go.

Junot Díaz’s novel, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008. His most recent book is “This Is How You Lose Her.”


といっても今週で個人的に興味を引かれたのがユダヤ人ジョークの本でしたが。。。

Such Small Portions
‘No Joke,’ by Ruth R. Wisse
By ANTHONY GOTTLIEB
Published: May 31, 2013

フリーペーパーのメトロポリスも少し前に夏休み向けの本を紹介していました。日本向けの本ですが、サムライ、和太鼓とかが選ばれているのを見ると外国の人が選んだんでしょうね(苦笑)。でも、その中から、阿川弘之の『春の城』や東日本大震災後の政治について語った本も選ばれていました。『春の城』はKindleだと500円弱で買えるのでお得です。

books
Literary Landscapes
8 Japan-related English books for your summer reading list
May 10, 2013 | Issue: 998 | No Comments | 1,022 views


Citadel in SpringCitadel in Spring
(2013/02/28)
Hiroyuki Agawa

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CITADEL IN SPRING
A Novel of Youth Spent at War
By Hiroyuki Agawa; translated by Lawrence Rogers
An autobiographical novel published by Hiroyuki Agawa in 1949, this translation gives you access to “a surprising historical document as well as a moving account of the cost of militarism and defeat” (The New Yorker). Writer Agawa tells in this fictionalized memoir of his induction into the Imperial Navy, his work as a code-breaker in China, and the effects of Japan’s final capitulation.


After the Great East Japan Earthquake: Political and Policy Change in Post-Fukushima Japan (Asia Insights)After the Great East Japan Earthquake: Political and Policy Change in Post-Fukushima Japan (Asia Insights)
(2013/02/01)
不明

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AFTER THE GREAT EAST JAPAN EARTHQUAKE
Political and Policy Change in Post-Fukushima Japan
Edited by Dominic Al-Badri and Gijs Berends
The co-editors both worked for the EU Delegation to Japan at the time of the 3/11 disasters, and brought together this collection of essays to explore shifts in Japanese politics and policy making two years on. Published by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies in Copehagen, the book’s contributors include policy experts and Tokyo diplomats.

500円もかからなかったので、春の城の方を買ってみました。なぜ英訳のタイトルがCastle in Springではなくcitadelが使われているのか。Citadelをcicadaと勘違いして『春の蝉』と思っていた自分としても(汗)気になったのですが、杜甫の『春望』に由来する詩の意味もふまえて考えるとこちらの方がふさわしいことを冒頭で訳者の方が丁寧に説明してくださっていました。

(オックスフォード)
citadel
(in the past) a castle on high ground in or near a city, where people could go when the city was being attacked
(figurative)citadels of private economic power


TOEIC的には最後の最後にある謝辞のバリエーションになれておきたいですね。感謝の表現は実生活でも必要不可欠ですし。

(訳者前書き)
It has been more than half a century since Citadel in Spring was first published in Japanese, so I have taken the liberty in this edition of adding an occasional footnote to clarify what the passage of time may have obscured. I have also corrected typographical errors and made minor revisions in the translation.

A comment on the title: the phrase "citadel in spring" is taken from "Spring Prospect" by the T'ang dynasty poet Tu Fu. The poem laments the occupation of the great city of Ch'angan, capital of T'ang China, by a rebel army. It begins:

The realm is destroyed, yet the mountains and livers abide;
The citadel in spring stands deep in tree and grass.

In ancient China the sinograph translated here as "citadel" meant "city," but later came to mean "castle" in Japan. Although the Japanese title Ham no shiro could be translated literally as "Castle in Spring," I have used the word "citadel" in an attempt to encompass both senses, since the word is employed in the novel specifically for Hiroshima Castle, and, in the title, becomes a metaphor for the city itself. I would like to thank the author for explaining a number of terms, especially those related to the old Imperial Navy. I have also profited from discussions with my former colleagues George Durham and the late Richard Howell concerning, respectively, the music festival at the Itsukushima shrine and crypt analysis. For those readers who wish more information on the latter I recommend David Kahn's pioneering The Codebreakers. I would also like to thank Laura Driussi and Ichiba Shinji, formerly with Kodansha International, and Yoshiko Samuel, Professor Emerita of Wesleyan University, for their comments. I am also grateful to my former colleague, Hiroko Igarashi, for her many useful suggestions, and to Edward Lipsett, publisher of Kurodahan Press. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to my wife, Kazuko Fujihira, for her constant encouragement and support over the years.

