This is a recent comic strip from the Los Angeles Times. The punch line? "On the other hand, I don't have to get up at four every single morning to milk my Labrador." This is a recent cover of New York Magazine. Best hospitals where doctors say they would go for cancer treatment, births, strokes, heart disease, hip replacements, 4 a.m. emergencies. And this is a song medley I put together --
这是最近洛杉矶时报的一幅漫画。 笑点是? “另一方面,我不用每天凌晨4点起来 给我的拉布拉多猎犬喂奶。” 这是纽约杂志最近的封面。 这是最好的医院,医生说他们会去那里去治疗癌症, 生育,中风,心脏病,换臀,以及凌晨4点的急救。 这是一首我混合的歌--
(Music)
音乐(歌词中“凌晨4点”反复出现)
Did you ever notice that four in the morning has become some sort of meme or shorthand? It means something like you are awake at the worst possible hour.
你发现凌晨4点成了什么? 仿佛迷因或者缩略符号? 它意味着你在最糟糕的时辰醒来。
(Laughter)
笑声
A time for inconveniences, mishaps, yearnings. A time for plotting to whack the chief of police, like in this classic scene from "The Godfather." Coppola's script describes these guys as, "exhausted in shirt sleeves. It is four in the morning."
那是一个不便,意外,渴望的时间, 一个暗算攻击警察局长的时间, 就像《教父》中的经典镜头。 Coppola的剧本将这些人描述成: “那些人穿着短袖,筋疲力竭,现在是凌晨4点”
(Laughter)
笑声
A time for even grimmer stuff than that, like autopsies and embalmings in Isabel Allende's "The House of the Spirits." After the breathtaking green-haired Rosa is murdered, the doctors preserve her with unguents and morticians' paste. They worked until four o'clock in the morning.
还有比那个更冷酷的 像伊丽莎白.阿连德<<精灵之屋>>里的 剖尸防腐。 当惊艳的绿发女郎Rosa被害以后, 医生用油膏和处置尸体的防腐剂来保存她。 他们一直工作到到4点
A time for even grimmer stuff than that, like in last April's New Yorker magazine. This short fiction piece by Martin Amis starts out, "On September 11, 2001, he opened his eyes at 4 a.m. in Portland, Maine, and Mohamed Atta's last day began." For a time that I find to be the most placid and uneventful hour of the day, four in the morning sure gets an awful lot of bad press --
那个时辰里还有更严酷的事情发生过, 比如去年4月纽约人杂志 中Martin Amis 的短篇小说是 这样开始的: “ 2001年9月11日, 他睁开眼睛, 凌晨4点, 缅因州, 波特兰市, Mohamed Atta 的最后一天开始了。 ” 在这个我觉得是最温和 最平静的时刻,凌晨4点真的 为我们带来了很多恶劣的坏消息
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across a lot of different media from a lot of big names. And it made me suspicious. I figured, surely some of the most creative artistic minds in the world, really, aren't all defaulting back to this one easy trope like they invented it, right? Could it be there is something more going on here? Something deliberate, something secret, and who got the four in the morning bad rap ball rolling anyway? I say this guy -- Alberto Giacometti, shown here with some of his sculptures on the Swiss 100 franc note. He did it with this famous piece from the New York Museum of Modern Art. Its title -- "The Palace at Four in the Morning --
很多大媒体都传递着这样的信息, 这让我感到怀疑。 我想, 当然, 这个世界上那么多富有创造力的艺术家, 并不都会像默认设置般地选用这个简单的隐喻, 好像他们自己发明这个隐喻似的?是吗? 是不是其中还有什么奥妙? 刻意的, 神秘的, 那是谁让这个凌晨4点的厄运之球滚动开来的呢? 我说,是这个家伙:阿尔贝托.贾科梅蒂。 他的一些作品印在100瑞士法郎上。 他的这个著名的作品 展览在纽约现代艺术馆里, 题目就叫:凌晨4点的宫殿
(Laughter)
笑声
1932. Not just the earliest cryptic reference to four in the morning I can find. I believe that this so-called first surrealist sculpture may provide an incredible key to virtually every artistic depiction of four in the morning to follow it. I call this The Giacometti Code, a TED exclusive. No, feel free to follow along on your Blackberries or your iPhones if you've got them.
