第585期：约翰·杰勒米·沙利文

但我们是否目光短浅了呢？

But are we being shortsighted?

我认为拥有一个政府是很重要的。

I think that it's important to have a government.

我认为人类尝试无政府状态已经很久了，但效果并不好。

I think that humans tried anarchy for quite a long time, and it it didn't work so well.

很多人被石头砸了头。

A lot of people got hit over the head with rocks.

我们的经济发展并不多。

We didn't have a whole lot of, economic development.

几乎所有人都同意，美国应该拥有军队来抵御外来入侵，应该有执法、消防、学校等。

Almost everyone agrees that The United States should have a military to protect it from foreign invasion, that we should have law enforcement, firefighting, schools, etcetera.

反税者以及这一切可能走向何方，尽在《今日解析》，每天下午更新。

Anti taxers and where this could all be heading on Today Explained, dropping every weekday afternoon.

你觉得这些曲折和扭曲是否与写作有关，比如与创造力相连，还是说它们是独立的，只是在平行轨道上运行？

Do you think that all that twisting and torqueness is connected to the work of writing, like connected to creativity, or is it separate and just running on some parallel track?

就好比你真的拥有一根魔法棒的话。

Like if you actually had the magic wand.

我隐约觉得它们肯定是有关联的，但不是什么本质上的必然关联，只是在我自己混乱的大脑思维机制里缠在了一起。

I sort of feel like the like like it has to be connected, but not in any kind of essential or necessary way, just in the mess of my own mental machinery.

不是本质上的关联，而是和你开展创作的方式绑定在了一起？

Not essential, but how you do it.

对，这么多年来它们大概已经彻底缠成一团乱麻了，我都不知道该从哪下手把它们拆分开来，你能明白吧？

Yeah, has, maybe it has become so twisted up over so many years that I wouldn't know how to start tweezing them apart, you know?

最关键的是这一切都不受我意识控制。就好像，你懂的，不仅完全不是我自己选的，我还一直活在恐惧里，每次我感觉到它又要发生的时候，那种感觉几乎就像狼人一样——天呐不要，月亮要出来了，你能明白那种感受吧？

And it's not conscious, that's the main thing, it's like it's not, you know, it's it's not only am I not choosing it, but I'm living in dread, you know, every time I sense that it's about to happen again, you know, it's almost like a werewolf feeling like, Oh God, no, the Moon is coming out, you know?

我为什么会开始做出这种事，还编出这些离谱的谎言？

Why am I starting to behave like this and tell these weird lies?

但与此同时，你比之前任何时候都拼尽全力在工作，所以你心里还会冒出一点想法：你怎么敢冲我发火？

But at the same time, you're working harder than you ever have, so you're also a little bit like, How dare you get pissed at me?

我在这儿都为你拼尽全力了。

I'm bleeding for you down here.

我的意思是，这太荒谬了。

I mean, so, it's so ridiculous.

只要它从我嘴里说出来，别人听了就会说：天啊，别说了。

As soon as it comes out of my mouth from someone else, would hear it and just be like, God, just stop.

别骗自己了，你知道的，但我也说不清楚。

Stop kidding yourself, you know, but I don't know.

我跟心理治疗师谈过这件事。

I've talked to therapists about it.

据说，像这样的人的治愈率很低。

Supposedly, the cure rate for people who are like this is pretty low.

真的吗？

Really?

是的。

Yes.

结果发现，根本没有多少魔法

Turns out there are No, not a lot magic

根本没什么速效良方，也很少有人能在为时过晚之前脱离这种状态，所以你懂的。

not a lot of magic wands and not a lot of people who get to this state without it's being too late for them, so, you know.

那这整件事里有有意思的部分吗？

Is any part of it fun?

从某种层面来说，所有部分都挺有意思的，对。

All of it on some level, yeah.

我很享受创作文字作品，摸索能用准确的词表达我想说的话，这种活着的状态真的太美妙了。身边到处都能找到创作素材，很多时候我都对生活心怀感激——我很小的时候就梦想，有一天能过上这样的生活：每天早上醒来就去自己的书桌前工作，那就是我要做的事，而我真的实现了这点。

I mean, I love making pieces of writing and trying to find the right language to say what I mean and it's such a wonderful way of being alive in the world, I mean, material is all around you and I'm grateful to life in a lot of ways that I, for one thing that I've been able to, I wanted from the time I was very young to one day get to a place where I woke up in the morning and went to my desk, like that was the thing I did.

那既不是我的业余爱好，也不是副业，更不是我挤零碎时间去做的事，它是我的核心支柱，是我生活的重心。

It wasn't a hobby and it wasn't a sideline and it wasn't a thing I was squeezing into stray hours, it was my, it was at the center.

而且，大概二十年前我就找到了这个方向，它一直是个很棒的归宿，我都不知道该怎么形容才好。

And, you know, I got there maybe about twenty years ago, and it's just been it's been a great space to I don't know how to say it.

说“感恩”听着太俗套了，但其实是幸运，我觉得自己很幸运。

Gratitude just sounds so cheesy, but, you know, but it's luck, I feel lucky.

能一直做这件事，你觉得很幸运？

Lucky to get to do that?

对，没错，幸运的是——好了，说了这么多题外话，其实我真正想说的是，我很幸运这件事对我来说一直都保有新鲜感。

Yeah, yeah, lucky that Okay, here's what I'm actually trying to say amid all this blather is lucky that it has stayed interesting for me.

这份热情从未消退，写作带来的种种挑战至今仍能让我热血沸腾。

It hasn't faded, the challenges of writing are still, they still glow.

这和你选择的创作内容有多大关系呢？

How much does that have to do with what you are choosing to write?

比如说，这和创作的文体形式有多大关联？

Like, how much does that have to do with form?

要是我们十二年前聊过的话，那时候你聊起的创作肯定和你现在做的完全不一样。

Because if we had talked twelve years ago, we would have been talking about really different writing than you are doing now.

哦，这说法挺有意思的。

Oh, that's interesting.

是天差地别的创作类型。

A world of different writing.

我心里有个念头，很大的一个念头，就是想沉下心把《Pulp Head》那本书好好读一遍，再翻一遍你早年给《GQ》和《纽约时报》写的所有稿子，但那都是好久之前的事了，而且

There's a part of me, like a big part of me that kind of just wants to sit in pulp head and go through all the GQ pieces and all the New York Times stuff, but it's a long time ago and

这很奇怪，我从来没这么想过，因为对我来说，内在的现实并没有太大不同，我早就同时在写那些其他类型的作品了。

That's weird, I didn't think about that because for me it wasn't that different like the interior reality, I was already doing those other kinds of writing alongside the

那你跟我说说吧，因为我一直在做假设，而你知道答案。

Well tell me that, because I'm making assumptions and you know the answer.

我只是还没胆子把它们寄出去，你知道的？

Well I just didn't have the guts to be sending it out yet, you know?

我仍然觉得需要稍微保护一下它们，或者我寄出过几篇，但都被退回来了，你知道吗？

I still felt like I needed to shelter it a little bit, or I had sent a few things out and they were rejected, you know?