Lawrence Rogers
Kurtistown, Hawaii


杜甫の『春望』の冒頭2行は英語だとあのようになるのですね。春の城があの有名な漢詩からきた題名だったとは恥ずかしながら思いもよりませんでした。。。

国破山河在
 (国破れて山河在り)
城春草木深 (城春にして草木深し)

感時花濺涙 (時に感じては花にも涙を濺ぎ)

恨別鳥驚心 (
別れを恨んでは鳥にも心を驚かす)

烽火連三月 (
烽火三月に連なり)

家書抵萬金
 (
家書萬金に抵る
)
白頭掻更短 (白頭掻かけば更に短く)

渾欲不勝簪 (
渾べて簪に勝えざらんと欲す)

 

Googleは大航海時代の宣教師か

 


ウィキリークスのジュリアンアサンジがグーグルのシュミット会長が共著で出版したNew Digital Ageという新刊を批判するエッセイをニューヨークタイムズのOpEdに寄稿していました。

The Banality of ‘Don’t Be Evil’
By JULIAN ASSANGE
Published: June 1, 2013

Words checked = [1301]
Words in Oxford 3000™ = [79%]

タイトルは、紹介させていただいたばかりのハナアレントのBanality of evilとグーグルの非公式スローガンであるDon’t be evilをかけたものですね。このような知識があればタイトルを見ただけで、何となく内容は推測できるようになります。
(ウィキペディア)
Banality of evil
Banality of evil is a phrase used by Hannah Arendt in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.[1] Her thesis is that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.

Don't be evil
"Don't be evil" is the informal corporate motto (or slogan) of Google.[1] It was first suggested either by Google employee Paul Buchheit[2] at a meeting about corporate values in early 2000,[3] or according to another account by Google engineer Amit Patel in 1999.[4] Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out", adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent."[2]
(中略)
Criticism of Google often includes a reference to "Don't be evil".[9]

この本がどういうものか日本語の紹介記事を読んでからの方がアサンジ氏の批判もよく理解できると思います。

2013年05月24日(金) 市川 裕康
グーグル会長らによる新著『The New Digital Age』はデジタル時代の未来予測ロードマップ

タイトルからして批判的でしたが、冒頭からblueprint for technocratic imperialismと手厳しいです。

“THE New Digital Age” is a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of its leading witch doctors, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the 21st century. This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley, as personified by Mr. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, and Mr. Cohen, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton who is now director of Google Ideas.

The authors met in occupied Baghdad in 2009, when the book was conceived. Strolling among the ruins, the two became excited that consumer technology was transforming a society flattened by United States military occupation. They decided the tech industry could be a powerful agent of American foreign policy.

この本の推薦の言葉を書いているのはヘンリキッシンジャーやトニーブレア、元CIA長官など、好戦的な人物であることを指摘したり、帝国主義的な振る舞いをさす言葉white man’s burdenをIT的にもじったwhite geek’s burdenを使っていることからも、アサンジ氏にとってはグーグルの試みはアメリカの覇権維持のためとしか見えないようですね。

“The New Digital Age” is, beyond anything else, an attempt by Google to position itself as America’s geopolitical visionary — the one company that can answer the question “Where should America go?” It is not surprising that a respectable cast of the world’s most famous warmongers has been trotted out to give its stamp of approval to this enticement to Western soft power. The acknowledgments give pride of place to Henry Kissinger, who along with Tony Blair and the former C.I.A. director Michael Hayden provided advance praise for the book.

In the book the authors happily take up the white geek’s burden. A liberal sprinkling of convenient, hypothetical dark-skinned worthies appear: Congolese fisherwomen, graphic designers in Botswana, anticorruption activists in San Salvador and illiterate Masai cattle herders in the Serengeti are all obediently summoned to demonstrate the progressive properties of Google phones jacked into the informational supply chain of the Western empire.

