2017年catti高级口译阅读练习（3）
【摇滚巨星时代的终结 Has the Internet killed the myth of the rock star】
"In the last three or four years the internet’s taken a stranglehold and killed off the myth of the rock star," Tom Meighan of Kasabian told Bangshowbiz last week. "You know when you used to buy records and there was a myth behind them? There’s too much on blogs now and I think it’s killed it off. There are so many rock stars writing these self-pitying blogs and it’s not in the spirit of rock’n’roll."
The irony of giving such a headline-grabbing opinion to an internet-only news service seems to have been lost on Meighan, but as a singer clearly in thrall to the mystique of Bowie, Bolan and Björk, he makes a good point. For all the wrong reasons.
We are in danger of losing the enigma of the rock star: you only have to stand Grizzly Bear next to pop stars like Dizzee Rascal, Florence Welch, or Lady Gaga in her blowtorch bra to see that the mainstream has gazumped alt-rock in terms of retina-frying freakishness. Dolled up in Napoleon outfits for their last promo stint Kasabian seem like a throwback to a time when rock favoured the fantastical. A time before hair metal made dressing up seem corny, long before lad rock forced music to be "real", and long before Pitchfork made a star of the bearded troubadour.
But it’s not Twitter that has exploded the myths behind the rock star.
If anything it’s magnified them, making it easier to sort the say-nothing chaff from the proper-bizarre wheat. Yes, Calvin Harris and Mike Skinner go on a bit with tweets about sandwich fillings and train delays, but that’s because they’re fundamentally ordinary blokey-blokes; only a particularly naive T4 guest booker would kid themselves that they were "pop stars". Follow the Proper Rock Stars on Twitter and there’s plenty of propagated myths – there are pictures of Muse playing futuristic digital clarinets in Japanese airports, while Liam Gallagher roars expletives about his brother’s haircut. Even if it’s not actually the star in question doing the tweeting, the fact that an impostor can convincingly impersonate them is testament to a heroic or cartoonish character in the best rock-myth tradition.
Any rock star worth the name is a rock star as much in tweet as in a glossy video, tour-bus boudoir or fatal strangle-wank accident. True, had Twitter existed in the 70s several major stars might well have been ruined by the exposure – Clapton would have seemed less God-like if he’d been squeezing his "rivers of blood" rant into 140 characters, while authorities might have been alerted to Gary Glitter much earlier. However, today’s rock-star bloggers are more interested in breaking down the barriers between them and their fans. The real rock icons maintain their mystery simply by not blogging.
No, the reason the internet may kill off rock-star mystique is that the blogosphere, by its own limitation and design, is not in thrall to image. Traditional music media requires cover stars to be the complete package, looking as good as they sound and producing snappy, controversial pull-quotes at the drop of a Dictaphone. To earn the status of rock legend, the old-school star needs to lure in the browsing commuter with the secret Strokes shirt on under his office clobber.
Music websites, however, have no news-stand to leap out from; their "covers" consist of pictures little bigger than postage stamps, so they rely on Google to draw in traffic. The click-to-hear-it nature of the web goes against the alluring band-as-gang image readers buy into, copy and adore long before they hear a note. It doesn’t matter if a singer has anything important, funny or interesting to say, or if they say it dressed as Caligula with a chicken on their head; the music is all that matters online.
The blogosphere’s appeal is momentary so attention-seeking bands are turning to shock tactics to create a controversy buzz while the printed press is now forced to chase internet hype for their next cover stars.
词句笔记：
stranglehold：压制，抑制
self-pitying：自怨自艾的
headline-grabbing：吸引眼球的
thrall：奴役
be held in thrall to：被……深深迷住
【法国小酒馆的命运 Time running out for France’s faltering bistros】
Times are hard for Le Fontenoy, the only surviving cafe in this village in north-central France which once had three, as well as a butcher’s, a boulangerie, a grocer’s and a restaurant. Now, as changing habits and new laws alter the residents’ relationship with an erstwhile local fixture, its future is looking bleak. It is a bistro with no kitchen, a former tabac with no cigarettes, and Letouzey’s coffers are as empty as his bottle of pastis.
In a last-ditch attempt to save the cafe he deems "the social link of the village", the determined patron has launched an online appeal for donations which he hopes will bring in enough money to keep the business afloat in the short term. If he does not get the ¤10,000 (£9,000) he has asked for, he warns, "we’ll be dead. It’ll be quick."
The fundraising mission at Fontenay-Saint-Père, about 35 miles north-west of Paris, has attracted considerable media attention. But its struggle is just the tip of the iceberg. Last year, in its île de France region alone, about 2,000 bistros and cafes went under. Across France as a whole, about are 35,000 still open. In the 1960s there were 200,000.
Last week Le Parisien, the capital’s daily newspaper, issued a clarion call for the hard-hit bistro, warning on its front page that time was running out to save the "fast disappearing" bastion of "jambon beurre baguettes, egg mayonnaise, jokes, chat and table football".
But opinions are divided on how to go about this. Many, including the government, feel that it is up to the industry to adapt according to the needs of society and that any business that cannot keep up with the pace of change does not deserve to survive.
Bernard Quartier, president of an industry group representing cafes and brasseries, believes the onus is on owners to provide their customers with new services, such as showing sporting events on television or offering coffees for the symbolically low price of one euro. (Parisian customers can often expect to pay almost three times as much for an espresso.)
But while the need to adapt is widely acknowledged, others feel this approach is short-sighted. For them, the combined effect of a smoking ban, a drink-driving crackdown, the arrival of supermarkets and a widespread reliance on mobile phones and computers for human interaction has made the forces working against local establishments too great for individual patrons to withstand.
Letouzey now plans to follow the words of Balzac and strengthen the bistro’s role as "a parliament of the people" by holding more concerts at the weekend, so-called cafe philo sessions for debate, and fairytale readings for children.
"Maybe it sounds a bit utopian," the patron says, "but … close the cafe and neighbours won’t meet each other any more. They go to work, they go home. Not every neighbour is going to make the effort to approach others." "As soon as it’s nice outside everyone is on the terrace and the bar is deserted," he said. "People are more individualistic. There are still some people who come in to have a chat over a drink or a coffee but they are rare. That’s society changing … People have less time for each other. In Paris, that is; in the provinces it’s different."
For the hundred or so regulars of Le Fontenoy battling to save their bistro it is certainly different.
"It’s a place where I come a lot, just to chat, meet friends, talk about our days, our personal stuff," said Tony Carrier. "I remember when there were places like that all over the village, and now this is the only one. It would be a real shame if it closed."
Pulling together to organise fundraising concerts and community events, the bistro’s patrons have made clear their loyalty to a building that has served for years as their local lieu de vie – place of life. That’s not going to change, they say – even if there is no more pastis.
词句笔记：
last-ditch attempt：最后的努力
an online appeal：网上呼吁、请求
a drink-driving：酒后驾车
fundraising：筹款
baguette：法式长棍面包