所以它们只是通过不同的渠道在进行。

So it was just happening on a different channel.

你能说清楚那些作品是什么吗？

Can you articulate what those things are?

比如，你当时已经在写些什么？

Like, what's the stuff that you were already doing?

我想是短篇小说和诗歌吧，这么说最简单了，你知道的。

Short fiction and poetry, I guess, you know, is the easiest way to say it.

这些叙事性散文作品，有点像是……我不知道该怎么描述它们，它们在形式上并没有什么革命性，只是我还没怎么花心思去明确分类。

These narrative prose pieces that are kind of like, I don't know, I haven't really figured out how to describe them yet, not that they're revolutionary in a formal way or anything, but I just haven't given a lot of thought to nailing down the categories.

有些更像诗歌，有整齐的行距，有些则更像传统的短篇小说，而且我还正在写一部几年前就开始的小说，同时还有一个长篇非虚构项目等着完成。

Some of them are more like poems, they have uniform lines and some of them are more like traditional short stories and, you know, but I'm also working on a novel that I started working on a few years ago and I have this long non fiction project to finish.

你看，只要我一谈起这个，就会陷入细节，感觉像哮喘发作一样。

See, just, as soon as I start talking about it, I get into the weeds and feel like I'm having an asthma attack or something.

你指的是哪一个？

Talking about which one?

所有这些。

All of it.

我的意思是，因为太多了，你知道的。

I mean, there's, you know, because there's too much.

嗯。

Uh-huh.

项目太多了。

Too many projects.

我已经写了这本书大约二十年了。

Well, I've been writing this book for about twenty years now.

我一直在忙这个，这真有点奇怪。

I've been working on it, which is freaky.

这是《随机老鼠》这本书。

This is the Random Mouse book.

是的。

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

我不知道我为什么刚才说‘大约’，因为这正好是二十年，我心里清楚。

I don't I don't I don't know why I just said about because it's exactly twenty years and I know that.

所以刚才那话有点回避了。

So that was already a little evasion.

好的。

Okay.

我读了你为《最佳美国散文》写的那篇随笔。

I read the essay that you wrote for Best American Essays.

那是你的序言。

It was your foreword.

你曾在2014年编辑过那本书。

You had edited the book in 2014.

你写了一篇关于散文历史的随笔，并刊登在《纽约客》上。

You wrote an essay about the history of the essay and it ran in The New Yorker.

嗯哼。

Mhmm.

是的。

Yeah.

我想是2014年吧。

In 2014, I think.

你末尾的个人简介里说，你是即将出版的非虚构作品的作者。

And your little bio at the end said you are the author of the forthcoming non fiction book.

从技术上讲，那是对的。

Technically, that was true.

我的意思是，我根本没有放弃它。

I mean, it is because I haven't given up on it by any means.

是的。

Yeah.

事实上，我一直在持续地寄出部分内容，但它仍然属于即将出版的作品。

In fact, I send chunks of it off on a very on a very consistent basis, but it's still forthcoming.

对。

Right.

对。

Yeah.

言下之意是它可能快完成了。

The implication was that it maybe close.

那其实是你过度解读了。

That was That was you really more reading into it.

这关乎我，而不是你。

It does about me, not you.

我当时想的是字面意思。

I was trying to be literal.

它会来的。

It will come

有时候。

sometimes.

是的，这只是一种日常的焦虑。

Yeah, that's just an everyday anxiety.

但我已经取得了很大进展。

But I have made a lot of progress.

我实际上已经发送了800页的内容。

I've actually sent 800 pages of it too.

真的假的。

No shit.

发给我的编辑了。

To my editor.

这得写成两本书了吧。

That's in two books.

话说我也不知道最终能留下多少内容，肯定只有一小部分，但我不希望你觉得我在这件事上偷懒。

I mean, I don't know how much of that will survive, only a fraction, I'm sure, but I don't want you thinking that I'm slack on that.

当然，我说的是原本的你，还有我脑补的另外六个和你有关的人。

You being you and you being about six other people I'm imagining.

你喜欢这本书吗？

Do you like the book?

对，我现在还是很沉迷于写这本书。

Yeah, I'm still really into it.

但这明摆着就是不正常的，你懂吗？正常人都该对一件把自己的生活扭曲成这样的事产生反感了，可我却没有，

Isn't that I mean, that's clearly pathological because, you know, a person should turn against something eventually that has deformed his life to such an extent, but

难道你在创作其他作品的过程中，就从来没有在某个节点对它们产生过反感吗？

Do you not have that moment with pieces where you turn against them at some point in the process?

你总是站在他们那边吗？

Are you always on their team?

这太奇怪了，但我确实不是。

It's so weird, but I don't, yeah.

尽管如此，我总是——我的意思是，当我想到它们时，可能会有最初的一丝颤抖，就像房间里有怪物一样，但紧接着我就开始思考技术层面的问题，比如我到底该怎么解决这个问题。

Even though, yeah, I'm always I mean, there may be an initial kind of shiver when I think about them, like with a monster in the room or something, but then I immediately just start thinking about the technical aspects and what, you know, how am I gonna end up figuring that one out.

这很有趣。

That's interesting.

是的。

Yeah.

我知道，很多这类事情都会让你感觉糟糕，但这件事不属于那种类型。

I know there's been interesting in the fact that a lot of this stuff makes you feel like shit except what the thing is doesn't fall into that category.

是的，或者即使它让我感觉糟糕，我自身和这种追求中都有一种足够的受虐倾向，以至于它和一种愉悦感难以区分，因为实在太有趣了。

Yeah, or if it makes me feel like shit, there's enough masochism there, both in me and in the pursuit, you know, that it's indistinguishable from a kind of pleasure because it's so interesting.

你觉得你对自己的写作有掌控感，还是它来自某种其他地方？

Do you feel in control of what you are writing, or is it coming from some other place?

你明白我的意思吗？

Do you know what I mean?

这个问题说得通吗？

Does that make sense, that question?

是的。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

我明白你的意思。

I I know what you mean.

我想知道，这是有意识的吗？你有多少是在遵循直觉？

I'd Like, deliberate is it and how much are you following some instinct?

这又回到了

It gets back

自由意志这个整体问题，我想。

into the whole question of free will, I guess.

这事必然是这样的，因为我不觉得我能掌控这一切，或者说我们人类能掌控这一切。

Inevitably, I mean, because I don't think I'm in control of any of it or that we are.

但有时候我会觉得自己是有意为之的，你懂的，就是顺着某份兴趣深入探索下去，而且我能察觉到，无论是我已经发表的作品，还是那些我希望未来能发表的内容里，都存在一套核心关注点的轮廓。

But there are times when I feel like I'm being deliberate about it, you know, chasing certain fascinations into others and I am aware of a silhouette of preoccupations that exists in my work, both the stuff I've published and the stuff I hope to publish.

我总觉得，当更多读者能看到这个轮廓的时候——我想大多数作家在某种程度上都会有这种感受，至少我是这么猜的——当更多人看到这个轮廓，大家会用不一样的视角去解读整部作品，说不定还能读出更深刻的内涵，你明白吗？

I like to think that when it's visible to more readers and I think most writers feel this way on some level, least I presume that, that when that silhouette is visible to more people, the whole of the work will be read in a different way and maybe a slightly deeper way, you know?