White man’s burdenのような文化的な意味合いが含まれる表現はオックスフォードが詳しく取り上げてくれているので助かります。この本の推薦文は、下に抜粋しましたが国際政治に関わらず、ビジネス界、IT業界の錚々たるメンバーが書いています。

(オックスフォード)
the white man’s burden
(old use rather offensive)
a phrase that was used mainly in the 19th century to express the idea that European countries had a duty to run the countries and organizations of people in other parts of the world with less money, education or technology than the Europeans. The phrase was first used in a poem by Rudyard Kipling.
(アマゾンから推薦の言葉の抜粋)
“This is the most important—and fascinating—book yet written about how the digital age will affect our world. With vivid examples and brilliant analysis, it shows how the internet and other communications technologies will empower individuals and transform the way nations and businesses operate. How will different societies make tradeoffs involving privacy, freedom, control, security, and the relationship between the physical and virtual worlds? This realistic but deeply optimistic book provides the guideposts. It’s both profoundly wise and wondrously readable.”
-Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs

“Every day, technological innovations are giving people around the world new opportunities to shape their own destinies. In this fascinating book, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen draw upon their unique experiences to show us a future of rising incomes, growing participation, and a genuine sense of community—if we make the right choices today.”
-Bill Clinton

“Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen have produced a searching meditation on technology and world order. Even those who disagree with some of their conclusions will learn much from this thought-provoking volume.”
-Henry A. Kissinger

“This is the book I have been waiting for: a concise and persuasive description of technology’s impact on war, peace, freedom, and diplomacy. The New Digital Age is a guide to the future written by two experts who possess a profound understanding of humanity’s altered prospects in a wireless world. There are insights on every page and surprising conclusions (and questions) in every chapter. For experts and casual readers alike, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen have produced an indispensable book.”
-Former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright

“Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt have written a brilliant book that should be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the huge ramifications of the Age of Google not only for our lifestyles but, more importantly, for our privacy, our democracy and our security. If you already know about the law of photonics, data remanence, Stuxnet, Flame, DDoS attacks and CRASH (the Clean-Slate Design of Resilient, Adaptive, Secure Hosts) then you can probably skip it. If, like me, this is all news to you, you had better download The New Digital Age today. The 'technoptimistic' case will never be more smartly argued.”
-Niall Ferguson, author of Civilization: The West and the Rest

“The New Digital Age is must-reading for anyone who wants to truly understand the depths of the digital revolution. Combining the skills of a social scientist and a computer scientist, Schmidt and Cohen blend the technical and the human, the scientific and the political, in ways I rarely saw while in government. They challenge the reader’s imagination on almost every page.”
-General Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA

“This is a book that describes a technological revolution in the making. How we navigate it is a challenge for countries, communities and citizens. There are no two people better equipped to explain what it means than Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen.”
-Tony Blair

“Few people in the world are doing more to imagine—and build—the new digital age than Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. With this book, they are looking into their crystal ball and inviting the world to peek in.”
-Michael R. Bloomberg

“Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen’s thoughtful, well-researched work elucidates the staggering impact of technology on our daily lives, as well as what surprising and incredible developments the future may hold. Readers might be left with more questions than answers, but that’s the idea—we are at our best when we ask ‘What’s next?’”
-Elon Musk, cofounder of Tesla Motors and PayPal

“The New Digital Age offers an intriguing fusion of ideas and insights about how the virtual world is intersecting with the ‘Westphalian order.’ It seeks a balance between the discontinuities of technologists’ ‘revolutions’ and the traditionalism of internationalists’ study of states, power, and behavior. The authors explain that technology is not a panacea, yet the uses of technology can make a world of difference. This book should launch a valuable debate about the practical implications of this new connectivity for citizens and policy makers, societies and governments.”
-Robert B. Zoellick, former president of the World Bank Group

“We have long needed an incisive study of how the ever-evolving world of technology leaves almost no aspect of life unchanged. We have it in The New Digital Age. Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen offer a rigorous approach to decoding what the future holds in a story that is as well written and entertaining as it is important.”
-General Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor

“At last, a brilliant guide book for the next century—what the future holds for entrepreneurs, revolutionaries, politicians, and ordinary citizens alike. Schmidt and Cohen offer a dazzling glimpse into how the new digital revolution is changing our lives. This book is the most insightful exploration of our future world I’ve ever read, and once I started reading I was simply unable to put it down.”
-Sir Richard Branson, founder and chairman, Virgin Group

