拉斯维加斯

火热的拉斯维加斯。我们喜欢这座城市。

拉斯维加斯是我们这次旅游行程的最后一站。虽然19日晚就到达了这里。但是由于20日的主要活动是去西大峡谷观光,所以真正领略她的魅力是从20日晚上开始的。

拉斯维加斯是一座很特别的城市——你身在其中,你会觉得乐趣无穷:首先玩得项目花样繁多。对于金钱和欲望,没有丝毫的掩饰。如果你有堕落的倾向,到了这里你就奔向深渊吧。所以,这座城市的别名是Sin City(罪恶之城)。其次是她别致的街景,世界上的那些众所周知的景观都被复制到了这里,堆放在一起。我以前也总是叨叨所谓的后现代主义。到了拉斯维加斯,领略她的城市建筑及其氛围之后,我才真正懂得了后现代主义的某些方面的含义。——嗯,真的。有好些东西我还需要慢慢体会、琢磨。就不在这里呈一时的口舌之快了……

贴两张图意思意思吧。关于她的印象,我暂且自己先留着。

lasvegas0821-025我们下榻的酒店的标志性建筑“平流层”塔(Stratosphere Tower),也是拉斯维加斯的最高点,是这座城市的地标建筑。第109层上有露天的观光平台。塔尖上还有直上直下的海盗船游戏,还有那种在旋转椅上俯瞰城市的游戏——刺激、惊险!这些都在第109层之上。估计参与游戏者还有闲心瞥上一眼城市风光的人聊聊无几。倒是亢奋的尖叫声不绝于耳。
——什么?
——我们?
——我们以看为乐!

lasvegas0821-026这一区的主题叫做沙哈啦。此外还有威尼斯、纽约、好莱坞、巴黎、华盛顿特区、金字塔等。这些都是对现实的复制。还有一些像“金银岛”这样对虚构的复制。其实他们都是酒店。这座城市的酒店客房之多,据说如果一个人每天换一个房间,那么他得花上好多年才能享用完这里所有的客房。

lasvegas0821-072欣赏一下拉斯维加斯夜色中的艾菲尔铁塔吧。他的旁边还可以看到巴黎圣母院和凯旋门……

lasvegas0821-015这是在拉斯维加斯号称世界最大的礼品商店里偷拍的一景……嗯,这个只许看,不许说,呵—呵—哈!

科罗拉多大峡谷

19日下午,我们一行(王老师和我)再次登上“灰狗”大巴,向下一站拉斯维加斯进发。这一次很顺利。没有耽搁。可是路途还是比较遥远的:6个小时左右的车程呢。当我们最后远远地看到灯火璀璨的拉斯维加斯城的时候,内心的兴奋还是消减了许多旅途的劳顿。火热的拉斯维加斯真的很火热。下车之后,那一股热浪差点把我们推一个踉跄……

20日一早,我们随当地的一支美国旅行团,开始了科罗拉多大峡谷一日游。这是我们提前在网上就订好了的。游览大峡谷分南线和西线。我们选择的是西线。就是有伸展在峡谷上方的玻璃观光桥(Sky Walk)的地方。因为那里属于印第安人保留地,所以费用要高一些。另外,Sky Walk不是随便走的——要另收门票,30多美元。还有,游客不允许携带任何照相摄影器材。有人给你拍照,30美元一张,100美元4张(附U盘一枚)。当然,你可以不要……

不好意思,在这里,我必须要感叹一下:
啊——大自然的鬼斧神工啊!不愧是世界7大奇观之一。叹为观止,叹为观止啊……

好了,我感叹完了。下面贴几张图意思意思。也只能是意思意思。在我拍的这些图上,感受不到太多的“叹为观止”……

先来两张进入大峡谷前的:

lasvegas0820-003

lasvegas0820-007

Eagle Point:

lasvegas0820-022像不像一只展翅的雄鹰?!

