疫情下即時記錄的歷史

Sherri Denney was in the fourth day of quarantine in her home in Springboro, Ohio, when she thought about the toll the coronavirus was taking. She sat in her recliner chair and cried as the state’s governor checked off the number of dead and sickened, knowing there would be more the next day. Overwhelmed, Denney, 55, tried to put her feelings into words.

雪莉·丹尼在俄亥俄州斯普林伯勒市進行居家隔離的第四天，想到了新冠病毒造成的災情。她坐在躺椅上，當州長清點死亡和染病者人數時，她哭了，因為她知道第二天會有更多人死亡。55歲的丹尼悲不自勝，嘗試將感受訴諸文字。

“Wow,” she began writing on an old sketch pad, quickly realizing the precise words would not come easy. “That’s all I can say. My emotions are ranging from sadness to fear to anger.”

她開始在一個舊畫板上書寫，很快就意識到要找到精確的文字並不容易。 「哇，我能說的就只有這些。我的情緒包括悲傷、恐懼和憤怒。」

The week before, a woman in Nevada turned to her own version of journaling. Mimi J. Premo recorded a video on her cellphone, giving voice to a kind of stunned weariness so many Americans are feeling. And in Indianapolis, in an interview recorded by two university research assistants, a man who is diabetic and HIV positive talked about how the speed and unclear ways of transmission “freaks me out.”

在前一周，一位內華達州婦女米咪·普雷莫開始用自己的方式寫日記，用手機錄了一段影片，讓令許多美國人感到震驚的疲倦感有了發聲的管道。在印第安納波利斯市，兩名大學研究助理錄製的一段專訪中，一名患有糖尿病和愛滋病的男子談到，新冠傳播速度之快與方式不明「嚇壞了我」。

The three accounts, snapshots of intimate moments during the pandemic, are a response to a call from historians and archivists across the country to document this extraordinary moment in history.

這三個紀錄是疫情大流行期間私密時刻的速寫，同時也是對全國各地歷史學家和檔案工作者呼籲記錄這個歷史上不平凡時刻的回應。

Universities, archives and historical societies, ranging from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History to a tiny college radio station in Pennsylvania, are rushing to collect and curate the personal accounts of how people are experiencing this sprawling public health crisis as told in letters and journals, audio and video oral histories, and on social media.

大學、檔案館與歷史學會，從史密森國立美國歷史博物館到賓州一個小型大學的廣播電台，均爭相收集和整理個人對於人們如何經歷這場不斷蔓延的公衛危機所做的敘述，這些敘述分別見於信件與日記、影音口述歷史及社群媒體中。

They are inviting people such as Denney and Premo to share stories and material from the 2020 coronavirus and its aftermath in real time. The idea is to bridge communal history and offer a fully realized look at the outbreak that can help the public, researchers and policymakers better understand how the pandemic permeated our lives.

他們邀請像丹尼和普雷莫這樣的人即時分享2020年新冠病毒及其影響的故事和材料。這一想法是為了彌合社區歷史與全面了解疫情，幫助公眾、研究人員與決策者更了解這一全球大流行疾病如何滲透我們的生活。

Whether a somber handwritten journal or an endearing Instagram post, the contributions will offer a look at a nation attacked by a virus coast to coast. The stories document sickness and death. The profound disruption of American rhythms and rituals, evidenced by empty shelves and streets. The gnawing restlessness of sheltering in place. The ways people showed resilience and managed to still find joy.

無論是一份憂鬱的手寫日記，還是可愛的Instagram貼文，這些來件，將讓人們看到從東岸到西岸全境均遭病毒攻擊的國家的一個樣貌。這些故事記錄了病與死。空蕩蕩的貨架和街道證明了美國人的生活節奏與常軌大遭破壞。居家避疫令帶來的痛苦和不安。人們如何展現韌性並仍能設法找到快樂。

“What we as contributors record is what the future generations will remember,” said Mark Tebeau, one of the project directors of a virtual archive founded at Arizona State University.

亞利桑納州立大學建立的虛擬檔案計畫負責人之一馬克•特伯說：「作為資料提供者，我們紀錄的是後世會記住的東西。」

The team of historians and artists launched A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of COVID-19 on March 13, two days after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. The name was inspired by Daniel Defoe’s novel “A Journal of the Plague Year,” which chronicles the bubonic plague in 1665 London through the lens of one man.

在世界衛生組織宣布新冠病毒大流行兩天後的3月13日，前述由歷史學家和藝術家組成的團隊發起了《大疫年紀事：新冠病毒檔案》。這一名稱的靈感來自丹尼爾•狄福的小說《大疫年紀事》，該書透過一個人的視角記錄了1665年倫敦的黑死病疫情。

※說文解字看新聞 陳韋廷

新冠肺炎疫情肆虐美國，包括大學在內一些機構希望記錄疫情來警戒後世，就連居家者也記錄自身見聞，其中檢疫可說是近來熱門單字，英文為quarantine，源自代表40的義大利文quaranta，因為在14世紀黑死病大流行時，威尼斯港規定入港人員須在海上停泊40天。