因为这些不同的主题和兴趣领域是相互呼应的，而且围绕这所有内容，其实存在一个更宏大的核心立意。

Because the different subjects and zones of interest are in dialogue with one another and there's a larger argument being made about all of it.

对我来说，举个具体的例子的话，我觉得我写的那些关于美国历史的题材作品，确实都契合一个有关美国的更宏大的核心表达。

And I guess a specific example for me would be that I think the historical pieces I've written about American history do fit into a larger statement about about America.

那你自己清楚这个核心表达是什么吗？

And are you clear on what that statement is?

不清楚。

No.

完全不清楚。

By no means.

不清楚。

No.

我是说，我没法把它总结出来所以算不上清晰，但我能感觉到自己摸索到了一些头绪，这一点我是明确的。

I mean I mean, not clear in the sense that I could summarize it, but clear in the sense that I that that I'm onto something.

是在朝着这个方向慢慢打磨。

Working towards it.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

这种未知性肯定是这份创作能一直让人保持热情的重要原因。

That's gotta be a pretty big part of the continued excitement.

是啊，我也希望是这样。

Yeah, I hope so.

我也觉得是这样。

I think so.

一边摸索出它的脉络，一边见证它最终成型，这整个过程都挺有意思的。

The combination of figuring it out and seeing what it will be, that part feels fun.

我也说不清这是为什么。

I don't know why.

就是说，在现在这种场景里，在面试中进行这样的对话，你最后会不由自主地进入一种为自己辩解的状态，你懂吧？

Mean, in a situation like this, having this kind of conversation in an interview, you you end up doing some, you get into like apologetics, you know?

对。

Yeah.

我还在想，会不会这件事让我对有些事没办法完全坦诚？不是故意的，只是写作这件事本身大多时候就是这样。丁尼生有一首很棒的诗，他在诗里说自己用文字像粗布衣裳一样裹住自己，他写这个本质上是为了抵御忧郁。

And I wonder if I'm, if it's not causing me to be kind of half half honest about some things, not intentionally, but because so much of writing is just There's this great Tennyson poem where he talks about wrapping words around yourself like coarse clothes, he calls it to defend yourself against melancholy basically.

我隐隐觉得，如果能让99%的作家掏心窝子回答“你为什么一直坚持写作”这个问题，这才是他们真正会给出的答案。

And I sort of feel like that is the real answer that 99% of writers would give if you could get that real and say, Why do you keep writing?

大概就是这么个缘由。

That would be something like that.

还有另一个原因，可能算得上是超我层面的解释吧。

And the other thing is maybe sort of a superego version of it.

你这话是什么意思？

What do you mean by that?

你奋力追求的那部分，是一种雄心勃勃的表述。

The part where you're heroically struggling toward is an ambitious statement of some kind.

是的。

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

为了继续下去，你或许不得不不断对自己讲述这样的故事。

That may be the story you sort of have to keep telling yourself about it in order to go on.

但那种像动物般天真烂漫地热爱它，是真实的。

But the part about just loving it in some kind of animal childlike way is real.

是的。

Yeah.

那部分是真实的。

That part's real.

想到你刚才说的话，结合我们已经做的这580多集节目，每次都让作家们阐述他们为什么这么做，这挺有意思的。

It's funny to think about what you just said in the context of these 580 something episodes that we've done, asking writers to articulate, why they do it.

我觉得没人这么说过。

I don't think anyone said that.

是的。

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

这么说的话，某种程度上是不太礼貌的。

It's I mean, bad manners in some way to say it.

也许问这个问题本身就是不太礼貌的。

Maybe it's bad manners to ask.

只是，你知道的，要谈论自己而不加以叙事化很难，而从叙事化到英雄化之间的一步实在太小了。

Well, it's just, you know, it's so hard to talk about yourself without narrativizing and then the step from narrativizing to heroicizing is so small.

是的，这一步很短。

Yeah, it's a short one.

即使这种英雄化的倾向非常微妙，

Even if it's very subtle crypto heroicization,

你知道，

you know,

你仍然是主角，你知道，但我最近和一位在威尔明顿一起玩音乐的朋友聊过这个，因为我大约一年前又开始和乐队一起演奏了，我谈到了对音乐本身、对写作本身存在的感激之情，感激它多年来始终保持着吸引力，就像一盘足够有趣、让你愿意多年持续下下去的棋局，这在某种根本层面上，就是一种抗抑郁剂，你知道吗？

you're kinda, you remain the protagonist, you know, but I do, I was talking about this with a friend that I've been playing music with in Wilmington because I started playing with a band again about a year ago and just talking about feeling grateful to music itself and for me to writing itself for existing and for holding on to its interest over decades, you know, for being a chess game that is interesting enough to want to keep playing all those years, it's just, it's an antidepressant on some fundamental level, you know?

它和抑郁是可以共存的，从临床角度来看。

It can coexist with depression, you know, at the clinical level.

但是

But

是的，我明白。

yeah, understand that.

能够拥有这样的东西在你的生命里，而你本可能没有，这本身就是一种感恩。

Just being grateful to have had that in your life when maybe you might not have.

嗯。

Mhmm.

是的

Yeah.

很难想象没有它的生活。

Hard to imagine life without it.

是的

Yeah.

热情。

Passion.

我们说的就是这个。

That's what we're talking about.

我们说的就是这个。

That's what we're talking about.

这从未下降过吗？

And that's never dipped?

嗯嗯。

Mm-mm.

它一直在变化。

It just keeps changing.

热情是如何与天赋互动的？

How does passion interact with talent?

你现在比以前更擅长这个了吗？

Are you better at this now than you used to be?

是的，我认为我已经成为了一个更好的作家。

Yeah, I've I've become a better writer, I think.

那是什么样子？

What does that look like?

减少刻意雕琢的痕迹。

Less straining after effects.

你知道吗，当我读到我早期的一些作品时，感觉很嘈杂。

You know, when I read some of my earlier stuff, it sounds noisy.

不是全部，但较弱的部分，当然更容易被注意到，

Not all of it, but the weaker stuff, of course, is what you notice,

你知道的？

you know?

这个

The

对我来说，作为一名作家的进步感，就是朝着更高的精确性迈进，更贴近词语本身，让简单的词表达其本意，而不是用华丽的修辞去强行包装，你知道的。

sensation of improving as a writer to me is one of moving toward greater exactitude, getting closer to the words themselves and letting simple words mean what they mean, not trying to put them over with ornament, you know.

所以，这么说的话，我其实是在描述我在这类作品中看到的一种缺陷，你知道的。

So, you know, I guess in putting it that way, I'm kind of describing like a weakness that I see in some of that work, you know.

我经常回头看自己早期的作品，甚至对它们有点恐惧，比如我不会把我的书放在办公室里，一点都不会，因为那只是你当时能力与局限的体现，所以它们对我没什么吸引力，你知道的？

I look at my earlier work a lot and maybe even have a bit of a phobia with it, like I don't keep my own books around, like in my office or anything like that, I don't because it's just an instance of what you were capable of doing at that moment and what your limitations were and so it doesn't interest me, you know?

