It’s Sitting Pretty in Ink
室內世界雜誌 e 時代仍然耀眼

By Steven Kurutz

To be a magazine reader these days is to lament – unless you are reading The World of Interiors, published since 1982 by Condé Nast Britain but widely available on American newsstands, where it sells for $9.99 per issue.
在這個時代身為雜誌讀者，令人悲嘆，除非你讀的是「室內世界」，這本雜誌1982起由英國康納仕集團出版，但在美國報攤普遍都能買到，每本售價9.99美元。

The World of Interiors is essentially a decorating magazine, but this is like saying Vogue concerns itself with sewing. It showcases seemingly every facet of the decorative arts and crafts over centuries, from the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein’s Manhattan studio to an antique dealer’s 16th-century Shropshire pile to a shepherd’s hut, while reviewing books like “The People’s Galleries: Art Museums and Exhibitions in Britain 1800-1914.” It’s intelligent, witty and wide-ranging in its curiosity: a bible.
「室內世界」基本上是本裝潢雜誌，不過如此描述和說「時尚」是本談縫紉的雜誌一樣。「室內世界」似乎展現了幾百年來裝潢藝術和工藝的每一個面向，從普普藝術家李奇登斯坦的曼哈坦工作室，到一名古董商在英國英格蘭施洛普的16世紀宏偉建築，再到牧羊人小屋，包羅萬象，它同時也評論相關書籍，如「人民的畫廊：1800-1914年英國的藝術博物館和展覽」。這本雜誌明智風趣且探索範圍極廣：有如一本聖經。

And a rarity.
而且還是鳳毛麟角。

Two decades after the internet changed everything, magazines mostly have yet to figure out how to thrive in a digital world. Details and Domino folded. Glamour, Seventeen, Vibe, Self and Playboy have either retreated from print altogether or appear on newsstands infrequently. Titles once so culturally influential they created mythologies around them – Time, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone – have been supplanted by social media and blogs.
在網際網路改變一切的20年後，雜誌多半還沒找到在數位世界成功的方法。「消息」和「多米諾骨牌」雜誌倒了。「魅力」、「17」、「氣氛」、「自我」和「花花公子」雜誌，不是完全停止出紙本，就是減少出刊頻率。一度頗有文化影響力、在自己周邊創造出神話的「時代」、「運動畫刊」和「滾石」，已被社群媒體和部落格取代。

Nicholas Coleridge, the outgoing chairman of Condé Nast Britain, recently published a memoir about the 30-year golden period for magazines, beginning in the 1980s, when ad revenue and circulation climbed year after year and editors brimmed with creative gusto. He titled it “The Glossy Years.” In 2017, the United States arm of Condé Nast lost more than $120 million and, to stem the bleeding, the publisher has closed or sold off several titles and subleased floors in its Lower Manhattan headquarters. Rivals Hearst and Meredith face similar challenges.
英國康納仕即將卸任的董事長柯瑞奇最近出了一本回憶錄，描述雜誌業30年的黃金歲月，從1980年代開始，當時廣告營收和發行量年年上升，雜誌總編輯洋溢著創造性的熱情。柯瑞奇管這段期間叫「亮麗年代」。2017年，康納仕美國公司虧損超過1億2000萬美元，為了止血，把幾個雜誌品牌停刊或脫手，並將曼哈坦下城總部一些樓層轉租出去。對手「赫斯特」和「梅若迪斯」媒體集團也面臨類似挑戰。

If one could even sell a magazine memoir of today, it might be called “The Getting-By Years”: slashed budgets, reduced staffs, a noticeable diminishing of not just financial resources but ambition and copy-editing.
如果有人現在能為雜誌出本回憶錄，書名可能是「湊合著過的歲月」：預算大減，人員縮編，財源、企圖心和審稿人力明顯減少。

Except at The World of Interiors, which has lost none of its gloss and seems utterly unaffected by modern media trends. Other than a cursory if reasonably popular Instagram presence and website of inspirational indices, it’s not really on the internet, or trying limply to be “of” the internet as so many other legacy titles are.
唯獨「室內世界」例外，光輝絲毫不減，似乎完全不受現代媒體趨勢影響。這本雜誌除了一個粗略經營但還算受歡迎的Instagram帳號和給人的網站外，並不真的上網，也不像這麼多其他傳奇雜誌一樣，軟弱無力地試著融入網路。

“It enjoys a semi-indie status among our titles,” said Albert Read, the managing director of Condé Nast Britain. The people who produce it, he said, “are all artistic bohemian types. It’s the antithesis to the data-driven digital attitude that we have to embrace in other part of our business.”
英國康納仕總經理李德說：「室內世界在我們旗下雜誌裡，享有半獨立地位。」他說，製作這本刊物的「都是很有藝術造詣又豪放不羈的文化人，態度與我們處理其他業務必須有的『看數字說話』完全相反」。

