恒例のTIMEの100リスト

The 2013 TIME 100
TIME presents its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, from artists and leaders to pioneers, titans and icons

ゴールデンウィーク前のこの時期はTIMEの影響力のある100人が発売されますね。この特集は誰が選ばれるかと同時に誰が推薦文を書くかというのも興味深い所です。Jay Zに対してニューヨーク市長のMichael Bloombergが、フェイスブックのSheryl Sandbergに対して女性運動家の大御所Gloria Steinemが、Jennifer Lawrenceに対してJodie Fosterが書いています。一つ一つが短いのも英語学習者としては有難いです。

ざっとリストを見ましたが、日本人で選ばれているのはユニクロの柳井CEOだけでした。楽天の三木谷さんは歯ぎしりぎりりという感じでしょうか。。。。国内ではブラック企業と噂されながら、世界的には評価を受ける。サッチャー元首相と似たパターンな気がします。

Tadashi Yanai
CEO of Uniqlo, 64
By Celia BirtwellApril 18, 2013

I have been working with the people at Uniqlo, the clothing brand that’s planting buoyant stores full of quirky basics across the planet, since they asked me to produce a collection for them in 2012. It has been one of my most exciting collaborations. From the start, I felt that we were all on the same page. They understood my work in a very flattering way, and they have a great sense of humor, which seems to be quite a rarity in the fashion world.

Yanai is clearly an inspirational leader, and Uniqlo is a tribute to him and his management style, which is so rarely seen in a large corporation. He allows his team to be confident enough to let the designers feel free to show their personality, and he is intent on producing good products, at the right price, that people want. It’s refreshing to not get bogged down in a complex hierarchy, and I have been given complete freedom to create exactly the sort of designs that I would like. I was even allowed to design the shop windows, which was a first for me and was a real treat.

Birtwell is a veteran British textile designer

個人的に気になるのはやっぱり、表紙にもなっているElon Muskです。バージンのリチャードブランソンが推進文を書いています。Whatever skeptics have said can’t be done, Elon has gone out and made real.とありますが、まさにその通りですよね。自動車産業のような巨大産業に電気自動車で挑むなんてすごいの一言です。TEDにも最近出ていましたね。



Titans
Elon Musk
SpaceX and Tesla founder, 41
By Richard BransonApril 18, 2013

For a while now, space has been looking boring. News about space was reduced to budget cuts and deorbiting schedules, not research or innovation. Then the private sector began designing spaceships to send payloads and people into orbit and beyond. Today, teams like Elon Musk’s SpaceX are reopening space for exploration.

I know a thing or two about building spaceships, having started Virgin Galactic. It might seem that would make Elon and me competitors, but in some ways it’s just the opposite. We share the belief that when you want something, you have to go do it yourself — even if DIY in this case means plowing your personal fortune into industries so unwieldy, complex and unknowable that most people think they can be steered and owned only by government.

Whatever skeptics have said can’t be done, Elon has gone out and made real. Remember in the 1990s, when we would call strangers and give them our credit-card numbers? Elon dreamed up a little thing called PayPal. His Tesla Motors and SolarCity companies are making a clean, renewable-energy future a reality. It’s a paradox that Elon is working to improve our planet at the same time he’s building spacecraft to help us leave it. But true vision is binocular — and Elon Musk is clearly a man who can see many things at once.

Branson is the founder of Virgin Group

作家としてはHilary Mantelも選ばれていましたが、George Saundersを選んだところはさすがだなと思いました。GQが選んだ21世紀の古典21冊ではGeorge Saunders のPastoraliaが選ばれていましたが、昨年出た短編集Tenth of Decemberも小説でしか味わえない独特の世界を書いてくれています。動画はPBSニューズアワーに出たときのものです。



George Saunders
Writer, 54
By Mary KarrApril 18, 2013


For more than a decade, George Saunders has been the best short-story writer in English — not “one of,” not “arguably,” but the Best.

In my favorite stories (“Tenth of December” or “The Falls” or “The Red Bow”), some goofy, tormented guy tries to rise up to carve out justice on a heroic scale. Picture a knight in cardboard breastplate and tinfoil helmet wielding a toilet plunger. These guys are wholly loseresque except for a sudden lunge at saving — often against unbearable physical or spiritual odds — some very broken human units. All this plus laugh-out-loud wisecracks.

We hired George to teach writing at Syracuse University 17 years back, and he brings to class a similarly humble urge to serve. Blond and slim, with the bristly mustache of a Russian cavalry officer, he’s open to every student’s effort, however far-fetched. Both with his own characters and with teaching, he claims, modestly, “I just let everybody do what they want.”

Which happens to be what everybody needs. George’s work is a stiff tonic for the vapid agony of contemporary living — great art from the greatest guy.

Karr is a poet, essayist and best-selling memoirist

ニューズアワーでのさわりをご紹介します。短編と長編をfast-twitch musclesと slow-twitch muscleに例えたりしています（下記のスクリプトではfast-switchとなっていますが、twicthのようです）。この筋肉は、「短距離走者には速筋線維が多く、マラソン選手には遅筋線維が多い」と言われているやつです。このインタビューで初めて英語で何というか知ることができました（笑）また、一直線に走るだけのねじまきおもちゃに例えているところも秀逸です。

Conversation: George Saunders, Author of 'Tenth of December'
Posted by Jeffrey Brown , January 18, 2013

JEFFREY BROWN: I want to start by asking you about the genre of the short story, because it's something we don't hear that much about. It gets little attention. What is it good for? Why is it the form for you?

GEORGE SAUNDERS: For me it's almost neurological. I understand what something short should be like. I understand beauty in that form. If I start extending, somehow I kind of lose my bearings. I think it might be a little bit like in sports, where there are fast-switch muscles and slow-switch muscles. My stories, I can understand them as a little toy that you wind up and you put it on the floor and it just goes under the coach. That I get. Beyond that, I'm a little lost.

次の部分も興味深かったです。出来る限り余分な表現は切り落としていくのが彼のスタイルのようです。短編が向いているのも、徹底的に無駄をそいでいく創作方法と無関係ではないかもしれませんね。

JEFFREY BROWN: Of course, a short story compresses the narrative. It compresses the story. You are also known for a compression of language. You leave a lot out.

GEORGE SAUNDERS: As much as I can.

JEFFREY BROWN: As much as you can, really?

GEORGE SAUNDERS: Usually I'll get maybe two-thirds more than I need and cut back. The assumption there is that if I can be more efficient, it's actually being more respectful to the reader, which then implies a greater intimacy with the reader.