但有些句子我想起来还是会让我感到尴尬，你知道的？

But there are sentences that I think about that make me wince, you know?

有没有哪些句子让你想起来会微笑？

Are there sentences you think about that make you smile?

是的， probably，是的。

Yeah, probably, yeah.

事情往往是这样的：我会想到自己当时想描述的那个东西，然后回忆起自己是怎么说的，有时会想，没错，当时确实就是那样。

And the way it'll happen is I'll think about maybe the thing itself that I was trying to describe and then remember what I said about it and sometimes go, yeah, that was that was kind of how it was.

这种感觉很好。

That feels good.

不过，其他时候，我最不愿意去思考的就是自己的作品，你知道的。

Otherwise, though, it's just one of the things I would like least to think about my own my own work, you know.

嗯，你现在正处于

Well, you're in the

一个避免思考这些问题的完美位置。

perfect place to avoid thinking about that.

这可不是拒绝。

That's not a no.

不过我们跑题了。

We're ranging though.

是啊，我们确实跑题了。

We are.

可以

Can

我能稍微回溯一下吗？

I range back for a second?

是的

Yeah.

当然可以

Of course.

关于一个过程问题，就是那个无限记忆文件夹，关于光线某时某刻被某物捕捉的方式，你会把这些写下来，想着它们以后可能会出现或有用吗？

To a process question which is that infinite memory folder, the way that the light was caught by something sometime, do you write that stuff down thinking that it might show up later or be useful later?

还是说它们只是静静地待在那里？

Or is it all just sitting there?

你的那些注意到的时刻，它们是如何最终出现在纸上的？

Like, how do those moments that you notice, how do they end up on a page?

我经常做笔记。

I do a lot of note keeping.

我身边总少不了纸质笔记本，说得夸张点，简直像有恋物癖一样离不开它们。

I always have paper notebooks with me or around me in kind of, you know, a fetishistic way.

但其实不是这样的，我觉得这些素材大多都来自抓拍的心理图像和录下的声音片段，我会立刻在脑子里反复回味、琢磨、解读这些内容。说起来最开始我把这个过程形容成一个无限内存的文件夹，完全给你传递了错误的印象，因为从捕捉到画面的那一秒开始，筛选标准就已经非常严苛了，绝大多数信息都会被过滤掉，这样你真正抓住的那些瞬间才有更多空间，能被你反复琢磨、深耕。

But no, I think I think it comes mostly just from taking mental pictures and making mental recordings and immediately starting to rehearse them and dwell on them and interpret them and, in fact, I'm thinking that I gave you completely the wrong impression at first when I described it as some kind of infinite memory folder because I think it's probably very selective from second it happens and that there's so much being filtered out so that the moments you seize on can have more space and be obsessed over.

这样它们就能为创作提供素材了。

So that they can inform the writing.

有可能吧。

Maybe.

对，也许这类情况已经在发生了。

Yeah, maybe there's already some of that happening.

是的。

Yeah.

我这么说的意思是，其实你已经在以某种方式记录这件事了，而这个过程可能会让人感到有些隔阂。

By which I think we both mean you're already writing about it in some way, which can be kind of alienating.

怎么说呢？

In what sense?

有好几次我都希望自己能更活在当下，而不是总把发生的一切转换成文字，或是不停琢磨该怎么描述眼前的场景。

There have been times when I wished I had been more present in a moment and not turning it into language and not thinking about how it could have been described.

我有时候也会好奇，那些能做到活在当下的人，他们脑海里的感受是什么样的，他们的体验会不会有时候更鲜活之类的。

And I sometimes wonder about the insides of other people's heads who are more like that and experience if is at times more vibrant or whatever.

对。

Yeah.

如果这件事本身还带着点奇妙的吸引力的话。

If there's something kind of like curiously appealing.

对。

Yeah.

没错。

Yeah.

过去十二年里我一直有一个问题，其实十二年前我就该问你了，但我现在才开口，因为我们现在正好聊到这儿，而且我觉得这个问题和咱们现在聊的内容有关：你日常生活里的自己，和跃然纸上的你，两者之间有多大的差距？

One of the sort of questions that I have asked over the last twelve years that I probably would have asked you twelve years ago but I'll ask it now because we're here and I think it relates to this is what's the gap between you and your day to day life and you on the page?

我觉得差距挺大的。不过有时候有人会说，我写的东西读起来就像我本人在说话，语气上确实能对应得上。我觉得这种相似性几乎是自然形成的，因为我会把写的句子念出声来，只有当句子听起来像是我会说的话，或是我能想象它从某个人嘴里说出来的时候，我才会觉得满意，才愿意暂且放下，这种做法可能就让文字和本人产生了相似性。

I think it's pretty enormous, I think, I mean, but sometimes people say that my writing sounds like me, that voice wise, there's a real correspondence that way and I think that happens almost physically because I hear my sentences and I say them out loud and I don't like them or don't usually feel ready to kind of walk away from them until they sound like something I would say or that I can hear coming out of a human mouth, and that creates a similarity maybe.

嗯嗯。

Uh-huh.

至少在表达方式上。

At least in delivery.

至少在表达方式上。

At least in delivery.

是的，正是如此。

Yeah, exactly.

但至于另一件事，关于感觉在纸上展现的是真实的自己，我从未有过这种感觉。

But as far as the other thing, as far as feeling like myself is on the page or something, no, I've never.

这让我感到惊讶，居然有人真的有这种感觉。

And it just, it amazes me to know that some people do feel that way.

我只能相信他们，因为很多人都这么说，但真的吗？

I can only believe them because lots of people say they do, but it's just like, really?

你这话是什么意思？

Tell me what you mean by that.

一旦你写下‘我’这个字，你就戴上了一副面具，因为你已经把它写下来了，所以这种自我创造的行为或无论是什么，就已经开始了，你知道的。我想这就是为什么它让我觉得——不是说得通，而是为什么这样做让我感到自在，而不像某些通俗文章和我的一些长篇非虚构作品那样，需要一个人自我意识地写作，那些作品里有第一人称叙述。当人们谈论一篇非虚构作品时说‘它像小说一样’或‘读起来几乎像小说’，我就会想，嗯，当然了。

As soon as you write the word I, you've put on a mask because you've written it and so the act of self creation or whatever it is, is underway, you know, and I think that's why it made, not made sense, but why it felt comfortable to me to do and not like a thing a person had to feel self conscious about to write in the way that some of those pulp head pieces are written and some of my long form non fiction pieces are written where there's a first person and when people talk about a piece of nonfiction and say, It's novelistic or it almost reads like fiction, it's like, Well, of course it does.

我的意思是，那只是形式上两种细微的变体而已，对吧？

I mean, those are just two slight variations on a form, you know?