Sitting in his wood-paneled office inside Vogue House, the publisher’s London headquarters, Mr. Read held up the October issue of The World of Interiors. It was thick as a phone book with ads and printed on heavy 100-gram wood-free coated paper, the most luscious, most expensive paper of any Condé title. The cover was a simple, enticing photo of the shaded veranda of a house in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of northwest Africa, with barely any typeface to muck it up.
李德坐在康納仕倫敦總部「時尚之家」他那用木質板材裝飾的辦公室內，拿起一本10月號的室內世界。雜誌有許多廣告，厚得像電話簿，而且印在厚重的100公克畫刊紙上，是康納仕旗下雜誌用紙中，觸感最好也最貴的紙。封面是簡單而引人注目的照片，是非洲西北部外海西班牙加那利群島一間房屋的陽台，幾乎沒有字體遮蓋照片破壞美感。

The magazine’s readership is small, with a circulation of 55,000, but influential. It’s beloved by those in the creative and visual arts especially.
這本雜誌發行5萬5000本，讀者群很小，但是很有影響力，尤其受到創意及視覺藝術工作者喜愛。

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/style/world-of-interiors.html

2019-12-29．聯合報．D4．紐約時報賞析．李京倫

說文解字看新聞 李京倫

標題中的sit pretty 並不是「坐姿漂亮」，而是「占優勢」或「日子過得很舒服」，通常是由於金錢充裕。

這種口語用法要追溯到20世紀初，後來因為兩齣音樂劇的劇名採用而流傳更廣，分別是1921年摩爾的Sittin’ Pretty 和1942年波頓和伍德豪斯的Sitting Pretty。另有一種說法是，這種用法源自1923年的流行歌曲I’m sitting pretty in a pretty little city，歌名的意思是「我在漂亮的小城裡過得很好」。

ink 原意是墨水或油墨，非正式的引申用法是「報章雜誌上的報導」，如：Her campaign rallies generated a lot of ink. 標題中的ink是引申義，指印刷媒體。

跟ink有關的慣用語不少，例如ink-slinger，拋灑墨水的人，指作家或記者，尤其是為了維生而製造大量低品質文章的人。much ink has been spilled on/over/about(something)，是指人們已經就這個主題寫過大量文章。

For More People, Life Ends Naturally at Home
愈來愈多美國人 選擇在家臨終
By Gina Kolata

For the first time over a half century, more people in the United States are dying at home than in hospitals, a remarkable turnabout in Americans’ view of a so-called “good death.”
50多年來，美國在家臨終者首度多過在醫院臨終者，顯示美國人對於「善終」的看法出現引人注目的重大改變。

In 2017, 29.8 percent of deaths by natural causes occurred in hospitals, and 30.7 percent at home, researchers reported on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
研究人員12月11日在新英格蘭醫學期刊發表報告指出，2107年，自然死亡的案例有29.8%發生在醫院，30.7%發生在家裡。

The gap may be small, but it had been narrowing for years, and the researchers believe dying at home will continue to become more common.
雖然兩者差距很小，但多年來這差距逐步縮減，研究人員認為，在家臨終會繼續變得愈來愈普遍。

The last time Americans died at home at the current rate was the middle of the last century, according Dr. Haider J. Warraich, a cardiologist at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and a co-author of the new research.
這份新研究的共同作者，波士頓榮民醫療體系心臟病專家沃瑞棋說，美國人在家臨終比率上次達到目前高度，是在上世紀中葉。

In Boston in 1912, about two-thirds of residents died at home, he said. By the 1950s, the majority of Americans died in hospitals, and by the 1970s, at least two-thirds did.
沃瑞棋說，1912年的波士頓，約有三分之二居民在家臨終。到了1950年代，多數美國人在醫院臨終，而到1970年代更至少達三分之二。

Americans have long said that they prefer to die at home, not in an institutional setting. Many are horrified by the prospect of expiring under fluorescent lights, hooked to ventilators, feeding tubes and other devices that only prolong the inevitable.
美國人一向表示喜歡死在家裡，而不是在機構環境中。許多人想到這種可能性就相當驚恐：死在螢光燈下，依賴呼吸器、餵食管等只能「把不可避免的死亡延後」的裝置。

Advocacy groups have encouraged families to have difficult conversations about end-of-life care, which often reveal that older relatives do not want heroic measures to extend their lives in hospitals.
推廣在家臨終的團體鼓勵各個家庭討論關於臨終照護的艱難話題，討論過後常發現，年長的親人不想在醫院裡大費周章的延長生命。

About 45 percent of older people have completed advance directives, which often specify that doctors should not take extreme measures to prolong life.
約45%年長者已預立醫囑，通常會載明醫師不該以極端措施延長其生命。

And hospice care, usually delivered at home, is more available than ever before. Some 1.49 million Medicare beneficiaries received hospice care in 2017, a 4.5 percent increase from 2016, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
而通常在病人家中給予的安寧療護，比先前更為普及。根據美國國家安寧緩和療護組織的資料，2107年，約有149萬聯邦醫療保險的受益人接受安寧療護，比2016年增加4.5%。

“There has been a kind of cultural shift that has romanticized dying at home and made it the only way to die,” said Carol Levine, an ethicist at the United Hospital Fund in New York.
紐約聯合醫院基金會倫理學家卡羅‧勒文說：「有種文化上的轉變把在家臨終浪漫化了，並使它成為唯一的死亡方式。」

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/health/death-hospitals-home.html

2019-12-29．聯合報．D4．紐約時報賞析．李京倫