1932年。 这不仅是我可以找到的最早的 凌晨4点的神秘参考。 我认为,这个所谓的第一个超现实主义雕塑 可能提供了一个令人难以置信的基点 几乎被每一个描述过凌晨4点的艺术作品所遵循。 我把它叫做贾科梅蒂密码, 一个TED的专称。 不,不, 你们尽管用你们的黑莓手机 或iPhone手机上网搜索,如果你们带着的话。
It works a little something like -- this is a recent Google search for four in the morning. Results vary, of course. This is pretty typical. The top 10 results yield you four hits for Faron Young's song, "It's Four in the Morning," three hits for Judi Dench's film, "Four in the Morning," one hit for Wislawa Szymborska's poem, "Four in the Morning." But what, you may ask, do a Polish poet, a British Dame, a country music hall of famer all have in common besides this totally excellent Google ranking?
这是结果, 请看最近的一个谷歌搜索 搜索:凌晨4点 当然搜索的结果不一, 这是其中最典型的一个。 最上面的10个结果中, 4个是Faron Young 的歌:“现在是凌晨4点。” 3个是Judi Dench的电影:“凌晨4点。” 1个是Wislawa Szymborska的诗:“凌晨4点。” 但你们也许会问, 一个波兰诗人,一个英国贵妇, 一个乡村音乐圣殿的歌星间有什么共同的地方? 除了他们在谷歌搜索结果上都有很高的排名以外
Well, let's start with Faron Young -- who was born incidentally in 1932.
我们从 Faron Young 开始吧, 他不小心生于: 1932年。
(Laughter)
笑声
In 1996, he shot himself in the head on December ninth -- which incidentally is Judi Dench's birthday.
1996年12月9日他往自己头上开枪自杀那天-- 正巧是Judi Dench的生日。
(Laughter)
笑声
But he didn't die on Dench's birthday. He languished until the following afternoon when he finally succumbed to a supposedly self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 64 -- which incidentally is how old Alberto Giacometti was when he died.
但是他并没在Dench的生日死去。 他滞留到第二天下午才绝别人世 终年64岁, 据称是开枪自伤-- 碰巧的是,阿尔贝托.贾科梅蒂也是这年龄去世的。
Where was Wislawa Szymborska during all this? She has the world's most absolutely watertight alibi. On that very day, December 10, 1996 while Mr. Four in the Morning, Faron Young, was giving up the ghost in Nashville, Tennessee, Ms. Four in the Morning -- or one of them anyway -- Wislawa Szymborska was in Stockholm, Sweden, accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature. 100 years to the day after the death of Alfred Nobel himself. Coincidence? No, it's creepy.
那这段时间Wislawa Szymborska都在干什么呢? 她有着世上最无懈可击的不在场证明, 1996年12月10日那天, 当凌晨4点钟先生, Faron Young 在田纳西州纳什维尔向鬼神投降的时候, 凌晨4点钟女士中的一位, Wislawa Szymborska 在瑞典首都斯德哥尔摩,接受诺贝尔文学奖。 那也是阿尔弗雷德诺贝尔本人去世100年纪念日。 巧合?不,那是“鬼异”。
(Laughter)
笑声
Coincidence to me has a much simpler metric. That's like me telling you, "Hey, you know the Nobel Prize was established in 1901, which coincidentally is the same year Alberto Giacometti was born?" No, not everything fits so tidily into the paradigm, but that does not mean there's not something going on at the highest possible levels. In fact there are people in this room who may not want me to show you this clip we're about to see.
对我来说, 巧合有一个非常简单的魔力。 比如,我对你说, “嗨,诺贝尔奖是1901年建立的, 那正巧合是阿尔贝托.贾科梅蒂出生的那年。” 并不是一切都正好整齐地组合进一个模式, 但这并不说明其在高深之处 没有什么奥妙。 事实上, 这个屋里的很多人 也许不乐意我给你们看这段你们将要看到的录像。
(Laughter)
笑声
Video: Homer Simpson: We have a tennis court, a swimming pool, a screening room -- You mean if I want pork chops, even in the middle of the night, your guy will fry them up?
录像:我们有一个网球场, 一个游泳池, 一个放映室-- 你说我半夜三更要吃排骨? 你的人会帮我烤好,是吧?
Herbert Powell: Sure, that's what he's paid for. Now do you need towels, laundry, maids?
是, 他收了钱就要会办妥事。 你需要浴巾,洗衣和女佣吗?
HS: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait -- let me see if I got this straight. It is Christmas Day, 4 a.m. There's a rumble in my stomach.
等等等等, 让我核对一下 如果是在圣诞节早上4点。 我觉得我肚子在翻了
Marge Simpson: Homer, please.
Homer, 够了。
Rives: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me see if I got this straight, Matt.
等等等等…… 让我再确定一下, Matt.
