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Obituary；Nora Ephron and Lonesome George
訃告；諾拉·艾芙倫與孤獨喬治
Nora Ephron, observer of sexual behaviour, died on June 26th, aged 71. Lonesome George, habitual abstainer, died on June 24th, aged perhaps 100
性行為觀察家諾拉·艾芙倫，6月26日逝世，享年71歲。習慣性禁欲者孤獨喬治，6月24日去世，可能已是百歲高齡。
THE first story Nora Ephron had to write for the New York Post—the one that made the guys on the city desk fall around laughing, got her the job, and launched her on a career of witty, wise writing on surviving modern life—was about a pair of hooded seals at the Coney Island aquarium. They were not only not mating, as they were supposed to, but also refusing to have anything to do with each other.
諾拉·艾芙倫為紐約郵報寫的第一篇報道是不得以為之，這篇關于科尼島水族館冠海豹兩口子的文章讓編輯部的那幫伙計笑得滿地打滾，也讓她得到了工作，以風趣而睿智的筆觸描寫當代生活的職業生涯由此展開。那兩只冠海豹本該交配而不成，非但如此，而且根本不想和彼此有一毛錢關系。
Lonesome George could relate to that. Though he was probably the last surviving example of the giant Galápagos tortoise Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii, he too refused to perform. Scientists, tourists, journalists, conservationists and the government of Ecuador all waited for two decades for him to mate successfully or, indeed, get it on at all. He wasn't playing. In 1993 two females of a slightly different subspecies were put into his corral. He ignored them. When at last he decided to do his duty, in 2008 and occasionally later, the eggs failed to hatch. Clearly, he was a slow burner. Possibly he was gay. He refused to be turned on even when a female Swiss zoology graduate, smeared with tortoise hormones, gave him manual stimulation for four months.
孤獨喬治可能與此有點關系。盡管他極可能是世上最后一只加拉帕戈斯象龜平塔島亞種，他仍然拒絕交配。任憑一幫科學家、觀光客、媒體人、環保者以及厄瓜多爾政府等了二十年，為了看他成功交配或者只是雄起一下，他就是不給力。1993年，兩只略有差異的亞種雌象龜被帶到了他的圍欄中。他對她們視而不見。2008年和稍后偶然幾次，他終于決定要完成他的使命，但是雌龜產的蛋也沒能成功孵化。很明顯，他是個慢熱型選手。也許，他是個基佬。即使是一位瑞士動物學女大學生抹上龜類的性激素，給他做了四個月的人工刺激，他還是拒絕有所反應。
At which stage Ms Ephron might have asked, couldn't he at least have faked it? Women did that all the time. The most famous scene of her highly successful screenwriting career—which included “Sleepless in Seattle”, “You've Got Mail” and “Julie and Julia”—was the one in “When Harry Met Sally” (1989) in which Sally faked an orgasm over lunch at a deli on New York's Lower East Side.# After she had reared, moaned, gasped and shouted “Yes!” for what seemed like five minutes, the elderly lady at a nearby table told the waiter: “I'll have what she's having.”
艾小姐也許會問，這是在哪個階段，他就不能假裝有點興趣嗎？女人總是這么做。她的編劇作品包括《西雅圖夜未眠》《電子情書》以及《茱莉和朱麗葉》，杰出的編劇生涯中最為人熟知的一個橋段是在《當哈利碰上莎莉》(1989)中的一幕， 莎莉在紐約下東區一家餐館里午餐時表演了一場假扮高潮。莎莉身體起起伏伏，呻吟頻頻，嬌喘連連，更是忘情高喊“Yes！”，持續了大概五分鐘，旁桌的老女人叫來侍應生：“我要點她正在吃的菜。”
George couldn't. But then he didn't have the advantage of living, like Ms Ephron, in Manhattan, where something was almost bound to happen to you if you simply stepped outside, and if it didn't happen you could pick up the phone and order it. He was living in a volcanic field on Santa Cruz island 500 miles off the coast of Ecuador, where you couldn't find a decent bagel if you tried: in fact, a place a lot like Washington.
喬治不這么做。但是那時他不像艾小姐，有住在曼哈頓的便利，只要你走出去，有些事幾乎是必定要發生，即便是沒有發生，你也可以拿起電話訂購。他過去是住在距離厄瓜多爾海岸500英里的圣克魯斯島上的火山區，事實上，那里就像是華盛頓，你怎么找也找不到像樣的百吉餅。
Besides, he was no looker. Ms Ephron, though striking and svelte all her life, worried in the niggling way of women that her breasts were too small, her neck too crêpy (“I Feel Bad About My Neck” was the title of one book), her skin dry and her purse just wrong. George, whose neck was three feet of scrag and whose skin would have made several dozen purses, all thick, dry leather, didn't care two hoots. His one concession to fashion was a shell in taupe. Ms Ephron preferred black; but taupe, especially on a couch, didn't show the dirt.
另外，他面容并不俊俏。雖然艾小姐一生模樣俊秀、身材苗條，但她也以女人特有的瑣碎，為她的胸太小、脖子皮膚太松弛太多皺紋（她的一本書便叫做《我的脖子讓我感覺糟糕》）、她的皮膚太干以及錢包樣式不對而焦慮。喬治的脖子三英尺長，他的皮可以做成幾十個厚重的干革錢包，他對此毫不在乎。對于時尚，他做出了一次讓步，就是他灰褐色的殼。艾小姐偏好黑色，但是灰褐色不顯臟，特別是用在沙發上。
