美国国家公共电台 NPR '(Be)longing' Explores Gun Violence, 10 Years After Virginia Tech Shooting
时间：2019-01-17 作者：英语课 分类：2017年NPR美国国家公共电台4月
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. On April 16, 2007, a student at Virginia Tech shot 49 people, killing 1 32 and finally himself. The town is still dealing 2 with the tragedy, so the university's Moss 3 Arts Center commissioned an oratorio 4 to memorialize it. Robbie Harris from member station WVTF has more.
ROBBIE HARRIS, BYLINE 5: Most everyone remembers where they were when they heard about the shooting. Melissa Ripepi, then a recent Virginia Tech graduate, recalls hearing it.
MELISSA RIPEPI: You heard, like, a pop and, like, a few little pops, which, in my memory - and who knows if it's accurate or not - it just kind of washed over me. But then you hear the (mimicking gunfire) like, I mean, then you really hear it. And it's very unusual, and you realize it's not construction noise.
HARRIS: It was, of course, gunfire. And soon, Blacksburg became the center of that familiar media convergence that arrives unbidden after tragic 6 events.
ANITA PUCKETT: And one of the things that bothered me enormously, as I watched all of this coverage 7, was how they were making the story.
HARRIS: Anita Puckett is a linguistic 8 anthropologist 9 who teaches at Virginia Tech.
PUCKETT: They were creating the narrative 10 of what had happened. And they were claiming ownership of that narrative by various media broadcasts and on television, on whatever. And I'm going no, it's our misery 11. It's our narrative. And whose story is it going to be over time?
HARRIS: The town and the school held public events and private dinners at people's homes that continue to this day.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Vocalizing).
HARRIS: Now comes the oratorio, "(Be)longing," aimed at exploring gun violence and how to prevent it.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: When in the history of the world so many children so silent for so long within (unintelligible) (ph).
HARRIS: The music was composed by Byron Au Yong and the lyrics 12 by playwright 13 Aaron Jafferis. The composer came from California and the librettist 14 from Connecticut. And they spent months talking with dozens of people around Blacksburg.
CHARLOTTE BRATHWAITE: You got to count off and remember the group...
HARRIS: Charlotte Brathwaite is directing the work.
BRATHWAITE: It's, like, literally 15 the voices of the community speaking out about the issues that most affect them and the points of view that they feel connected to as well.
UNIDENTIFIED PERFORMER: Where I'm from, a nice boy with a toy gun is more likely to get shot by a white cop than have fun.
HARRIS: Some of those interviewed were cast in the production.
BYRON AU YONG: I think that's what opened up, you know, an idea of breaking the fourth wall.
HARRIS: Composer Byron Au Yong says performers are scattered 16 throughout the hall.
YONG: If you're an audience member that comes, you may be sitting next to someone who all of a sudden starts to sing.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #1: (Unintelligible).
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #2: (Singing) Squeeze the...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #3: (Singing) Trigger...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #1: (Singing) Of my...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #3: (Singing) Life...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #2: (Singing) But...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #1: (Singing) Nothing moves...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) No bullets fire. I am overlooked when they look over who to hire. If I act with more authority, will my future...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #2: (Singing) Stop ignoring...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) ...Me? Authority, authority, authority.
HOLLY 17 LESKO: Not everybody could do this.
HARRIS: Holly Lesko is a workforce 18 training specialist in Blacksburg who helps people transition out of prison. She wasn't sure about having yet another group of outsiders telling her story.
LESKO: And the fact that they don't come from this community, I had a lot of trepidation 19 when I first met them about - hmmm (ph), so many people are so fragile around this. And if you come in and mess with them, this will be bad. This won't be good.
HARRIS: But she says, from the very beginning, "(Be)longing's" creators were attuned 20 to people's emotions.
LESKO: Just by watching it, you realize kind of the universalness of those specific moments that, yeah, pain is universal. Loss is universal. And it is kind of through the sharing of that individual and specific that makes space for us to - for other people to know me, to, you know, to then, you know, share their own pain. It's powerful. It changes you.
HARRIS: That's why, says librettist Aaron Jafferis, he and the composer decided 21 a work that features many layers of human voices would be the best way to illustrate 22 "(Be)longing's" theme.
AARON JAFFERIS: Which is young people who decide that they want to silence many voices in order to make their own voice metaphorically 23 large. We recognized that we need to flip 24 that and use this one project as an opportunity to engage and give a platform to multiple voices.
(Rapping) Like a rock but useful, metal, machine. Like a clock but silent, perfect, clean. It's kind of fun to say the way it weighs on my tongue - glock. This gun is called a glock. Trigger...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #4: Chamber 25.
JAFFERIS: Slide.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #4: Magazine.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: Nine millimeter Glock 19.
HARRIS: Blacksburg will, again, mark the day and mourn the dead in the Virginia Tech shooting. Now, 10 years later, they put this question to the nation - how do we get these shootings to stop?
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Vocalizing).
UNIDENTIFIED PERFORMERS: And how can I and the people in this room get these shootings to stop? I don't know. I'm asking you. A few questions are all I got.
HARRIS: For NPR News, I'm Robbie Harris in Blacksburg, Va.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER #5: (Singing) Something bad happens and you replay it...
- Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
- Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。
- This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
- His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。
- Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
- He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。
- It's the world's most popular oratorio.这是世界上最流行的清唱剧。
- The Glee Club decided to present an oratorio during their recital.高兴俱乐部的决定提出的清唱剧在其演奏。
- His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
- We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。
- The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
- Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。
- There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
- This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。
- She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
- The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。
- The lecturer is an anthropologist.这位讲师是人类学家。
- The anthropologist unearthed the skull of an ancient human at the site.人类学家在这个遗址挖掘出那块古人类的颅骨。
- He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
- Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。
- Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
- He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。
- music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
- The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。
- Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
- The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。
- The musician and the librettist were collaborators. 音乐家与剧作者通力合作。
- Italian-born American composer and librettist whose operas include The Medium(1946) and The Consul(1950). 梅诺蒂，吉安卡洛生于1911意大利裔美国作曲家和歌剧词作者，其歌剧作品包括女巫（1946年）及领事（1950年）
- He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
- Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。
- Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。
- I recently acquired some wood from a holly tree.最近我从一棵冬青树上弄了些木料。
- People often decorate their houses with holly at Christmas.人们总是在圣诞节时用冬青来装饰房屋。
- A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
- A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。
- The men set off in fear and trepidation.这群人惊慌失措地出发了。
- The threat of an epidemic caused great alarm and trepidation.流行病猖獗因而人心惶惶。
- She wasn't yet attuned to her baby's needs. 她还没有熟悉她宝宝的需要。
- Women attuned to sensitive men found Vincent Lord attractive. 偏爱敏感男子的女人，觉得文森特·洛德具有魅力。 来自辞典例句
- This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
- There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
- The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
- This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。
- It is context and convention that determine whether a term will be interpreted literally or metaphorically. 对一个词的理解是按字面意思还是隐喻的意思要视乎上下文和习惯。
- Metaphorically it implied a sort of admirable energy. 从比喻来讲，它含有一种令人赞许的能量的意思。
- I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
- Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。