The Magazine Business, From the Coolest Place to the Coldest One 加速凋零中的雜誌產業


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2022/07/08 第390期 訂閱/退訂看歷史報份
 
 
紐時周報精選 The Magazine Business, From the Coolest Place to the Coldest One 加速凋零中的雜誌產業
Of Red Clay and French Existentialism 地主冠軍荒持續 法國選手在紅土失存在感
紐時周報精選
 
The Magazine Business, From the Coolest Place to the Coldest One 加速凋零中的雜誌產業
文/Alexandra Jacobs
譯/陳韋廷

加速凋零中的雜誌產業

I miss magazines. It's a strange ache, because they are still sort of with us: staring out from the racks at supermarket checkout lines; fanned wanly around the table in hotel lobbies; showing up in your mailbox long after the subscription was canceled, like an ex who refuses to accept the breakup.

我懷念雜誌,這是一種奇怪的痛,因為它們在某種程度上仍與我們同在。超市排隊結帳時,它們從架上盯著我們;在飯店大廳桌子周圍憔悴晃動;取消訂閱很久後還會出現在信箱,像是拒絕接受分手的舊愛。

But they're also disappearing. This accelerating erosion has not been big news during a time of pandemic, war and actual erosion, and yet the absence of magazines authoritatively documenting such events, or distracting from them, as they used to do with measured regularity, is keenly felt.

但它們也在消失。在疫情、戰爭與雜誌真的衰微的時期,這種加速衰微並不是什麼大新聞,但人們敏銳地感覺到,缺乏權威性雜誌來記錄這些事件,或像過去那樣定期的讓注意力從這些事情轉移。

Time marches on, or limps, but Life is gone. There's no more Money. The print editions of their former sister publications Entertainment Weekly and InStyle, which once frothed with profit, stopped publishing in February. It's been au revoir to Saveur and Marie Claire; shrouds for Playboy, Paper and O. (As I type this, people are tweeting about The Believer being bought by a sex-toy site.)

「時代」雜誌還在前進,或說蹣跚前行,但「生活」雜誌已經逝去。「金錢」雜誌沒了。它們以前的姊妹刊物「娛樂周刊」和「InStyle」印刷版曾獲利豐厚,但已在2月停止出版。大家向「Saveur」和「美麗佳人」告別,也讓「花花公子」、「紙」與O雜誌穿上壽衣。(就在我撰寫此文時,人們在推特上說「The Believer」被一個情趣用品網站收購了。)

Two recent books — "Dilettante," by Dana Brown, a longtime editor at Vanity Fair, and a new biography of Anna Wintour, by Amy Odell, formerly of cosmopolitan.com — are graveyards of dead or zombie titles that were once glowing hives of human whim.

最近出版的兩本書,「浮華世界」資深編輯達納.布朗的「Dilettante」及柯夢波丹前成員艾咪.歐德爾的安娜溫圖新傳記,有如亡者的墓地,或曾是人類奇想的光輝巢穴冠上了殭屍名號。

"There were so many magazines in 1994," Brown writes. "So many new magazines, and so many great magazines. All the young talent of the moment was eschewing other industries and flocking to the business. It was the coolest place to be."

布朗寫道:「1994年有很多雜誌。很多新雜誌,很多很棒的雜誌。當時所有年輕人才避開了其他行業,湧向這個行業。那是最酷的。」

Then suddenly the coldest. On the big fancy cruise ship that Brown had just boarded — Vanity Fair, where he'd been beckoned by Graydon Carter while a barback at the restaurant 44 — he and so many others then could only see the tip of an enormous iceberg they were about to hit: the internet. Smartphones, little self-edited monster magazines that will not rest until their owners die, were on the horizon. These may have looked like life rafts, but they were torpedo boats.

然後突然變成最冰冷的地方。布朗在44號餐廳吧檯用餐時,被總編輯卡特招攬,剛登上有如大型豪華郵輪的「浮華世界」,但他跟其他許多人只能看到他們即將撞上的巨大冰山一角:網路。智慧手機這種自我編輯、直到擁有者死去才會停止的小怪物雜誌也即將來臨。這些東西可能看起來像是救生艇,但它們其實是魚雷艦。

Every year, the American Society of Magazine Editors issues a handsome award, a brutalist-looking elephant called the Ellie, modeled after an Alexander Calder elephant sculpture. Any writer would be proud to have it on the mantelpiece.