如果你回溯到18世纪上半叶，现代文学形式开始萌芽的时期，看看像笛福这样的作家，他既在写小说——一些最早的小说，也在写所谓的‘创意非虚构作品’，同时还创作那些让人争论不休、无法确定真伪的作品，而这些作品的叙事声音听起来如出一辙，或至少属于同一声音家族。

If you go back to the first half of the eighteenth century when the modern forms are getting started and you look at somebody like Defoe, he's writing novels, some of the first novels, he's writing some of the first quote unquote creative non fiction, he's also writing books that people argue about, they're not sure if they're true or not and the voices sound the same or at least they seem to belong to the same family of voices.

所以现代小说与现代文学非虚构作品的基因是如此交融混杂，就像我们人类和黑猩猩的关系一样。因此你其实无需对形式进行太大调整，就能写出那些属于新新闻主义、创意非虚构或散文随笔范畴的作品——无论怎么称呼，所有这些术语似乎都不完全令人满意。

So it's like the genes of modern fiction and of modern literary non fiction are so mixed up, it's like us and chimpanzees or something, And you so you don't really have to tweak the forms that hard to write those pieces that fall into the category of the new journalism or creative non fiction or essayistic, whatever it is, none of the terms are quite satisfactory somehow.

我认为不是因为这是一个难以命名的类型，而是因为在某些方面它是最自然的，是所有类型中最显而易见的。

I think not because it's a hard genre to name, but because it's in some ways the most natural, it's the most obvious of all the genres.

它就像我们在生活和世界中的行事方式，因此在某种程度上抗拒被命名，这可能就是为什么它最终被称为像‘创意非虚构’这样生硬的名称。

It's like the way we do in life in the world and so it resists naming to a certain extent, which is probably how it ended up being called something as creaky as creative non fiction.

我是说，听起来就像是你不愿意做的事情。

I mean, just sounds like something you wouldn't want to do.

确实听起来是那样。

Does sound like that.

对。

Yeah.

而不是一件人人都会做的事。

Instead of something that everyone does.

没错，没错，或是人人都渴望去做的事，你明白吗？

Right, right, or that everyone aspires to do, you know?

而且我最近一直在思考这个问题。

And I've been thinking about that a lot.

其实我最近刚读到一篇文章，看得我特别生气——那篇文章里的人在讨论艺术硕士（MFA）项目，还对这类项目要不要把创意非虚构作为一个正式体裁，摆出一副自命不凡、小题大做的纠结姿态。

In fact, I read this piece recently that really got me exercised to where a person was talking about the MFA programs and just the whole self important agony over whether they're going to admit creative non fiction as a genre.

那篇文章还提到了创意非虚构领域的核心人物之一李·古特肯特，还有约翰·德·盖达这类人，说的都是些很近的文学史，还提到了新新闻学。可有意思的是，他们扯了这么多，居然完全没提起罗伯特·伯顿和他的《忧郁的解剖》，没提起托马斯·布朗爵士的《瓮葬》，也没提在那之后一百年、还有意识地致敬这些前辈的第一批期刊随笔作家。

And this piece was talking about Lee Gutkent, who's kind of one of the main figures in the creative non fictional world and John de Gada and people like that, it all, very recent literary history and the new journalism came up and, you know, it's just, it's, the idea that you can talk about all of that stuff and not talk about Robert Burton and the anatomy of melancholy, not talk about Sir Thomas Brown urn burial, then not talk about the first periodical essayists who were writing a hundred years later and looking back to those guys in a very conscious way.

你要知道，我们从事的是一个源远流长、底蕴深厚的体裁，可界定这个体裁核心问题的相关研究，要么根本没人做，要么做出来的成果没能渗透到普通读者的认知里。

I mean, there is this long, deep genre that we're working in and it's almost like the work that lies at the center of the problem of defining what that genre is has not really been done or hasn't been done in a way that has trickled down into a more general kind of readerly consciousness, you know?

我觉得这就是为什么直到现在，还有人能这么肤浅地讨论这些话题。

And I think that's the only reason why it's still even possible to talk about those subjects in such a shallow way.

我的意思是，一个负责MFA项目的人竟然说这种写作模式——创意非虚构——不配与小说和诗歌并列放在书架上。

I mean, the idea that somebody who runs an MFA program is saying this mode of writing, creative nonfiction, does not deserve to sit on the shelf next to fiction and poetry.

我的意思是，这不仅显得势利眼（虽然确实如此），而且完全违背历史且无知。

I mean, it's like it's not just that it's snobbish, though it is, but it's also totally ahistorical and ignorant.

我想就所有这些写点东西，而且我已经做了大量研究，旨在展示这一传统从一开始就具有多么强的自我意识，因为这不仅仅是二十世纪和二十一世纪的作家回望过去说‘哦，看，有一条作家脉络’那么简单。

And I wanna write something about all of that, and I have been doing a lot of research aimed at showing how self aware that tradition is from the very beginning because it's not just that twentieth and twenty first century writers look back and say, Oh, look, there's a stream of writers.

而是，他们清楚自己是谁，也彼此了解，并且知道自己正在以一种既独立又与其他文学体裁相关的模式进行创作。

It's like, no, they knew who they were and they knew of one another and that they were working in this mode that was separate but related to the other literary genres.

你是否觉得，你描述的那种工作机会——更好地命名它、更深入地理解它——已经被错过了？

Do you feel like the opportunity to do that work you're describing, to name it better, to understand it better, do you think the opportunity to do that work has been missed?

不，我认为现在正是做这件事的时候，你明白吗？

No, I think it's just time to do it now, you know?

在这一点上，我的意思是，虽然这个方向上已经有很多出色的研究成果，但它们大多发表在学术期刊上，研究范围非常专精。现在需要有人将这段历史的成熟学术理解引入当前关于文类的讨论中。

And in saying that, I mean, there has been a lot of brilliant work done in that direction but it's just happened in academic journals with very focused areas of concentration and somebody needs to kind of take a fully formed academic understanding of that history and bring it over into the argument over the genres as it's happening right now.

这就是我想要尝试去做的事情。

That's what I wanna try to do.

我觉得这真的会很有启发性。

I think really it be illuminating.

对谁呢？

To whom?

谁是这个目标受众？

Who's the audience for that?

你。

You

你得问这个问题。

had to ask that.

我不知道。

I don't know.

我敢肯定受众少得可怜。

I'm sure it's vanishingly small.

嗯，我也不知道。

Well, don't I I don't know.

但那是一个间接的

That's but that that was a a backhanded

不。

No.

我没有那样理解。

I way of didn't take it that way.

不。

No.

这

It's

完全合理。

totally legit.

我只是

I just

不。

No.

那是一种很随意的方式问我真正想问的问题，也就是你如何看待自己的受众。

It was it was a sloppy way of asking you what I actually wanted to ask you, which is about how you think about your own audience.

再者，试着回想我们十二年前的对话和现在的对话，这个问题的答案有没有任何变化？

And again, trying to think about the conversation we would have had twelve years ago and the conversation we're having now, has that has the answer to that question changed at all?

也就是说，你当时的受众和现在的受众有什么不同？

Like, your audience then versus your audience now?

你现在会思考这个问题吗？

Do you think about that now?

你当时会思考这个问题吗？

Did you think about it then?

你的受众是谁？

Who's it for?

我不明白为什么随着时间的推移，这个问题对我来说越来越难回答。

I don't know why that question has become harder to answer for me over time.