lasvegas0820-058

lasvegas0820-070

Guano Point:

lasvegas0820-101

lasvegas0820-102

lasvegas0820-117

Hualapai Ranch:

lasvegas0820-157

从大峡谷回去的路上,还看到了这样一群珍稀动物:

lasvegas0820-165

还有,在我们往返大峡谷的路上,都经过了这里——胡佛水坝:

lasvegas0820-074

这一天,我们遇上了好天气。玩得很开心。——我又被晒着了……

好莱坞·环球影城

18日下午搭乘“灰狗”奔赴洛杉矶。但是没想到“灰狗”也有不听话的时候。也没什么人出面做出任何解释,尽然耽误了两个小时的行程(当然不止是我们啦,是一堆人)。这一耽搁,对我们的行程影响颇大。好在我们就住在好莱坞大街的附近。所以当晚漫步明星大道;一览Koda剧院、中国影城等的计划倒也是实现了(第二天一早,又去复习了一遍)。只是是以减少我们的休息时间为代价的……

19日上午的主要活动项目是参观游览“环球影城”(Universal City)。这里每天上午9点开门到晚上7点结束。各种互动游戏非常多。她的门票价格不菲。但是可以使用不止一次。在这里玩上一两天也是值得的。不过我们事先安排的行程可没有预留那么多时间。只是完成了一次环球电影工作室(Universal Studeo)的观光车之旅,其他都只是走马观花而已……所以我们觉得票价太贵了!

sandiegolosangles0818-047这个一看就明白——迈克尔·杰克逊的歌迷实在是很多……
当晚,我们也花了很多时间寻找成龙大哥的那颗星星。很多很多时间——找到了……

hollywood0819-029嗯,那条著名的大道!
我们还赶上一组拍广告的。还有招徕游客合影的蜘蛛侠、钢铁侠、终结者之类的……

hollywood0819-040中国剧院的门脸儿。跟柯达剧院挨着。她的前面的地上就是各路明星们的脚印儿、手印儿、签名儿之类的。
唉——忘了给柯达剧院单独来一张了……

hollywood0819-061匆匆忙忙在环球影城转了一圈。尽顾着耍弄我的HandyCam了。回头一看,照片竟拍得很少——就拿这张来恶心一下大伙儿吧,反正是个证明。呵—呵—

圣地亚哥

8月16日晚上9点,从盐湖城国际机场出发,又跨过一个时区,在美国太平洋时间晚上10点钟左右来到美国西部的海滨城市圣地亚哥(Dan Diego)。当晚在酒店修整,一夜无话。第二天(8月17日)一早便直奔提供观光游船服务的港口而去。圣地亚哥是一座非常美丽的滨海城市。空气清新,气候宜人。虽然艳阳高照,可是气温并不高。两个小时的观光游船带领我们饱览了这个港口所在小海弯两岸的美丽风光。真的令人心旷神怡。只是没做好防晒措施——晒着了。

下午,我们前往著名的圣地亚哥海洋世界(Sea World)。啊呀!——真的很好玩!宠物表演、海豚表演、海象表演、鲸鱼表演……好吧。我就不告诉你到底怎么个好玩法。要不等你有机会亲身体验的时候,就会觉得没劲了,呵呵。

8月18日,我们去了圣地亚哥动物园。那也是一个很好的去处呢。但是,由于我们自己行程安排过紧。当我们在圣地亚哥兴致还很浓的时候,我们就又登上“灰狗”,驶往洛杉矶去 了……

sandiego0817-030这是从海上看到的圣地亚哥城市的一角。那个大游轮可不是我们乘坐的那艘。她停在那儿一天也没动窝。不知道干嘛?

sandiego0817-046海岸上的别墅层层叠叠。在这里拥有一套这样的住房那得是一件多么惬意的事情啊——嗯,反正当时我默默地憧憬了一下。

sandiego0817-062我个人比较喜欢这张图。有点感觉……

sandiego0817-040海湾里还有像这样专门给海豹和鹈鹕搭的木排,供他们歇脚用。

sandiego0817-023这是停泊在港口的美军退役航母Midway。现在被改设成了博物馆。虽然票价不菲,但是每天参观游览的人们还是络绎不绝。

sandiego0817-096这里也是美军的一个军事基地。有很多军舰、直升机驻扎在这里。

sandiegolosangles0818-037来看一张绿意盎然的吧——这是在动物园里拍摄的。海洋世界的图片拍得不多——看得开心,忘了拍了。Video倒是拍了不少……

显然,这些图片是不能说明什么问题的。但是圣地亚哥真的是个好地方。现在想想,遗憾的是在那里停留的时间太短了。

为什么呢?