每年,美國雜誌編輯協會都會頒發一項大獎,這是一頭野獸派風格、名叫「艾利」的大象獎座,模仿考爾德大象雕塑設計而成。作家都以把它放在壁爐上為榮。

The history of modern American literature is braided together with its magazines. The future can feel like a lot of loose threads, waving in the wind.

現代美國文學史與它的雜誌彼此交織在一起。未來就像是許多鬆散的線,在風中飄揚。

 
Of Red Clay and French Existentialism 地主冠軍荒持續 法國選手在紅土失存在感
文/Matthew Futterman
譯/陳韋廷

地主冠軍荒持續 法國選手在紅土失存在感

The most prominent feature of the French Open is that this Grand Slam tournament takes place on the rusty red clay of Roland Garros, a beloved detail that is as much a part of local culture and tradition as the bouquinistes that sell art and used books along the Seine.

法國網球公開賽最突出的特點,就是這項大滿貫賽事在羅蘭蓋洛球場鏽紅色的紅土上舉行。如同塞納河畔販賣藝術品與二手書的舊書攤一樣,這是一個令人喜愛的細節,也是當地文化與傳統的一部分。

And yet, as it so often is in the country that claims Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir, the relationship between France and its "terre bateau" is a little more complicated.

然而,就像這個擁有卡繆和西蒙波娃的國家過去經常發生的那樣,法國與自家「紅土球場」之間的關係有點複雜。

This red clay that comes from a small brick factory in Oise, north of Paris, elicits so much love.

來自巴黎北方瓦茲一家小型磚廠的這種紅土深受眾人喜愛。

But the clay has also become a symbol of deep frustration. A Frenchwoman has not won the singles championship that this country so treasures, the one that requires more grit but also more thought than any other, since Mary Pierce in 2000. A Frenchman has not won it in 39 years, since Yannick Noah in 1983.

但這種紅土也成為深刻挫折的象徵。自2000年的瑪麗.皮爾絲以來,還沒有一位法國女子贏得這個國家如此珍視的單打冠軍,這個冠軍需要更多的意志力,也需要更多思考。自1983年的諾亞之後,法國男人已有39年未獲男單冠軍。

Why?

為什麼?

The answer likely has a lot to do with a central contradiction in the home of red clay's biggest stage. Just 11.5% of the tennis courts in France are made of the traditional red clay and most of those are in private clubs. Another 16.5% of courts are made of an imitation clay surface that is similar to the terre bateau but plays harder and faster than the softer traditional clay.

答案跟這個紅土賽事最高舞台主場的重要矛盾可能有很大關係。法國只有11.5%網球場使用傳統紅土,且大多數都是私人俱樂部的網球場,另有16.5%的球場表面由仿紅土製成,雖跟紅土球場類似,但比較軟的傳統紅土打起來更硬且更快。

Winning on clay requires a Ph.D. in what coaches and players call point construction, which is shorthand for playing tennis like chess, thinking not only about this next shot but three shots down the line. Learning that to the point where it is instinctual can take years, and like most things, the earlier one starts training the brain to think that way, the better.

想在紅土賽場上取勝,必須精通教練和球員所稱點的建構,這是像下棋一樣打網球的簡單表達,不僅是想著下一次擊球,還要考慮接下來的三次擊球。將此學習到如同直覺恐需數年時間,而且就像大多數事情一樣,越早開始訓練大腦以這種方式思考越好。

"On clay, the fight really goes on and on," said Aurelio Di Zazzo, a coach at the Tennis Club of Paris. "The longer the effort, the more you have to use your mind."

巴黎網球俱樂部教練迪扎佐這麼說:「在紅土球場,比賽真的是沒完沒了。努力的時間愈久,就愈需要動腦筋。」

The club, which is less than 1 mile from Roland Garros, tries to carry red clay's torch as best it can. That torch is not cheap. Maintaining the courts requires four full-time employees, and new clay costs more than $2,000 a year for each court. Each court must be entirely dug up and redone every 15 years, costing more than $30,000 per court.

這家距離羅蘭蓋洛球場不到一英里的俱樂部,盡其所能地傳承著紅土比賽的火炬。這個火炬可不便宜。維護球場需要四名全職員工,每個球場每年鋪新紅土的費用超過2,000美元。每隔15年,每個球場都必須徹底挖掉重鋪一次,每個球場花費超過30,000美元。

Levy said it is worth it.

勒維表示,這是值得的。

"This clay is a part of France," he said.

他說:「紅土球場是法國的一部分。」

 
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