我认为二十年前我会说我在为自己写作，但那并不真实，更像是种逞强罢了。

I think twenty years ago I would have said that I was writing for myself and that wouldn't have been true, it would have been more like bravado kind of.

有趣的是，有时候你拥有观众，有时候又没有。

It's funny, it's like sometimes you have an audience and sometimes you don't.

我觉得现在这种情况更明显了——每当我思考这个问题时（我尽量不去想，因为多数时候它会束缚你，某种程度上会束缚你的想象力，如果你过于精确地思考这个问题的话），我似乎都会有不同的感受。但去年我发表了一篇叫《一个叫弗兰的男人》的作品，是一篇关于管道事件的散文诗，它可能获得了比我以往任何作品都更强烈的读者反响。然后我又写了几篇后续文章，感觉几乎没什么人读过，或者至少没有表现出他们读过的迹象，你知道吗？

And I think it's become more that way, that at any given moment I seem to feel a different way about that when I think about it, which I try not to do because more often than not it ties you up a little bit, somehow ties up your imagination, you know, if you think about it in precise a way but I, last year I published this thing called Man Called Fran, it was like a prose poem about a plumbing incident that happened it probably got more you know, as bigger response from readers as anything I'd written and then I wrote a couple of pieces after that and I feel like very few people read them or gave any sign that they had, you know?

所以，这个指针似乎波动太大，没什么参考价值，不值得你过多关注，你懂我的意思吧？

So, needle seems to move too much to be helpful, to be a thing you wanna be paying attention to, you know?

嗯，也许这么说有点牵强，但弗兰那篇文章确实挺有意思的。

Well, maybe this is a stretch, but that Fran piece, it's funny.

话说读起来真的特别有意思。

Like, it's it's really fun to read.

那挺好的。

That's cool.

还有艾克索·罗斯去基督教摇滚音乐节、《篮球兄弟》相关的桥段，那些讲真实世界的破事儿都特别好笑。

And Axl Rose and the Christian Rock Festival, One Tree Hill, the fucking real world, that stuff's funny.

每一段里的笑点都特别密集。

The jokes per paragraph rate is high.

那挺好的。

That's good.

这对我很有帮助。

That helps.

我觉得你想表达的是，幽默能扩大读者群体，为人们理解核心内容打开一扇更宽的门。

I think that's what you're saying, Like humor expands the readership, it opens up a wider door for people get point.

对。

Yeah.

我觉得确实是这样的。

I think that's I think that's true.

那既然你清楚这一点的话，你是不是就能在一定程度上掌控你观众的规模了呢？

Well, think like then if you know that, right, then are you in some control of, you know, the size of your audience?

如果你知道用那种风格创作能扩大受众，那这件事可能就不像感觉里那样全凭运气了。

Maybe it's less random than it feels like if you know that writing in that way expands it.

对，那样的话就会忍不住往那个方向靠拢，那种猎奇博眼球的倾向大概就是这么来的。可能就是因为过度害怕自己掉进这个坑里，我才反而越来越远离那种写法了。

Yeah, then there would be a temptation to kind of go toward that and that's where maybe the gonzo tendency comes in, you know, and it may be from an excessive fear of falling prey to that that I've moved more away from it, you know.

我女儿玛丽亚，真的很有趣，她现在为教堂山的《每日塔海尔》写稿，尽管我一再警告她别从事新闻业。

My daughter Maria, it's really funny, who's now writing for The Daily Tar Heel, by the way, at Chapel Hill, despite all my, you know, warnings to stay away from journalism.

继承家业啊。

Following in the family business.

哦天哪，‘行业’这个词太委婉了。

Oh man, business is charitable word.

但她说，你写那些幽默的长篇杂志文章时，显然更出名，也赚得更多。

But she said, It just seems like you were a lot more famous and also that you made more money when you wrote funny long magazine pieces.

她就是用这种直白的说法。

She said it like in just that language.

这比我刚才说的要直接多了。

It's much more direct than what I was just saying.

你知道的，因为是她，我就只是想，哦，我不知道，我试试吧。

You know, and I because it was her, was just I was just like, oh, I don't know, I'll try.

我不知道，也许我可以看看他们是否还愿意让我这么做。

I don't know, maybe I'll see if they'll still let me do that,

你懂吧？

you know?

那篇关于管道工程的文章就是这么来的吗？

Is that what the plumbing piece was?

天呐，有可能吧。

Oh God, maybe.

我不知道，我之前都没把这两件事联系起来过。

I don't know, I haven't put that together.

对，那这期间的

Yeah, what's the

时间线是怎样的？

chronology there?

我没直接给出答复，但其实中间可能也就隔了几个月吧。

There's not a direct response, but there may only have been, like, a few months.

原来是这样。

Right.

对。

Right.

从那个故事发表的那次对话算起，正好是六周。

It's exactly six weeks from that conversation of that story being published.

搞砸了。

Messed up.

你怀念那段时光吗？

Do you miss that time?

因为她没错，对吧？

Because she she's not wrong, right?

我不觉得是这样。

I don't don't I don't guess so.

我不知道。

I don't I don't know.

如果我现在读者更多了，那是因为某种传播。

If I have more readers now, it's because of kind of spread.

这更像是慢慢渗透，而不是那些真正引起大量关注的片段之类的。

It's been a kind of ooze as opposed to, you know, pieces that really got a lot of attention or whatever.

你怀念那段时光吗？

Do you miss it?

不。

No.

不，我绝对不怀念那段时光。

No, I definitely don't miss it.

为什么？

How come?

哦，只是因为现在和未来看起来有趣多了，你知道的？

Oh, just because the present and the future seems so much more interesting, you know?

这适用于生活，也适用于写作。

That goes for life and for writing.

我的意思是，我总是会对桌上正在做的事情更感兴趣，而不是其他任何事。

I mean, I'm always gonna be more interested in the thing on the desk than in anything else.

是故意决定停止做那些事情或远离它们的吗？

Was it a conscious choice to stop doing that stuff or to move away from it?

我不记得当时有多清醒，也想不起来究竟是什么生活变化促使了这件事发生。

I can't remember how conscious it was, I can't remember what life change really made it happen.

有时候，这仅仅是一连串的偶然，比如你一直合作的编辑离开了，去了别的地方。

Sometimes it's just a succession of accidents, you know, editors you've been working with leave and go to other places.

这正是我们共同的朋友乔尔·洛维尔的情况，我曾为他写过很多文章，几乎是在和他合作的过程中，我们建立了如此紧密的关系，而且……

That's the case with our mutual friend, Joel Lovell, who, you know, I did a lot of writing for him and almost in collaboration with him, we came to have such a close relationship And

你们俩在《GQ》杂志上关于《Pulphead》出版时做的一次精彩访谈中，曾谈到你们如何共同找到了一种适合杂志文章的语调或风格，感觉非常自然。

There's this wonderful interview that you guys did in GQ together when Pulphead came out, where you're sort of talking about how collaboratively you two found this sort of voice or tone or way to play in a magazine story that felt right.

是的，我觉得这么说很准确。

Yeah, I think that's right.

