伯克利:反叛者的伊甸园 The 1)Quirky Heart of California
文字难度：★★★☆
Though the identity of the city has rarely proved 2)steadfast, 3)Berkeley still qualifies for many as cultural 4)shorthand for “5)hippie 6)holdover”. However, anyone who thinks that Berkeley is just a hotbed of radicalism is 7)in for a surprise. College Avenue, the city’s 8)main drag, is packed with more 9)BlackBerry-10)toting 11)hipsters than beard-12)sporting hippies. The city’s 13)revamped shops are able to compete, label-to-label, with SoHo’s sophisticated boutiques, and its restaurants match its bigger neighbor, 14)Oakland, across San Francisco Bay.
Berkeley is a city of diverse neighborhoods. On a bright, cool weekend, I returned to Berkeley to explore some of those neighborhoods. I had arrived at sunset and juicy colors were 15)backlighting San Francisco, the 16)Golden Gate Bridge, and the bay. Berkeley is roughly shaped and situated like stadium seating for San Francisco; its bayside flatlands are backed by a long, west-facing hill line, and it possess some of the Bay Area’s most spectacular views. Just beyond the windows lay 17)manicured lawns 18)studded with rose bushes and 19)palm trees. It looked 20)placid and beautiful, 21)belying Berkeley’s22)flower-child image.
I found 23)funky old Berkeley still alive and well the next morning. I strolled down narrow, storefront-lined Telegraph Avenue, with its24)counterculture 25)dropouts and vendor-fueled street scene, table after table bearing 26)tie-dye, dream-catchers, and beaded jewelry. Though it 27)abuts the campus, Telegraph Avenue has always seemed a world removed from 28)academia. But dozens of 29)banners depicting the University of California at Berkeley’s 18 Nobel Prize 30)laureates—31)Czeslaw Milosz here, 32)Emilio Segrè there—hung from the streetlights, and connected some shared spirit of iconoclasm with the 33)original-Volkswagen-van set. But academia and hippies are definitely not the only things Berkeley has.
虽说这个城市的形象特色不是一成不变的,但“伯克利”依旧是许多人心中具有“嬉皮遗风”的文化代号。然而,不管是谁,如果你只把这个地方仅仅看成是滋长激进主义的温床的话,那你就要大吃一惊了。学院大道是这个城市的主要街道。在街上,你会发现手持黑莓手机的潮人比秀胡子的嬉皮士要多。城里翻新过的店铺足以逐一与纽约的苏豪区里各种高贵名牌服装店相媲美,其餐馆饭店毫不逊色于规模更大的邻市——位于旧金山湾的奥克兰市。
伯克利这个城市有着各色不同的区域。在一个晴朗、凉爽的周末,我回到伯克利,到其中的一些区域去一探究竟。我到那儿的时候正是日落时分,绚丽多彩的霞光映衬着旧金山、金门大桥和旧金山湾。伯克利所处的地势和位置就好比是体育场看台座位一样,正对着旧金山;海边平地后面有一脊朝西的绵长山峦作衬托,这里是旧金山湾区最让人叹为观止的景色之一。窗外是经过精心修剪的草坪,玫瑰花丛和棕榈树点缀其中。一切看起来都那么宁静详和、美不胜收,与伯克利的“花童”形象是那么相矛盾。
第二天早上,我发现记忆中那独立特行的伯克利依然生气勃勃。我在窄窄的电报大街上漫步,路两旁店铺林立,街上有反主流文化的遁世者,满眼都是小摊小贩——在一张挨一张摆卖的桌子上,你可以看到扎染制品、“扑梦网”(编者注:印第安民族饰品,用来挂在床头,传说它能捕捉噩梦,把好梦留给做梦人,嬉皮士多爱以此概念创作图案、饰品)、手工串珠首饰。电报大街虽然毗邻校园,却给你一种与学术界相隔千里的感觉。不过,这里还是有数十条横幅告诉人们加州大学伯克利分校有18名诺贝尔奖获奖者,包括切斯瓦夫·米沃什和埃米利奥·塞格雷。横幅挂在街灯处,与上世纪六七十年代满大街都是面包车那样的场景所体现的反传统精神有着某种呼应。然而,伯克利拥有的绝对不只是学术气氛与嬉皮精神。
Wanting a coffee, I headed around the corner to the original Peet’s Coffee and Tea, opened in 1966, which became the model for Starbucks when, in the early 1970s, its owner, Alfred Peet, supplied three employees who were about to go into business on their own with his roasted beans and helped them find equipment. Cup in hand, I joined the radicals, professors, and 34)well-heeled weekend athletes milling around outside. The Fourth Street district in industrial, bayside West Berkeley is another re-imagined neighborhood. Redeveloped during the 1990s, the area is what people who sneer at 35)nouveau 36)bourgeois Berkeley complain about—even while they shop there. Along the handsome outdoor 37)promenade of brick buildings and 38)sycamore trees, upscale chains like Aveda are 39)wedged between some wonderful local shops. These include Cody’s Books, a bright, well-stocked independent bookstore; Molly B., selling shabby-chic clothes by 40)offbeat designers; and Fourth Street Studio, a vast studio-41)cum-gallery where artists paint and sell their work.
