Share the blame【翻译】

104 阅读 0 评论 69 点赞

我是靠谱客的博主故意大神，最近开发中收集的这篇文章主要介绍Share the blame【翻译】，觉得挺不错的，现在分享给大家，希望可以做个参考。

概述

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1. MY 1988 DEAD STOCK VELVEETA ORANGE L.A. EYEWORKS
FRAMES .........................................................................................................1
2. SUICIDE NOTE ...............................................................................................5
3. AMBIENCE .....................................................................................................6
4. FUNNY MAN ..................................................................................................7
5. SHARE THE BLAME ...................................................................................23
6. SAUL AND THE PULL ................................................................................36
7. REI GUY ........................................................................................................44
1
CHAPTER 1
MY 1988 DEAD STOCK VELVEETA ORANGE L.A. EYEWORKS FRAMES
Meryl Streep: Like a yogic exhalation. A cleansing breath.
Meryl—and I can call her Meryl—Meryl’s aesthetic has always fascinated me.
Meryl is very into textures: chenille, silk, gauzy cashmere. Diaphanous materials. I
imagine the contents of her closet constantly billowing.
Casual Meryl: An oversized men’s dress shirt tailored for a woman in grey linen
from Lord & Taylor paired with a flowing pant, perhaps equally linen, but in black or
camel. Spa clothing draped over her indiscernible body. Top three or four or five buttons
undone, exposed décolletage adorned with a turquoise and silver necklace she purchased
on a reservation whilst filming that sad movie from the nineties outside of Santa Fe. Silk
panties she’ll dole out for despite her inherent practicality; she knows $150 per pair is
exorbitant, but she’s earned comfortable undergarments at this point in her career. Bra
professionally fitted, by appointment, boutique doors locked, in Paris where bosoms are
their specialty. No, she didn’t travel abroad for a bra sizing, she was there accepting a
commendation, and her friend Donna (Karan) had told her about this aged woman who
“literally changes lives” via her bra-fittings.
In public, day or night, rectangular frames with barely tinted lenses in periwinkle,
lilac, or peony pink, obscure Meryl’s familiar china-man eyes. You can’t tell if she’s
rested or exhausted, au naturel or altered. She may or may not be looking at you. If you
manage to finagle a tête-à-tête with her, she can discreetly monitor the area around her
without causing offense. Someone is always waiting for her in the periphery.
2
Barely-tinted colored lenses in a chic frame are must-haves for the upper echelon
of actors, the critically acclaimed actors whose careers began on stage, who do not appear
in tabloids or on network television. They are rare pieces of eyewear that can be worn
indoors and out, at day and at night, at once an understatement and overstatement. They
serve as a subtle acknowledgment of the need to shield oneself from an ever-present
public gaze. In L.A. and New York, I scrutinize such people.
I’m standing in line at the CVS pharmacy on Beverly and La Cienega with my
friend, the late actress Jill Clayburgh, some six months before her passing from
Leukemia. Jill shared a similar aesthetic to her longtime pal, Meryl, sporting a slinky tank
top, silk yoga pants, Birkenstock sandals, her eyes shielded by a pair of chic frames with
barely-tinted colored lenses in dark amber. I watch the middle-aged woman behind us
register Jill’s unusually wan face. “Oh my goodness! You’re Jill Clayburgh! You defined
my generation! I was going through a divorce when your movie came out! What was it
called?” Nobody answers her. Jill offers a gracious, perhaps too gracious, smile as
gratitude. Only an exceptionally deft actress can deliver a smile so nuanced that it says
both thank you and goodbye at once. The woman turns to the customer behind her. “Do
you see who it is? God, she looks great!” Jill gives her name to the pharmacy clerk. “That
voice!” the woman shrieks. “What a voice!”
“I hate that,” Jill mutters on our way out.
“But she loves you,” I say. “That must make you feel good, no?”
I take my 1988 dead stock Velveeta orange l.a. Eyeworks frames (originally from
their [Kim] Novak collection) to a Lens Crafters in Coralville, Iowa. I want Meryl lenses
3
put in--something in cerulean. To get to the Lens Crafters, I have to enter through a
Barnes & Noble in a sad mall. Sad malls are the most devastating places in the world,
post-Katrina New Orleans. I hold my breath; I’m not trying to breathe all that
consolidated mall air. Vexing sounds of children reverberate, ping ponging against the
unmanned carousel in the food court, the country-style wagon stocked full of flat irons
outside the chain music store on the brink of closure, the department store I have never
heard of. Younkers? Gesundheit. There is nothing here for me except Chick-fil-A, which
I, as a mostly self-respecting homosexual, can no longer patronize.
Periodically, I catch a mall-crawler gawking at me—an innocent glance sustained
and turned ugly. As a visible outlier, I endure a well-earned paranoia, but, like
stereotypes, my psychosis exists for a reason. While I revel in the all-too-rare look of
admiration for my keen sense of style, my patrician, my overall swagger, I go dark at the
bemused expression of a weak-chinned mother gaping at me, thin-lipped mouth slightly
ajar. Granting her the benefit of the doubt, I turn my head right, left, and behind me
seeking the actual object of her attention. When I rejoin eyes with the woman, she blinks
rapidly and looks around as if waking from an unsettling dream. I detect fear more than
antipathy, as if I represent the possibilities for what her son might become. Next, a man
leers at me, gives me a good up-and-down, daring me to react. I accept the challenge.
Whipping toward him, I spit, “WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?” jutting my head and
bulging my eyes like Bette Davis in the oppressive heat of so many exasperating
moments. “Goddamn!” I say aloud as I march away, “Let a bitch live! Shit!” My body
quakes as the adrenaline dissipates; I remind myself that I have just committed a public
service. That evening, the perpetrator will report back to his loved ones about the man he
4
saw at the mall today, the one carrying the purse and the gait of a lady, the one who went
off on him for no reason. Meanwhile, I’m at home with my dog scouring the Internet for
cheap flights out of town.
“This will be easy,” declares the Lens Crafters clerk, placing my 1988 dead stock
Velveeta orange l.a. Eyeworks frames in a tray. I bide my time in this dungeon of gray,
glass, and backlit displays, perusing towers and walls and cases of mass-produced
eyeglasses. Does Karl Lagerfeld know they’re selling Chanel frames at Lens Crafters?
With imitation Swarovski crystals dotting the interlocking C logo, no less? I don’t
imagine he does.
I’m in the waiting area of the attached Cain Family Eye Care Practice skimming a
2008 issue of Redbook when the sales associate approaches me with an apologetic frown
on her face. “So, your frames actually broke while the lab tech was removing the old
lenses. We can super-glue them back together at no cost and give you half off a pair of
any frames of your choice.” The frames of my choice do not reside here.
I opt for super-glue and a discount I will never use, grimacing at my newly
defective 1988 dead stock Velveeta orange l.a. Eyeworks frames, in a state, in a part of
America where I don’t want anyone to notice me.