这确实是描述它的好方式。

It's a good way to describe it.

我的意思是，很多有趣的杂志内容其实都是这样产生的，通常会有一位编辑扮演着更接近创意角色的角色，这并不意味着你们必须共同撰写文章，事实上，乔尔作为编辑最棒的一点就是，他从不试图重写你，而是推动你去表达你真正想说的内容。

I mean, and a lot of the interesting magazine stuff I feel like happens that way, you know, there's often an editor who's playing something really closer to a creative role almost, which doesn't mean you're co writing the pieces necessarily, in fact that was one of the beautiful things about Joel and is as an editor, is that he try to top right you, he doesn't try to overwrite you, he just pushes you to go to the places where you're gonna say the thing you mean.

但我记得自己读过的一本关于杂志行业的绝佳好书，我觉得听你播客的听众都会非常适合读这本书，书名是《伙计们，这并不体面，但我们难道没玩得开心吗？》

But I remember like one of the best books I've ever read about magazine stuff and the folks who listen to your podcast I think would be like the ideal audience for this book is called It Wasn't Pretty Folks, But Didn't We Have Fun?

这本书讲的是《时尚先生》杂志那段时期的故事，当时新新闻主义刚在那里萌芽，比如特里·萨瑟恩为《在 ole miss spinning》写的序。

It's about the Esquire years when the new journalism was sort of getting hatched there, you know, Terry Southern doing Twirlin' at Ole Miss forward.

对了，那篇文章放到现在我都觉得是巅峰之作，就好像最精彩的作品最先诞生了，而整个这一流派之后的所有创作者都在努力想要企及那第一篇作品的高度，你……

That piece by the way is still, I think, the masterpiece of It's like the best thing happened first and the whole rest of the genre is trying to get back to What that first, you

想想还真让人有点不是滋味。

an uncomfortable thought.

嗯不对，是不止一位编辑都是这样的，你懂吗？

Well, more than one of them are like that, you know?

而且也不止是在一种创作体裁里是这样。

More than one genre.

体裁，对的。

Genre, yeah.

到最后整件事都变成了一种焦虑，你总得费力去

Where the whole thing becomes an anxiety of trying to

哦，这感觉太真实了，让我胃都疼了。

Oh, that feels so true, it makes my stomach hurt.

是的，这事儿不对劲。

Yeah, it ain't fine.

这让人不舒服。

It's not comfortable.

这感觉不好受。

That doesn't feel good.

哦，我觉得说得对。

Oh, I think that's right.

这太棒了，就在前几天我还在想这件事，因为有人请我为新版的亨特·S·汤普森作品集写序言。

It's so good and I've been thinking about it just in the last few days because I got asked to write the introduction to a new edition of Hunter S.

这本选集收录了他的《肯塔基德比：堕落与堕落》，这也是我认为他最出色、最早期的作品。

Thompson, an anthology, and it has his, The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, which is also I think his best thing and his first thing.

他在审视特里·桑德兰。

And he's looking at Terry Southern.

我的意思是，很明显他写那篇文章的时候，就好像一直凑在特里·萨瑟恩身边听他的想法一样，你懂吗？

I mean, it's very clear that he's just like, he just has an ear horn to Terry Southern while he's writing that piece, you know?

也许这就是你不会怀念那段时光的原因。

Maybe that's why you don't miss that time.

那段时间我感觉自己就像在耗尽精力的田地里苦苦挣扎一样

That I felt like I was toiling in exhausted fields or something

不过好在你已经摆脱那段困境了。

No, like but you got off that particular train.

我确实曾经有过一阵脊柱发麻的感觉，仿佛在提醒我，或许你在那种创作状态下已经写出了自己的巅峰之作。

I do think I got a little tingle in my spine at some point that said maybe you've done your best stuff in that mode.

我听着那股念头，因为每次听到这种声音的时候，你总忍不住想立刻下车叫停。

Listening because you always wanna jump off the train when when you hear that.

那你觉得，聆听这份脊柱发麻的预感，和聆听某个想法冒出来时的那种悸动是一回事吗？

Is listening to that tingle, is that the same, you think, as listening to, like, the tingle of an idea?

也就是，和感知到那条——可能你

Like, being in touch with that the same as being in touch with that Maybe line you

所以只要这件事和创作层面的问题与经历绑定在一起，你懂吧，我都记不清是自己写的哪篇作品里，第一次察觉自己在搞一点自我模仿了——你本来就已经写了很多戏仿内容了，这种情况真的是不想碰到的，你明白吧？

so insofar as it's bound up with creative questions and experiences, you know, that you're I can't remember which piece it was I did that I first caught myself doing a little self parody, you know, which you really don't want to do when you're already doing a lot of parody, you know?

这说起来就像……天呐，这事让我想起一段经历。我女儿简两岁的时候，我们疏忽了，把开着YouTube的笔记本电脑丢给了她。之前有人给她搜过《爱探险的朵拉》相关内容，YouTube的搜索栏里还留着关键词，平台就自动连播下一个视频，接着就刷到了一堆画风诡异的朵拉戏仿视频，里面全是离谱的黑暗情节，比如朵拉会惊呼‘天呐，斯威伯的头被炸飞了’之类的。

It's like the mixing of Oh my god, that reminds me of something I have When my daughter Jane was two, we accidentally or, you know, by neglect left her with an open laptop that had YouTube on it and somebody had typed in Dora for her, just typed in, you know, Dora the Explorer or whatever into the YouTube search bar and it was doing its thing of playing the next video and the next video and it went down this weird path into Dora parodies where really dark things were happening and Dora was like, Oh gosh, Swiper's head got blown off or whatever.

那段内容真的太糟糕了，我的大女儿走进房间安抚简，跟她说‘没事的珍妮，别怕，那些只是恶搞的戏仿内容而已’。

It was just awful and my older daughter came into the room and was trying to comfort her and said, It's okay, Janie, it's okay, those are just parodies.

结果我小女儿说：‘我知道，这些戏仿好吓人啊。’

And my daughter said, I know yike parodies.

那感觉几乎就像是，你懂的，我当时……

Which was almost like, you know, I've

我不止一次在纯粹的写作场景里想到过这件事。

thought of that more than once in a purely, in a writing context.

对。

Yeah.

知道什么时候该去追寻新事物，和知道什么时候该给某件事画上句号，这两者是一回事吗？

Is knowing when it's time to find something new the same as knowing when it's time to end something?

有可能是吧，但我自己不是这么体会的，因为我一直刻意不去想什么起点和终点，你懂的吧？

It may be, but I don't experience it that way because I'm careful not to think about beginnings and endings, you know?

为什么呢？

Why?

对我来说，把这一切都当成某件事在持续不断地铺展开来，反而更能激发灵感。

It's more inspiring to me to think of it all as a constant unfolding of something.

你知道吗，有个很棒的感触：有时候采访里最精彩的瞬间，就是你突然在某件事上被别人纠正了一下，那一瞬间你先是有点愣住，接着仔细琢磨对方的话，就会反应过来，哇，刚才那可是整个过程里最有意思的时刻。

You know, there's this great moment, sometimes the best moments in interviews are when you get a little bit corrected on something and the second it happens, you're almost a little bit like taken aback, then listening to it, you think, Oh, well, was the most interesting moment there.