The city is as delightful as ever—a mix of fall leaves, bright sun, and 42)tramp 43)feces. I remembered my arrival here as a freshman many years ago. A realization dawned on me that the city had not only educated and transformed me mentally, but had reinforced my growing 44)cynicism concerning the nature of true rebellion.
I was a punk in high school. As a teen, rebellion got me attention and it meant 45)tousled long hair, dipping oneself in tattoo ink, and getting ten 46)piercings. That desire was never fully achieved and I blamed that on my 47)retainer. But when I got to Berkeley, I saw what true 48)subversion was. Tattoos and piercings are not markers of rebellion but markers of 49)conformity. Berkeley embraced subversives and they were often called “eccentrics”, even if there was a real mental illness involved. And I’m pretty certain the folks they 50)lauded for their non-conformity would die alone with no one there to tell them how cool their suffering was. And so, in 1983, I realized that a true rebel blends in, embracing creativity, originality, discipline, hard work, and clean pants. I cut my hair. I started to study real “rebellion”.
On my way home I stopped by the esteemed Berkeley Repertory Theater where the Berkeley Poet’s Promenade had just been unveiled. On51)plaques embedded into the sidewalk—like the 52)Hollywood Walk of Fame—are inscribed 160 excerpts from poems, by authors ranging from 53)Denise Levertov to Li Po. Los Angeles may have its movie stars but here the streets belong to rebels, or, as I would rather put it, dreamers.
我拐过街角,来到那家始创于1966年的老店——彼特咖啡茶馆去买咖啡。在上世纪七十年代初,店主阿尔弗雷德·彼特给三名打算自己开店的员工提供烘烤好的咖啡豆,帮他们找机器,助其创业,这成了星巴克日后的经营模式。手捧着咖啡,我走到外面,置身激进分子、教授和周末出来锻炼的那些行头十足的运动员之中。位于伯克处西面海边工业区的第四街区是另一个被重新打造的区域,它在上世纪九十年代进行了重新规划。对伯克利近来的新资产阶级氛围嗤之以鼻的人,他们的矛头直指这个街区,虽然对其骂声不断,但却会到这里购物。雅致的砖楼和美观的美国悬铃木列阵人行道旁,像艾凡达这样的高档连锁店穿插在当地的特色小店之间。这里有科迪书店——一家明亮、存书齐备的独立书店;有莫利·B——卖的衣服标榜“松垮旧式”这样的时尚,而且均出自特立独行的设计师之手;还有第四街工作室,这是一家宽敞的工作室兼展室,画家在这里创作并出售他们的作品。
这个城市有形状颜色各异的秋叶、灿烂的阳光和候鸟的粪便,一如既往地讨人喜欢。我还记得许多年前我作为一个大学新生来到这里时的情景。我突然意识到这个城市不仅教育了我并改变了我的思想,而且让我玩世不羁的精神得以加强,而这种精神深得“反叛”的精髓。
高中时,我是朋克青年。在少年时期,我对“叛逆”钟情有加。而那意味着一头乱糟糟的长发,全身上下刺满纹身,再往身上打十个洞。叛逆显酷的欲望从来没有得到满足。我把这归咎于我当时戴的牙套。可等我到了伯克利,我明白了真正的“颠覆”为何物。纹身和在身体上打洞并不是反叛的标记,反而是盲从的标记。伯克利欢迎“颠覆分子”,把他们称为“怪人”,即使对名副其实的精神病人也同样欢迎。我相当肯定他们崇拜的那些不随波逐流的人只会孤独地死去,最终根本不会有人告诉他们,他们所承受的一切有多么的酷。于是,在1983年,我明白了一个真正的叛逆者是融合了合群、拥有想象力、具有原创精神、自律勤奋以及衣衫整洁这些特质。我把长发剪去,开始研究真正的“叛逆”。
在回家的路上,我在备受推崇的伯克利话剧院前停下来。一条伯克利诗人星光大道刚刚揭幕。像好莱坞的名人大道一样,在一块块嵌入人行道的匾牌上刻有160段诗词节选,作者中既有丹尼斯·列维尔托夫,也有李白。洛杉矶也许有它的电影明星,但在这里,街道是属于叛逆者的,或者,我更愿意认为,是属于追梦人的。