今天收到yo2的一封信,说:

你好,
你的文章《2008精品图书100列表》因涉及敏感内容,已经被管理员删除。请您在使用 yo2 服务的同时遵守服务条款。谢谢合作!

文章地址:http://hqma.yo2.cn/?p=647003

我很支持网站为了正常运营而采取的措施。但是我也想弄明白,所说的敏感内容是什么。经过认真排查,发现可能与下面书单中马@健的那本书有关。是我当时疏漏了。我现在把那个条目删掉。其他的条目应该是没有什么问题的。而且,对于我来说也有保留的价值。所以,我还是愿意保留下来。但愿不会再有什么麻烦。下面是重贴的内容:

2008精品图书100列表

《纽约时报》又计划在12月初出公布由纽约时报书评专栏选出的2008年100本精品图书。其中小说和诗歌部分的最佳作品列表如下:

Fiction & Poetry

AMERICAN WIFE. By Curtis Sittenfeld. (Random House, $26.) The life of this novel’s heroine — a first lady who comes to realize, at the height of the Iraq war, that she has compromised her youthful ideals — is conspicuously modeled on that of Laura Bush.

ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES. By Rivka Galchen. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24.) The psychiatrist-narrator of this brainy, whimsical first novel believes that his beautiful, much-younger Argentine wife has been replaced by an exact double.

BASS CATHEDRAL. By Nathaniel Mackey. (New Directions, paper, $16.95.) Mackey’s fictive world is an insular one of musicians composing, playing and talking jazz in the private language of their art.

BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN. By Charles Bock. (R!
andom House, $25.) This bravura first novel, set against a corruptly compelling Las Vegas landscape, revolves around the disappearance of a surly 12-year-old boy.

****** ******

A BETTER ANGEL: Stories. By Chris Adrian. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23.) For Adrian — who is both a pediatrician and a divinity student — illness and a heightened spiritual state are closely related conditions.

BLACK FLIES. By Shannon Burke. (Soft Skull, paper, $14.95.) A rookie paramedic in New York City is overwhelmed by the horrors of his job in this arresting, confrontational novel, informed by Burke’s five years of experience on city ambulances.

THE BLUE STAR. By Tony Earley. (Little, Brown, $23.99.) The caring, thoughtful hero of Earley’s !
engrossing first novel, “Jim the Boy,” is now 17 and confronting not only the eternal turmoil of love, but also venality and the frightening calls of duty and war.

THE BOAT. By Nam Le. (Knopf, $22.95.) In the opening story of Le’s first collection, a blocked writer succumbs to the easy temptations of “ethnic lit.”

BREATH. By Tim Winton. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23.) Surfing offers this darkly exhilarating novel’s protagonist an escape from a drab Australian town.

DANGEROUS LAUGHTER: Thirteen Stories. By Steven Millhauser. (Knopf, $24.) In his latest collection, Millhauser advances his chosen themes — the slippery self, the power of hysterical young people — with even more confidence and power than before.

DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES. By Jonathan Miles. (Houghton Mifflin, $22.) Miles’s fine first novel takes the form of a letter from a stranded traveler, his life a compilation of regrets, who uses the time to digress on an impressive array of cultural issues, large and small.
br />DIARY OF A BAD YEAR. By J. M. Coet­zee. (Viking, $24.95.) Coetzee follows the late career of one Señor C, who, like Coetzee himself, is a South African writer transplanted to Australia and the author of a novel titled “Waiting for the Barbarians.”

DICTATION: A Quartet. By Cynthia Ozick. (Houghton Mifflin, $24.) In the title story of this expertly turned collection, Henry James and Joseph Conrad embody Ozick’s polarity of art and ardor.

ELEGY: Poems. By Mary Jo Bang. (Graywolf, $20.) Grief is converted into art in this bleak, forthright collection, centered on the death of the poet’s son.

THE ENGLISH MAJOR. By Jim Harrison. (Grove, $24.) A 60-year-old cherry farmer and former English teacher — an inversion of the classic Harrison hero — sets out on a trip west after being dumped by his wife.