“This brilliant book will make you re-examine your concepts of the digital age, the way the world works, what lies ahead, and what all this means for you, your family and your community. A must read.”
—Mohamed El-Erian, chair, President Obama’s Global Development Council

まあ、エッセイのポイントは読まなくてもだいたい想像できそうですが、グーグルの技術がアメリカの外交政策の手先となることをアサンジ氏は懸念しているようです。

I have a very different perspective. The advance of information technology epitomized by Google heralds the death of privacy for most people and shifts the world toward authoritarianism. This is the principal thesis in my book, “Cypherpunks.” But while Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Cohen tell us that the death of privacy will aid governments in “repressive autocracies” in “targeting their citizens,” they also say governments in “open” democracies will see it as “a gift” enabling them to “better respond to citizen and customer concerns.” In reality, the erosion of individual privacy in the West and the attendant centralization of power make abuses inevitable, moving the “good” societies closer to the “bad” ones.

The section on “repressive autocracies” describes, disapprovingly, various repressive surveillance measures: legislation to insert back doors into software to enable spying on citizens, monitoring of social networks and the collection of intelligence on entire populations. All of these are already in widespread use in the United States. In fact, some of those measures — like the push to require every social-network profile to be linked to a real name — were spearheaded by Google itself.

この辺は昨年グーグルの個人情報の取り扱いが変更された時にも問題視されましたね。


最後の締めは、本の中で21世紀に入り新たに備えるべきは、サイバー攻撃であることからIT企業が20世紀のロッキードマーティン社に匹敵すると語っていることに警戒感を示しています。

This book is a balefully seminal work in which neither author has the language to see, much less to express, the titanic centralizing evil they are constructing. “What Lockheed Martin was to the 20th century,” they tell us, “technology and cybersecurity companies will be to the 21st.” Without even understanding how, they have updated and seamlessly implemented George Orwell’s prophecy. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Washington-backed Google Glasses strapped onto vacant human faces — forever. Zealots of the cult of consumer technology will find little to inspire them here, not that they ever seem to need it. But this is essential reading for anyone caught up in the struggle for the future, in view of one simple imperative: Know your enemy.

グーグル便利、グーグルグラスかっこいという能天気な自分としては少しは気をつけないと思わされました。ロッキードマーティン社は100周年キャンペーンをやっているようですが、飛行機産業もたかだか100年なんですね。



 

アメリカの安西先生

 
NBAファンやスラムダンクファンには既知のことなんでしょうけど、安西先生のモデルらしい人が実在しているのですね。全く詳しくないので、今更感があるかもしれませんが。。。。

先週のTIMEに全盛期のシカゴブルズを率いていたフィルジャクソンが登場していました。バスケットボールには詳しくありませんが、チームを優勝に導くためには、お互いを思いやる気持ちが必要な点は納得できます。



What do you mean when you write that the critical ingredient for a championship is love?
I know teams that get along well, they party together, but they're not about the sharing and the deep care that you have to have as a team. You have to protect each other. You have to cover the other's butt when he's getting beat offensively. You have to know how to deliver the ball so people can get a good shot. You have to move outside yourself and think about others.


バスケットボールの最近の話題といえば、ゲイであることをカミングアウトした選手の話題でしょう。ジャクソン氏はNBAにはゲイはいないと過去に発言していたようです。


You once said that there was no inclusivity in the NBA. Were you surprised when Jason Collins came out?
No, I just said I had no knowledge of a gay basketball player in my 40 years. Now I do.

当たり前のことかもしれませんが、上記の動画で印象的だったのは、ゲイであるかどうかは重要ではなく、一生懸命練習して、チームのために尽くすことだと語っていた部分です。

STEPHANOPOULOS: What do you say to the 12-year-old boy who's out there practicing right now, wants to be a pro ball player and happens to be gay?
COLLINS: It doesn't matter-- what your-- that-- you know, that-- that you're gay, but the key thing is that it's about basketball. It's about working hard. It's about sacrificing for your team. It's all about dedication. And that's what you should focus on.