(Laughter)
笑声
When Homer Simpson needs to imagine the most remote possible moment of not just the clock, but the whole freaking calendar, he comes up with 0400 on the birthday of the Baby Jesus. And no, I don't know how it works into the whole puzzling scheme of things, but obviously I know a coded message when I see one.
当Homer Simpson需要 不仅在钟上, 而且在整个年历上想象一个, 最不可思议的时刻时, 他想到了0400 而且在耶稣的生日那天。 不, 我不知道这是怎么回事。 这是个令人费解的谜, 但是显然, 当我看见一个密码信号的时候我准认得。
(Laughter)
笑声
I said, I know a coded message when I see one. And folks, you can buy a copy of Bill Clinton's "My Life" from the bookstore here at TED. Parse it cover to cover for whatever hidden references you want. Or you can go to the Random House website where there is this excerpt. And how far down into it you figure we'll have to scroll to get to the golden ticket? Would you believe about a dozen paragraphs? This is page 474 on your paperbacks if you're following along: "Though it was getting better, I still wasn't satisfied with the inaugural address. My speechwriters must have been tearing their hair out because as we worked between one and four in the morning on Inauguration Day, I was still changing it."
我是说,当我看见一个密码信号的时候我就能把它认出来。 朋友们, 你可以买一本比尔克林顿的《我的人生》, 就在这里的TED书店里。 你可以从头到尾地找你想找的暗示, 你也可以去兰登书屋网站找到这段节选, 你猜猜我们得翻多久, 才能找到“金色入场券”? 你相信吗?大概就翻十几段: 在平装版的474页, 往下找: “虽然就职演说稿已经改得蛮好了, 我还不是很满意。 我的撰稿人一定在抓头发了 因为我们从早上一点到凌晨四点一直在改 就在就职的当天, 我还在改。 ”
Sure you were, because you've prepared your entire life for this historic quadrennial event that just sort of sneaks up on you. And then --
当然了, 你一生都在准备 被迫接受这个降临到你头上的四年一度的历史性时刻。 然而
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笑声
three paragraphs later we get this little beauty: "We went back to Blair House to look at the speech for the last time. It had gotten a lot better since 4 a.m." Well, how could it have? By his own writing, this man was either asleep, at a prayer meeting with Al and Tipper or learning how to launch a nuclear missile out of a suitcase. What happens to American presidents at 0400 on inauguration day? What happened to William Jefferson Clinton? We might not ever know. And I noticed, he's not exactly around here today to face any tough questions.
三段以后我们发现了这个微妙之处: “我们回到布莱尔宫最后看一遍讲稿 凌晨4点以后,讲稿修改得好多了。 ” 噢, 怎么可能呢? 这可是他自己写的, 要么他在打瞌睡, 或者和Al 和Tipper在祈祷,或者在学怎样 用手提箱启动核武器 总统就职那天的凌晨4点美国总统到底怎么了? 威廉·杰斐逊·克林顿到底怎么了? 我们也许无从知道。 而且我注意到, 他今天人也不在 来面对难以回答的问题。
(Laughter)
笑声
It could get awkward, right? I mean after all, this whole business happened on his watch. But if he were here --
这不是很奇怪吗? 我是说, 毕竟, 基本所有事儿都归他宏观掌控。 但是如果他在这儿,
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笑声
he might remind us, as he does in the wrap-up to his fine autobiography, that on this day Bill Clinton began a journey -- a journey that saw him go on to become the first Democrat president elected to two consecutive terms in decades. In generations. The first since this man, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who began his own unprecedented journey way back at his own first election, way back in a simpler time, way back in 1932 -- (Laughter)
他可能会提醒我们说,就像他在自传中所写的 从那天起, 比尔 克林顿开始了一个新的旅程-- 这个旅程使他成为 第一个民主党候选人中 连任两届总统的人,这是几十年来, 几代人来, 从富兰克林德拉诺 罗斯福以来第一次。 而罗斯福自己史无前例的旅程 从他第一次参选开始, 可以追溯到一个简单的时间:1932年-- 笑声
the year Alberto Giacometti
那年, 阿尔贝托.贾科梅蒂
(Laughter)
笑声
made "The Palace at Four in the Morning." The year, let's remember, that this voice, now departed, first came a-cryin' into this big old crazy world of ours.
创造了“凌晨4点的宫殿”。 那年, 让我们记住, 这个声音, 如今已经扩散开来, 初次降临到我们这个疯狂的大千世界。
(Music)
音乐(“凌晨四点”反复在歌词中出现)
(Applause)
掌声