FANON. By John Edgar Wideman. (Houghton Mifflin, $24.) Wideman’s novel — raw and astringent, yet with a high literary polish — explores the life of the psychiatrist and revolutionary Frantz Fanon.

THE FINDER. By Colin Harrison. (Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) A New York thriller, played out against the nasty world of global capitalism.

FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS: Wyoming Stories 3 . By Annie Proulx. (Scribner, $25.) These rich, bleak stories offer an American West in which the natural elements are murderous and folks aren’t much better.

THE GOOD THIEF . By Hannah Tinti. (Dial, $25.) In Tinti’s first novel, set in mid-19th-century New England, a con man teaches an orphan the art of the lie.

HALF OF THE WORLD IN LIGHT: New and Selected Poems. By Juan Felipe Herrera. (University of Arizona, paper, $24.95.) Herrera, known for portrayals of Chicano life, is unpredictable and wildly inventive.

HIS ILLEGAL SELF. By Peter Carey. (Knopf, $25.) In this enthralling novel, a boy goes underground with a defiant hippie indulging her maternal urge.

HOME. By Marilynne Robinson. (Farrar, St!
raus & Giroux, $25.) Revisiting the events of her novel “Gilead” from another perspective, Robinson has written an anguished pastoral, at once bitter and joyful.

INDIGNATION. By Philip Roth. (Houghton Mifflin, $26.) Marcus Messner is a sophomore at a small, conservative Ohio college at the time of the Korean War. The novel he narrates, like Roth’s last two, is ruthlessly economical and relentlessly deathbound.

THE LAZARUS PROJECT. By Aleksandar Hemon. (Riverhead, $24.95.) This novel’s despairing immigrant protagonist becomes intrigued with the real-life killing of a presumed anarchist in Chicago in 1908.

LEGEND OF A SUICIDE. By David Vann. (University of Massachusetts, $24.95.) In his first story collection, Vann leads the reader to vital places while exorcizing demons born from the suicide of his father.

LIFE CLASS. By Pat Barker. (Doubleday, $23.95.) Barker’s new novel, about a group of British artists overtaken by!
World War I, concentrates more on the turmoil of love than on the trauma of war.

LUSH LIFE. By Richard Price. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Chandler — and Bellow, too — peeps out from Price’s novel, in which an aspiring writer cum restaurant manager, mugged in the gentrifying Lower East Side of Manhattan, himself becomes a suspect.

A MERCY. By Toni Morrison. (Knopf, $23.95.) Summoning voices from the 17th century, Morrison performs her deepest excavation yet into America’s history and exhumes the country’s twin original sins: the importation of African slaves and the near extermination of Native Americans.

MODERN LIFE: Poems . By Matthea Harvey. (Graywolf, paper, $14.) Harvey is willing to take risks, and her reward is that richest, rarest thing, genuine poetry.

A MOST WANTED MAN . By John le Carré. (Scribner, $28.) This powerful novel, centered on a half-Russian, half-Chechen, half-crazy fugitive in Germany, swims with operatives whose desperation to avert another 9/11 provokes a s!
low-­burning fire in every line.

MY REVOLUTIONS. By Hari Kunzru. (Dutton, $25.95.) Kunzru’s third novel is an extraordinary autumnal depiction of a failed ’60s radical.

NETHERLAND. By Joseph O’Neill. (Pantheon, $23.95.) In the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction yet about post-9/11 New York and London, the game of cricket provides solace to a man whose family disintegrates after the attacks.

OPAL SUNSET: Selected Poems, 1958-2008. By Clive James. (Norton, $25.95.) James, a staunch formalist, is firmly situated in the sociable, plain-spoken tradition that runs from Auden through Larkin.

THE OTHER. By David Guterson. (Knopf, $24.95.) In this novel from the author of “Snow Falling on Cedars,” a schoolteacher nourishes a friendship with a privileged recluse.

OUR STORY BEGINS: New and Selected Stories. By Tobias Wolff. (Knopf, $26.95.) Some of Wolff’s best work is concentrated here, revealing his gift for evoking the breadth of American experience.

THE ROAD HOME. By Rose Tremain. (Little, Brown, $24.99.) A widowed Russian emigrant, fearfully navigating the strange city of London, learns that his home village is about to be inundated.