当たり前のことを当たり前にできれば、その人がどんな人物であるかはどうでもいいことなはずですよね。

動画と一致していない部分もありますが、コリンズ選手のインタビューのスクリプトは以下でよめます。

Transcript: George Stephanopoulos Interviews Jason Collins After Becoming First Openly Gay NBA Player
 

TOEIC的基本表現の普遍性

 
newyorker1963.jpg

以前紹介したハナアレントの『エルサレムのアイヒマン』は1963年のニューヨーカーに掲載されたものでした。ニューヨーカーを定期購読すると創刊号からの雑誌すべてをアーカイブで読むことができます。日本では今だに本の手触りが大事だということを強調する方がいますが、過去の雑誌をすぐに見ることができる電子書籍の威力は強調しても強調しきれないでしょう。本か電子版かは使う人が決めるべきで、供給側が決めるべきではないと思います。既得権益を守ることしか頭にない出版社はさっとつぶれて欲しいです。有料版とともに、著作権切れの著作を0円で配布しているアマゾンの方が100倍ましです。

まあ、本になったものと内容が大きく変わるわけではありませんが、雑誌の場合、当時の時代の雰囲気を強く感じ取れます。内容とは関係ありませんが、広告の量やバラエティーに驚かされます。今、プラットフォームの重要性を訴えているかたがいますが、雑誌(そしておそらく新聞も)というプラットフォームの力が強かったのだなと思います。

そんな広告で、JALと日通も広告を出していました。東京オリンピックが1964年ですから、この頃はちょうど高度成長期真っ只中の頃です。エキゾチックな雰囲気を最大限活用したなかなかスマートな広告だと思います。

Newyorker196302.jpg

タイトルの「基本表現の普遍性」は、広告を読んでいただくと分かると思うのですが、いわゆるTOEIC的ともいえる基本表現にあふれているからです。50年前の広告でhostessのように今では使われていない言葉もありますが、表現的には古びていないことを感じれると思います。

IMG_0007_2.jpg

With an eye to pleasure
.. ... or to a carefree business trip to Japan, remember these two names (you will meet them everywhere, anyway!)—Nippon Express Company (NEC) and Nippon Kangyo Bank (NKB). If your vision is 20-20, you will see in most Japanese homes, shops and business houses a figure of Daruma —the Buddhist monk who paid for his pious devotions with the loss of his limbs. When a Daruma is installed, his eyes are blank; when business is good, when luck visits the house, Daruma is rewarded: an eye is pasted in. And when both eyes are filled, a new, eyeless Daruma takes its place.

There's no need to be one-eyed about your travel and banking needs in Japan—and no need to trust in luck, either! The complementary services of NEC and NKB will answer your every need!

ここでのThe complementary services of NEC and NKBは両者が相互補完的であることを示しています。 complementary servicesと下記のようなcomplimentary breakfastとの違いを指摘する対策書もありますが、実例を通してみるとやはり実感できますね。

Our hotel offers complimentary breakfast every morning.

TOEIC的におなじみのinstallが「だるま」にも使われていますね。コロケーション辞典だけでなく、動詞installをどんな物に使えるのかという範囲はこのように多くの例に触れて、その範囲をつかんでいくしかないようですね。

When a Daruma is installed, his eyes are blank; when business is good, when luck visits the house, Daruma is rewarded: an eye is pasted in.

IMG_0013.jpg

Fumiko
Like every daughter of her house-hold since antiquity, Fumiko Nakamura has been brought up in the highest traditions of Japanese etiquette. In the kimono of a Japan Air Lines hostess, Fumiko has the flower-like grace of a classic wood-block print, yet she serves your favorite beverages and cuisine and attends your every wish with a precise awareness of your Western tastes, It is this delightful duality of Fumiko and her sister hostesses that gives the serenity of a Japanese home to your let Courier flight. Add the enchanting "extra" of flying Japan Air Lines to your next trip to Japan, the Orient, or on around the world to Europe. It is a travel experience unique in all the world.

