初看这篇文章的时候，感觉就像听着作者在耳边低语，轻轻的，柔柔的，仿佛恋人为好奇的对方讲睡前故事——让人忆起儿时枕着母亲的大腿听她不紧不慢地讲童话，一字一句听似不着边际，却如此安详宁静。
Tell me something light, she says, something I’ll forget.
So I tell her penguins are so old, they have outlived the dinosaurs.
I tell her 1)carp has no natural life span and could technically live forever.
I tell her a research project from the 1980s said people with blue eyes generate trust more easily and generally last longer in relationships, while people with brown eyes are more likely to be viewed as distant objects of 2)idolism and 3)affection.
I don’t tell her that every 4)con artist I’ve ever met had blue eyes or that my brown-eyed friends are
constantly accused of hiding something from their partners.
I tell her my eyes are green, and sometimes 5)hazel, but I don’t tell her that means I’m somewhere in between.
I tell her a boy from Atlanta, Georgia, got a research 6)grant to study the difference between swimming in water and swimming in 7)oatmeal.
I tell her the day everyone realizes how easy it is to get research grants, poverty will no longer been an issue.
I ask her if she’s ever heard of 8)lucid dreaming?
She shakes her head no.
So I tell her lucid dreaming is the skill to control what happens in your dreams. You can learn this by asking yourself throughout the day if you are awake or dreaming and by training yourself to recognize odd 9)occurrences, or dream signs.
Sounds boring, she says, like knowing how every movie will begin and end.
Tell me something else, she says.
So I tell her the sunsets we have today, they didn’t have 400 year ago. Pollution is the main reason we have sunsets and rainbows as magnificent as they are today. I tell her that’s a 10)silver lining for you.
I tell her it’s impossible to 11)tickle yourself, although scientists have developed a robot tickler which tickles by remote control.
I tell her lions are colorblind. A zebra could be bright orange and still be 12)camouflaged in the tall grass, as long as it has its wavy lines.
I tell her comedy is social 13)lubricant, and one 14)sitcom, or one comedian can unify a generation and define a culture. If this isn’t light enough, I tell her, most television is broadcast via satellite and the amount of entertainment we daily shoot into space so vastly outnumbers the legitimate attempts we make to contact alien species that by the time they do find us, it won’t be maths that’s the principal form of communication. It’ll be 15)one-liners.
I tell her of a recent survey that said people were 60% happier in the 1950s.
I tell her that since 1950, 15 countries have risen above the poverty line, medicine and technology has frog-leaped, and candy tastes better (I tell her I can’t 16)vouch for that last one, but think of the advances made in chocolate alone and argue no more).
I tell her the 1950s were five years after WW2.
I tell her this survey listed neither names nor geographics.
I tell her music is energy, and it 17)vibrates forever in between the 18)atoms of 19)inanimate objects. Mud and gravel carries the notes of Mozart and Bob Dylan注1. Heat them up and they’ll sing songs back to you, some, hundreds of years old. I tell her there’s a rock in a 20)vault at Sotheby’s注2 in London that remembers the first song ever played.
I tell her she’s sleeping and not listening. Her closed eyes neither agree nor disagree.
告诉我一些轻松的事,她说,一些我会忘记的事。
于是我告诉她,企鹅是很古老的动物,它们的历史比恐龙更久远。
我告诉她,鲤鱼没有自然寿命,所以严格来说,它能够长生不死。
我告诉她,一项从上世纪八十年代开始的研究项目说,蓝眼睛的人更容易让人信任,通常感情也维护得更长久,而棕色眼睛的人则不那么受人崇拜或爱慕。
我没有告诉她,我遇到的每一个骗术高手都有蓝色眼珠,或者我那些棕色眼睛的朋友常常被他们的伴侣指责,说他们有所欺瞒。
我告诉她,我的眼睛是绿色的,有时候是淡褐色的,但我没有告诉她这意味着我介于两者之间。
我告诉她,一个来自(美国)佐治亚州亚特兰大市的男孩获得了科研拨款,研究在水中游泳和在燕麦粥中游泳的区别。
我告诉她,终有一天,当人们每个人都意识到获得科研拨款是多么容易时,贫困将不再是问题。
我问她,你是否听说过清醒梦?
她摇着头说没有听过。
于是我告诉她,清醒梦是一种技巧,能够控制自己梦中发生的事情。你可以通过一整天不断询问自己是醒着还是在做梦,以及训练自己辨识奇怪的事件或做梦的征兆,来学习这种技巧。
听起来挺无聊的,她说,就像是知道了每部电影的开头和结局一样。
告诉我点别的,她说。
于是我告诉她,如今我们看到的日落在四百年前是看不到的。我们能看到像今天这样美丽的日落和彩虹,主要是因为污染。我告诉她,那儿有为你留着的阳光。
我告诉她,给自己挠痒痒是不可能的,不过科学家们已经发明了一个挠痒痒机器人,能够用遥控器控制挠痒痒。
我告诉她,狮子都是色盲。因此即使斑马是亮橘红色的,它依然能在高高的草丛中藏得好好的,只要它身上还有波浪条纹。
我告诉她,喜剧是一种社会润滑剂,一部情景喜剧、一个喜剧演员就能够团结起一代人,定义一种文化。如果这还不够轻松的话,我告诉她,大多数电视节目都是通过卫星转播的,而我们每一天发射到太空中的娱乐节目比我们通过合法途径尝试与外星物种联系所发的信号要多得多,因此等他们真的找到我们的时候,我们交流的主要形式不是数学,而是俏皮话。
我告诉她,一份新近的调查指出,上世纪五十年代人们的幸福指数比现在要高60%。
我告诉她,1950年至今已经有15个国家脱离了贫困线,医学和科技实现了飞跃,当地糖果的味道也更好了(我告诉她,最后这一点我不能保证,不过只要想想巧克力的改进就没什么好争论的了)。
我告诉她,上世纪五十年代是第二次世界大战结束的五年之后。
我告诉她,这份调查上既没有列出名字,也没有列出地域。
我告诉她,音乐是一种能量,它能够在无生命物体的原子之间永远振动。泥土和沙砾携带着莫扎特和鲍勃·迪伦的音符。将它们加热,它们就会对你歌唱,有一些甚至是数百年前的老歌。我告诉她,伦敦苏富比拍卖行一座拱顶上的一块石头记下了历史上第一首演奏曲目。
我告诉她,她正在呼呼大睡,什么都没听到。她闭着眼睛,既没有承认,也没有否认。
注1:鲍勃·迪伦,原名罗伯特·艾伦·齐默曼(Robert Allen Zimmerman),有重要影响力的美国唱作人、民谣歌手、音乐家、诗人,获2008年诺贝尔文学奖提名。
注2:苏富比拍卖行始创于1744年,是世界第四古老的拍卖行。