THE SACRED BOOK OF THE WEREWOLF. By Victor Pelevin. Translated by Andrew Bromfield. (Viking, $25.95.) A supernatural call girl narrates Pelevin’s satirical allegory of post-Soviet, post-9/11 Russia.

THE SCHOOL ON HEART’S CONTENT ROAD. By Carolyn Chute. (Atlantic Monthly, $24.) In Chute’s first novel in nearly 10 years, disparate characters cluster around an off-the-grid communal settlement.

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT: A New Verse Translation. By Simon Armitage. (Norton, $25.95.) One of the eerie, exuberant joys of Middle English poetry, in an alliterative rendering that captures the original’s drive, dialect and landscape.

SLEEPING IT OFF IN RAPID CITY: Poems, New and Selected. By August Kleinzahler. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Kleinzahler seeks the true heart of places, whether repellent, beautiful or both at once.

TELEX FROM CUBA. By Rachel Kushner. (Scribner, $25.) In this multilayered first novel, inter­national drifters try to bury pasts that include murder, adultery and neurotic meltdown, even as the Castro brothers gather revolutionaries in the hills.

2666. By Roberto Bolaño. Translated by Natasha Wimmer. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, cloth and paper, $30.) The five autonomous sections of this posthumously published novel interlock to form an astonishing whole, a supreme capstone to Bolaño’s vaulting ambition.

UNACCUSTOMED EARTH. By Jhumpa Lahiri. (Knopf, $25.) In eight sensitive stories, Lahiri evokes the anxiety, excitement and transformations felt by Bengali immigrants and their American children.

THE UNFORTUNATES. By B. S. Johnson. (New Directions, $24.95.) This novel, first published in 1969, dovetails theme (the accidents of memory) with eccentric form (unbound chapters to be read in any order).

WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? By Kate Atkinson. (Little, Brown, $24.99.) Jackson Brodie, the hero of Atkinson’s previous literary thrillers, takes the case of a mother and baby who suddenly disappear.

THE WIDOWS OF EASTWICK. By John Updike. (Knopf, $24.95.) In this ingenious sequel to “The Witches of Eastwick,” the three title characters, old ladies now, renew their sisterhood, return to their old hometown and contrive to atone for past crimes.

YESTERDAY’S WEATHER. By Anne Enright. (Grove, $24.) Working-class Irish characters grapple with love, marriage, confusion and yearning in Enright’s varied, if somewhat disenchanted, stories.

黄石公园(2)

8月14日夜,住在黄石公园西门外的一个旅馆。第二天(8月15日)一早,便驱车奔赴下一个景点“七彩梯田”——其实英文名字叫做Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces。叫做七彩梯田倒也不为过:由于热泉流淌而行程的地貌,色彩各异,层层级级,落差有300个台阶左右。然后就是在黄石河上的下游瀑布和上游瀑布。然后就踏上了返程的路途……

yellowstone0815-004看看,有没有梯田的意思。

yellowstone0815-018说是“七彩梯田”也不为过吧?!不过这只是整个热泉地貌区中的一处而已。这里还有泉水流淌,其他的很多处都已经枯竭了……

yellowstone0815-040还是同一个地点,有泉水流过的地方。

yellowstone0815-051干涸的梯田……

yellowstone0815-079在这片热泉地貌的最下方有一个由于热泉喷涌行成的石柱。现在泉水没了,石柱光秃秃地竖立着……就是不知道为什么他的名字叫做Liberty Cap?

yellowstone0815-108这就是黄石河上的下游瀑布,落差300多英尺,在峡谷间奔流,气势不俗。周围的景色更是美不胜收。

yellowstone0815-117和下游瀑布相比,上游瀑布没有面对瀑布的观看点。但是可以在水边看着水流冲下100多英尺的景观。瀑布之上,倒也看不出水流多么湍急。在树木影印间,自是另一番景象……

众所周知,黄石公园里的野生动物种类和数量都不少。观看野生动物也是游览黄石公园的乐趣之一。我们也看到了成群的、或单只的鹿和野牛。但是没有看到狼;没有看到熊……

黄石公园的旅游季节其实很短。因为里面海拔较高、气温很低,所以每年只在夏季开放。有车的美国人都喜欢在里面野营(camping),一玩就是一个星期左右。有条件的话,这是最好的方式了……