こちらの広告は、JALのフライトアテンダントはおしとやかな日本人女性でありつつ、西洋人の好みにあった対応をできるというduality(二元性)を体現しているとアピールしているものですね。このあたりはアオザイを着たベトナム航空の広告を見てエキゾチックなセクシーさを感じる今の日本人とかわらないものがありそうです。

TOEIC的な表現としてはserve (飲み物、食べ物)は基本ですね。また、「アテンドする」と日本語でいうこともありますから、動詞attendの使われ方も納得できますね。そもそもflight attendantというぐらいですし。。。

she serves your favorite beverages and cuisine and attends your every wish

フライトアテンダントの説明を読むと、上記の文章が意味することとほぼ合致していることが分かります。

(オックスフォード)
flight attendant
a person whose job is to serve and take care of passengers on an aircraft


(ロングマン)
flight attendant [countable]
someone who serves food and drinks to passengers on a plane, and looks after their comfort and safety


上記の文ではattends your every wishとありましたが、今の使われ方はattend to ...のような形のようです。ロングマンではserveと同じように店やレストランでお客の対応をする場合に使われるようですね。

(英辞郎)
attend to someone's wishes
(人)の願望に添うように計らう


(ロングマン)
attend to somebody/something phrasal verb
1 to deal with business or personal matters:
I may be late - I have got one or two things to attend to.
2 to help a customer in a shop or a restaurant [= serve]

(ケンブリッジビジネス)
attend to sb/sth
› to deal with a task, problem, etc.:
We have some urgent business to attend to.
A recent study shows that they have failed to attend to clients' needs and demands







 

広報がしっかりしている日本人政治家

 
橋下市長、猪瀬都知事とアピール下手な政治家が日本人政治家のデファクトのような感じがしてしまいますが、安倍首相に関しては、アベノミクスや三本の矢、Japan is backなど、自身の考えを分かりやすく伝えようとされていますよね。

TICAD:アフリカ支援3.2兆円 首相、表明へ
 安倍晋三首相は1日に横浜市で始まる第5回アフリカ開発会議(TICAD5)で基調演説を行い、今後5年間で政府開発援助(ODA)や民間資金を含め最大で約3兆2000億円をアフリカ向けに拠出することを表明する。支援策は年間約2000億円へのODA倍増などを柱とした08年のTICAD4を上回り過去最大。アフリカは高い経済成長を続けており、日本企業の進出を後押しする狙いがある。

今日から日本主導で進めてきたアフリカ支援のTICADが始まるようですが、ウオールストリートジャーナルに寄稿されていました。Japan Is Committed to Africa's DevelopmentとTOEICでもおなじみのbe committed to ...が使われていますね。'Abenomics' cannot simply be a domestic endeavorというサブタイトルもこれからどんなことを話すのか分かりやすいものになっています。endeavorは難しめの単語ですが、ここでは「取り組み」「対策」といった程度の理解でいいのではないかと思います。

OPINION ASIAMay 30, 2013, 12:17 p.m. ET
Japan Is Committed to Africa's Development
'Abenomics' cannot simply be a domestic endeavor.


Securing Japan's economic recovery has been my priority since returning as the country's prime minister at the end of last year. We have made progress and, as this newspaper has observed, Japanese companies and individuals alike are starting to feel the benefits.

The nature of the global economy, however, means that "Abenomics" cannot simply be a domestic endeavor, nor can it be about short-term gain. Japan's economic strength has been built on a cornerstone of cooperation and trade internationally, while our foreign policy is founded on the belief that peace and prosperity abroad contribute to peace and prosperity at home. This stance is also reflected in Japan's approach to global development challenges.

On my first official visit to Myanmar this month, I was able to see the process of democratization in action. It struck me that developed and developing countries face the same challenges in ensuring that economic policy benefits citizens in a direct and tangible way. This is an issue that is central to efforts to eradicate poverty and promote developments, and one that I will address alongside African leaders and other colleagues at the Fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) on June 1-3.

日本経済の調子が戻ってきたけれども、日本経済だけが立ち直ればいいと思っている訳ではない。他の国の発展があってこその日本の発展だという、論の進め方は日本以外の誰が読んでも心象がいいですよね。まあ、教科書的なアプローチと批判することも可能ですが、WSJのように世界中の人が目を通すところで例えば「中国対策」「脱中国」なんて書いてしまうのは御法度でしょう。(露骨なアピールは中国の人だけでなく、それ以外の人もあまりいい気持ちはしないでしょう。)

この論考は、ぶっちゃけTICADのアピールにすぎないものですが、アピールすべきことをアピールするのは意外と難しいことは、オリンピック招致のイベントで反面教師として学ぶことができました。アフリカに対する日本による支援の現状だけでなく、どのようにしたら相手方に分かりやすくこちらの取り組みを伝えていくか、そんなこともこの論考から学べそうです。
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Yuta

Author:Yuta
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