这件事发生在我写关于摄影师威廉·埃克莱斯顿的文章时，我去孟菲斯和他待了一整天加一个晚上。

And that happened to me when I wrote this thing about William Eccleston, the photographer, and I went and spent a day and an evening with him in Memphis.

他说话字字珠玑，所以整个过程都很有趣，但有个瞬间我问了他——基本上是在问他现在还会出去拍摄多少照片，因为他已经九十多岁了。当提到孟菲斯时，我问了句：'这里变化大吗？'

And he doesn't say a dull word, so the whole thing was interesting, but there was this moment when I said, basically I was asking how much he still gets out and works and how many photographs he takes, because he's, you know, he's in his nineties now, and something about Memphis came up and I said, Has it changed?

在那一刻，我想到了他那些著名的照片——就是那些众所周知的、拍摄于60、70、80年代孟菲斯的照片，然后我问他：‘它变了吗？’

And what I was thinking in that moment was of his famous photographs, the one everybody knows that are of, you know, of Memphis in the, you know, 60s, 70s, 80s, and said, Has it changed?

他只是停顿了一下，然后说道：‘它一直在变。’

And he just, there was a beat and he said, It was always changing.

那句话一下子戳中了我，你懂吗。

And that hit home, you know.

这就好比如果你非要去做那种给事情划章节、定节点的事，那你从一开始就已经和这件事原本的真实模样脱节了，明白吗？

It's like if you're doing, if you're playing that game of trying to kind of assign chapters, already at a distance from what the thing really was and is, you know?

你只是在给它编故事而已。

You're telling stories about it.

这件事本身其实就是日复一日、再平常不过的日常。

It's really just an every morning thing.

那一刻你就会觉得自己触碰到了真谛。

That's when you feel you're close to it.

当你习惯了每天早上醒来就直奔书桌去做事的时候。

When you're getting to just wake up every morning and go to the desk.

对。

Yeah.

就是这份日复一日的坚持。

The practice.

你知道的。

You know?

那就是

Which is the

你最感激的事情吗？

thing that you feel the most grateful for?

是的。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

那就是我热爱的事情。

That's the thing I love.

约翰，谢谢你做这件事。

John, thank you for doing this.

天哪。

Oh, man.

谢谢你，那个…其实我应该谢谢你特意跑这一趟，不过你本来就在特拉弗斯城，所以也就

Thanks for, you know Well, I should say thanks for making the trip, but you were just in Traverse City, so

这地方离得特别近。

It's right around the corner.

我真的，那个，真的很高兴终于能和你见面了。

I'm really, you know, I'm really glad to meet you finally.

我也是。

Same.

感谢各位收听《长篇访谈》全程节目

Thanks for listening to Long Form, to all of it.

那是我们的最后一期节目了

That was our last episode.

我是马克斯·林斯基

I'm Max Linsky.

我的联合主持是阿伦·拉默和埃文·拉特利夫

My co hosts have been Aaron Lammer and Evan Ratliff.

一定要继续关注那两位。

Make sure that you continue to follow those guys.

别错过他们的后续内容。

Keep them close.

他们俩今后还会创作超多超棒的作品。

They're gonna make so much incredible stuff, both of them.

埃文比我和阿伦更有条理一些，这点其实也不算意外。

Evan, maybe not surprisingly, he's a little bit more organized than Aaron and I.

他都已经开始新的项目了

He's already started.

他推出了一档新节目

He's got a new show out.

节目名叫《Shell Game》

It's called Shell Game.

这档节目超棒的

It's amazing.

快去订阅吧。

Go subscribe.

快去收听吧。

Go listen.

和过去很多周一样，本周我们节目的编辑是加芙列拉·萨尔迪维亚。

Our editor this week, as it has been so many weeks, was Gabriela Saldivia.

感谢她，也感谢劳伦·基施纳、珍娜·魏斯·伯曼、珍妮尔·佩顿、考特尼·哈勒尔、杰基·塞吉科、赛斯·凯利和苏珊·彼得森。

Thanks to her, and thanks also to Lauren Kirchner and Jenna Weiss Berman and Janelle Peyton Courtney Harrell and Jackie Sejiko and Seth Kelly and Susan Peterson.

这些名字我已经提了很多年了。

All of these names I have been saying for years.

他们每个人都为本节目剪辑过大量剧集，这些剪辑师的重要性我简直无法用言语形容。

Each of them edited so many episodes of this show, and I cannot tell you how indispensable these editors have been.

正是因为他们，才有了今天这个节目。

They have made this show what it is.

还要感谢梅根·瓦利。

Thanks also to Megan Valley.

这周的节目说明由她负责。

She handled the show notes this week.

她已经这样做了好几年了，而梅根是众多帮助我们每周三将节目推向世界的人中的最后一位，多到数不胜数。

She's been doing that for years, and Megan is the last in a long line of people, way, way too many to name, who have helped get the show out into the world every Wednesday.

感谢他们每一个人。

Thanks to each of them.

感谢来自Vox的周雷和徐莉莲，过去几年我们一直与他们合作制作这个节目。

Thanks to Ray Chow and Lillian Xu at Vox who we've made this show with for the last few years.

感谢约翰·达登和波尔克奖的支持。

Thanks to John Darden and The Polk Awards for their support.

感谢马克·德克里斯蒂娜和Mailchimp的全体同仁。

Thanks to Mark DeChristina and everyone at Mailchimp.

你们还记得Mailchimp吗？

You guys remember Mailchimp?

发送电子邮件通讯最简单的方式？

Easiest way to send an email newsletter?

小信件？

Tiny letter?

这些人支持这个节目这么久，远超他们本该或甚至可能应该支持的时间。

Those folks supported this show for so much longer, certainly than they needed to or even probably should have.

当然，感谢约翰·杰勒米·沙利文。

And of course, thank you to John Jeremiah Sullivan.

太棒了。

Amazing.

我简直不敢相信我们终于请到他了。

I can't believe we finally got him.

他的书即将出版。

His book is coming.

你一定会想读它。

You are gonna wanna read it.

感谢他，也感谢所有曾做客节目的人。

Thanks to him and thanks to everyone who has come on the show.

我仍然有点不敢相信你们所有人都答应了，我真的非常非常感激你们答应了。

I still can't quite believe that any of you said yes, and I'm so so grateful that you did.

过去的这几周苦乐参半，但最美好的部分是听到了这么多听众的反馈，来自世界各地的人们写信来，只是为了说他们从这个节目中有所收获，我们都应该足够幸运地去做一些对他人有意义的工作。

These last couple weeks have been bittersweet, but the best part has been hearing from so many listeners, people all over the world who wrote just to say that they got something out of the show and we should all be lucky enough to do work to make things that mean something to other people.

这太棒了。

It's the best.

这绝对是顶级的。

It is the absolute best.

感谢大家留下的留言，也感谢你们的收听。

So thanks for the notes and thanks for listening.

好了。

Okay.

这一路的旅程太难忘了。

What a run.

我们再会。

We'll see you.