He may be acclaimed in the art world and coveted by thieves but Edvard Munch is starved of recognition in his native Norway, where squabbles have delayed a new museum worthy of his oeuvre.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the expressionist master, who painted the now iconic The Scream. But the anniversary is clouded by the city of Oslo’s inability to provide a proper setting for the art gems the painter left in his will.
Munch, who died in 1944, bequeathed an enormous collection to the Norwegian capital, including 1,100 paintings, 3,000 drawings and 18,000 etchings. But the current Munch Museum, constructed cheaply after World War II in a rather rundown Oslo neighborhood, does not do justice to the priceless trove.
Photo: EPA
照片：歐新社
While all agree on the need for a better museum, there are divisions over where to place it. Oslo’s city council agreed in 2008 to erect a building near the new, futuristic opera house on the shores of the Oslo fjord, but those plans were scrapped three years later when the populist right suddenly withdrew its support without a concrete explanation.
Failure to reach agreement could be interpreted as a Norwegian cold shoulder to the country’s most famous artist, in sharp contrast to his huge international appeal.
A million people recently visited a Munch exhibit that toured Paris, Frankfurt and London. One of four versions of The Scream Munch painted was sold last year at a New York auction for the record sum of US$119.9 million.
Photo: Reuters
照片：路透
By comparison, the Munch Museum in Oslo attracts around 126,000 visitors per year, even though it owns two versions of The Scream, perhaps the most famous expression of existential angst.
(AFP)
畫家愛德華‧孟克或許在藝術界贏得一致讚譽，並且是竊賊覬覦的目標，但在他的祖國挪威卻缺乏認可，政府各部門互踢皮球，更使得一座能與孟克全部畫作匹配的新博物館遲遲無法誕生。
今年是這位表現主義藝術大師誕生一百五十週年，孟克的作品《吶喊》現已成為眾所周知的名作。但此一週年紀念卻因為奧斯陸市無法提供能夠展出畫家在遺囑中留給該市藝術珍寶的適當場所而蒙上陰影。
孟克一九四四年過世時，把數量龐大的畫作遺贈給挪威首都奧斯陸市，包括一千一百幅繪畫、三千幅素描和一萬八千幅蝕刻畫。但現有的孟克博物館是在二戰後以便宜的材料蓋成，位在奧斯陸較破敗的社區，顯然不足以和這批無價的收藏品相稱。
雖然各方都同意有必要另找一個更妥善的博物館，但卻對博物館應位於何處意見分歧。奧斯陸市議會曾於二○○八年同意在奧斯陸峽灣岸邊、以未來主義風格建成的新歌劇院附近蓋一棟新博物館，但右派政府卻於三年後在未提供具體說明的情況下突然刪除這些計畫。
遲未達成協議恐被外界解讀為挪威人刻意怠慢本國最知名的藝術家，這與孟克在國際間的廣大吸引力形成強烈對比。
孟克畫作最近在巴黎、法蘭克福和倫敦巡迴展出，吸引了百萬人參觀。孟克所繪製四種版本《吶喊》作品之一，去年在紐約更拍賣出創紀錄的一億一千九百九十萬美元。
相形之下，奧斯陸孟克博物館雖藏有兩幅可能為描繪存在主義苦悶最著名作品《吶喊》，其每年的遊客約僅有十二萬六千人。
（法新社／翻譯：俞智敏）
Street lights are often taken for granted until a power outage plunges the world into darkness. When that happens, the value of these lighting installations becomes evident as the world turns into a more dangerous place for pedestrians and motorists alike. The Chinese could claim to be the first to have constructed a crude type of street light. Around 500 BC, residents of Beijing employed a type of street lamp that used hollow bamboo pipes and natural gas vents to create burning torches. Later, ancient Romans adopted lamps fueled by vegetable oil, which relied on slaves to light and
A: Who else is on Billboard’s list: “The 25 greatest pop stars of the 21st Century?” B: No. 15 to 6 are: Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Usher, Adele, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Kanye West and Britney Spears. A: I can’t believe that Adele’s only at No. 10. B: No. 5 to 1 are: Lady Gaga, Drake, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Beyonce. A: Well, they surely deserve the honor. A: 《告示牌》雜誌的「21世紀最偉大的25位流行歌手」，還有誰上榜啊？ B: 第15至6名是：麥莉希拉、大賈斯汀、妮姬米娜、阿姆、亞瑟小子、愛黛兒、亞莉安娜、小賈斯汀、肯伊威斯特、小甜甜布蘭妮。 A: 真不敢相信愛黛兒只排第10名。 B: 第5至1名是：女神卡卡、德瑞克、蕾哈娜、泰勒絲、碧昂絲。 A: 這幾位真是實至名歸！ （By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩）
Undersea cables are conductors wrapped in insulating materials and laid on the seabed. Their main functions are telecommunications or power transmission. The core of the undersea cables used for Internet signals is optical fiber, using light to transmit Internet signals. Taiwan’s communications are currently handled by 10 domestic undersea cables and 14 international undersea cables. About 99 percent of Taiwan’s Internet bandwidth relies on undersea cables, making them Taiwan’s “digital lifeline.” The demands on the cables’ bandwidth are only set to increase with the development of artificial intelligence (AI), which relies on the data fed into it. Today, data is
Spoiler alert and shift blame 破梗&甩鍋 在新冠疫情期間，無論是因為封城 (lockdown) 還是居家隔離 (self-isolation at home)，人們關在家中使用網路的時間大增。這也讓一些原本只存在於網路論壇的用語廣為普及。我們來談一下破梗 (spoiler alert) 與甩鍋 (shift blame) 這兩個用語。 有位古典文學教授 Joel Christensen 針對領導統御與疫情控制寫了一篇以古喻今、相當深入的文章：“Plagues follow bad leadership in ancient Greek tales”，文中出現一些講法，可用來翻譯上述的流行語： In the 5th century B.C., the playwright Sophocles begins Oedipus Tyrannos with the title character struggling to identify the cause of a plague striking his city, Thebes. (Spoiler alert: It’s his own bad leadership.) (Joel Christensen, “Plagues follow bad leadership in ancient Greek tales,” The Conversation, March 12, 2020) 作者提到 Oedipus（伊底帕斯）想找出瘟疫何以降臨他的城邦的緣由，加了一句：Spoiler alert: It’s his own bad leadership.（破梗：領導無方）。Spoiler alert 就是「破梗」，如果用在有人洩漏電影劇情的情境中，也可以翻作「小心爆雷」或「劇透警告」。疫情之下，在家看影集、電影成了很多人的娛樂，但要小心劇透 (spoilers)，很多 YouTube 上的影評在開頭也都會說 Spoiler alert!，警告還沒看過電影的觀眾小心爆雷、劇透。 至於「甩鍋」，源自大陸網民用語，通常意指某人犯了錯之後想推卸責任、轉移焦點、甚至讓別人背黑鍋的做法。疫情爆發後，相關網路資訊量爆增，許多中國網民也想找人為這場疫情負責，紛紛呼籲地方政府首長、地方黨書記不要「甩鍋」。 其實，在古代文學《奧德賽》中，就有「將自己的責任怪罪眾神」的說法，試用時下流行的「甩鍋」來重新翻譯： Humans are always blaming the gods for their suffering, but they experience
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