此外，近來常聽到的防疫措施，像是居家隔離，英文為home isolation，自主健康管理則是self-management of health，inspection為檢查，shelter in place指的是居家避疫。

archive在文中為一名詞，意為「檔案、紀錄」，源自希臘文，由表示「統治」字根arch與代表場所的拉丁文字尾ve組成，當動詞用時意指「存檔」。另外值得注意的是，bridge在文中當動詞使用，指的是「彌合、消弭」的意思。

首段俚語take a toll指的是造成傷害，常跟介系詞on搭配使用，同段動詞片語check off則意指「清點、核對」，又文中第三段片語freak somebody out是「嚇壞某人」之意。

古典樂為何愈來愈大聲？

In 1813, Beethoven wrote a symphonic work so noisy and trite that most scholars consider it an embarrassment. “Wellington’s Victory, or the Battle of Vitoria” depicts, with the help of spatially separated brass and percussion effects, a rout of French forces at the hands of the British.

1813年，貝多芬譜寫了一首交響曲，嘈雜而老套，多數學者認為不敢恭維。曲名「威靈頓的勝利」又稱「維多利亞之役或戰爭交響曲」，藉由分散在空間中的銅管和打擊樂器製造的效果，描寫法軍潰敗於英軍之手。

A hundred musicians played at the premiere — twice as many as at the first performance of the “Eroica” Symphony, in 1805 — with the audience seated at the center. Afterward, someone remarked that Beethoven had written a piece seemingly designed to make the listener as deaf as its composer.

「威靈頓的勝利」首演時有100名樂手演奏，是1805年「英雄」交響曲首演時的兩倍，觀眾被演奏者包圍，坐在中央。事後有人評論說，貝多芬似乎想藉這個作品讓聽眾跟他自己一樣聾。

By all common measures of musical value, “Wellington’s Victory” is schlock. But in his detailed instructions on the number and positioning of instrumentalists, Beethoven reveals how carefully he crafted this sonic assault on listener. “One has to imagine these performances not like an evening at the Berlin Philharmonie, but rather like a modern-day rock concert,” musicologist Frédéric Döhl has argued.

從所有衡量音樂價值的共同標準來看，「威靈頓的勝利」都是劣質作品。不過，貝多芬詳細指示演奏者人數和位置，顯示他精心策畫了這種對聽眾的音響衝擊。音樂學者多爾曾說：「要想像這場演出並不是柏林愛樂廳的晚間節目，而是一場現代搖滾演唱會。」

Beethoven’s preoccupation with making the concert experience really, really loud may mark the beginning of a musical arms race for ever louder and ever more stimulating symphonic performance.

貝多芬一心要使音樂演出非常非常大聲，可能標誌著一場音樂軍備競賽的開端，交響作品的演出自此越來越大聲，越來越震撼人心。

After Beethoven, fortissimos grew only louder. One reason was the development of instruments, which added decibels across the board. Steel replaced gut for strings; metallic flutes replaced those made of wood. The biggest changes occurred in the brass section, where changes in design increased not only the power of sound, but also range. The introduction of valves in horns and trumpets meant that instruments that had previously been limited to notes of the overtone series could now roam across the whole chromatic spectrum, adding oomph wherever a composer desired it.

在貝多芬之後，極強音一徑變得更大聲，原因之一是樂器發展使所有樂器的音量變大。鋼取代腸線作弦；金屬笛取代木笛。最大的改變發生在銅管樂器，設計上的變化不只提高音量，還擴展了音域。法國號和小號引進活塞，意味先前只能奏出泛音列樂音的樂器，如今能信步在整個半音音階上遊走，使作曲家能在想要的部分增添活力。

And composers sought out new highs. In a treatise on orchestration, Berlioz fantasized about an orchestra numbering more than 400 players that would be capable of evoking not just weather phenomena but different climatic zones, transporting the listener into new worlds: “When at rest, it would be majestic, like a slumbering ocean. When in a state of agitation, it would recall tropical storms. It would erupt like a volcano. It would convey the laments, whispers and mysterious sounds of virgin forests.”

作曲家還追求更進一步。法國作曲家白遼士在一篇有關管絃樂作曲法的專論中，幻想一個400多人組成的管弦樂團，在音樂上不僅能做出猶如天氣現象的小變化，還能做出猶如不同氣候帶的大變化，把聽眾帶進新的世界。白遼士寫道：「平靜時感覺壯麗，像沉靜的海洋。躁動時感覺像熱帶風暴。音樂能像火山一樣噴發，也能表達原始森林的哀歌、低語和神祕的聲音。」

In his own “Symphonie Fantastique,” Berlioz orchestrated a form of sonic invasion. In the fifth movement, which culminates in an orgy of formidable loudness, he employs a pair of massive church bells. If Beethoven’s experiments in surround-sound broke down the fourth wall dividing musicians and audience, Berlioz tore down the separation between the concert hall and the city.

白遼士在自己的「幻想交響曲」中，精心安排了一個聲音突然湧入的形式。第五樂章以令人生畏的大聲樂音肆虐作結，他在這裡用上了一對大型教堂鐘。若說貝多芬的環繞立體聲實驗打破了演奏者和聽眾之間的第四面牆，白遼士就是拆除了音樂廳和所在城市之間的分隔。