1.About four years ago, the New Yorker published an article about a cache of dodo bones that was found in a pit on the island of Mauritius.
大概四年前，《纽约客》刊登了一篇文章 说在毛里求斯岛上的一个矿坑里 发现了许多埋藏的渡渡鸟遗骨
2.Now, the island of Mauritius is a small island off the east coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, and it is the place where the dodo bird was discovered
毛里求斯岛位于印度洋 在马达加斯加海岸的东边 渡渡鸟在那里被发现 也在那里灭绝
3.and extinguished, all within about 150 years.
这一过程仅仅用了150年的时间
4.Everyone was very excited about this archeological find, because it meant that they might finally be able to assemble a single dodo skeleton.
这次考古发现让每个人欢呼雀跃 因为这意味着人们终于有机会 组装出单只渡渡鸟的完整骨架
5.See, while museums all over the world have dodo skeletons in their collection, nobody — not even the actual Natural History Museum
尽管世界上有很多博物馆 收藏有渡渡鸟的骨架 但即使是毛里求斯岛的自然历史博物馆
6.on the island of Mauritius — has a skeleton that’s made from the bones of a single dodo.
也没有一具骨架标本 是由单只渡渡鸟遗体制成的
7.Well, ths isn’t exactly true.
呃，其实这么不完全准确
8.The fact is, is that the British Museum had a complete specimen of a dodo in their collection up until the 18th century — it was actually mummified, skin and all —
事实上，在大英博物馆 直到18世纪 还收藏有一副完整的渡渡鸟标本 实际上这是个保有皮肤的完整的木乃伊标本
9.but in a fit of space-saving zeal, they actually cut off the head and they cut off the feet, and they burned the rest in a bonfire.
但是为了满足节省空间的热情 他们竟把头和脚都切下来 然后把其它的部分丢进篝火烧掉了
10.If you go look at their website today, they’ll actually list these specimens, saying, the rest was lost in a fire.
现在如果你登陆他们的网站 会看到他们列出了这些标本 并说其它部分在火灾中丢失了
11.Not quite the whole truth. Anyway.
不管怎么说，跟事实很接近了
12.The frontispiece of this article was this photo, and I’m one of the people that thinks that Tina Brown was great for bringing photos to the New Yorker,
文章的第一页便是这张图片 我觉得蒂娜·布朗很了不起 他为《纽约客》提供了许多图片
13.because this photo completely rocked my world.
而这张图片彻底震撼了我的世界
14.I became obsessed with the object — not just the beautiful photograph itself, and the color, the shallow depth of field, the detail that’s visible,
我被它完全迷住了 不仅仅因为美丽的图片本身 还有它的颜色、薄薄的触摸感、可见的细节
15.the wire you can see on the beak there that the conservator used to put this skeleton together, there’s an entire story here.
你能看到鸟喙上的金属线 那是用来连接起整个骨架的 这整个就是一个故事
16.And I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if I had my own dodo skeleton?
我自己在想 如果能有个属于自己的渡渡鸟骨架 该有多棒
17.(Laughter) And so — I want to point out here at this point that I’ve spent my life obsessed by objects and the stories that they tell,
（笑） 好，此刻我想指出的一点是 我的整个人生 都在迷恋着事物，极其背后的故事
18.and this was the very latest one.
这是最近的一个
19.So I began looking around for — to see if anyone sold a kit, some kind of model that I could get, and I found lots of reference material, lots of lovely pictures —
所以我开始四处寻找 看是否有人出售一套 类似模型的给我 我找到大量的参考材料和精美的图片
20.no dice: no dodo skeleton for me. But the damage had been done.
不行，没有找到渡渡鸟骨架。但错误已经铸成
21.I had saved a few hundred photos of dodo skeletons into my “Creative Projects” folder — it’s a repository for my brain, everything that I could possibly be interested in.
在我的“创造性项目”文件夹里 我已经保存了几百张渡渡鸟骨架的图片 那里就像我大脑的仓库，储藏着一切我可能感兴趣的东西
22.Any time I have an internet connection, there’s a sluice of stuff moving into there, everything from beautiful rings to cockpit photos.
每一次连上互联网 就有无数的东西涌了进来 从漂亮的指环到驾驶室图片
23.The key that the Marquis du Lafayette sent to George Washington to celebrate the storming of the Bastille.
拉法叶为庆祝攻陷巴士底狱 送给华盛顿的钥匙
24.Russian nuclear launch key.
俄罗斯核武器的发射钥匙
25.The one on the top is the picture of the one I found on eBay; the one on the bottom is the one I made for myself, because I couldn’t afford the one on eBay.
上面那张图片是我在eBay上找到的 底下那张则是我自己制作的 因为我买不起eBay上的那张
26.Storm trooper costumes. Maps of Middle Earth — that’s one I hand-drew myself. There’s the dodo skeleton folder.
纳粹的制服；中土世界的地图——我自己手绘的 那就是渡渡鸟骨架的文件夹
27.This folder has 17,000 photos — over 20 gigabytes of information — and it’s growing constantly.
里面有17000张图片 超过20G的信息容量 而且还在不断增加
28.And one day, a couple of weeks later, it might have been maybe a year later, I was in the art store with my kids, and I was buying some clay tools — we were going to have a craft day.
几个星期后的某一天，或许已经过了一年了 我和孩子走进艺术商店想买些黏土材料 我们准备过一个手工艺日
29.I bought some Super Sculpeys, some armature wire, some various materials.
我买了一些雕塑土，一些铁线支架和其他材料
30.And I looked down at this Sculpey, and I thought, maybe, yeah, maybe I could make my own dodo skull.
看着雕塑土我忽然想到 也许 也许我可以自己来做个渡渡鸟头骨
31.I should point out at this time — I’m not a sculptor; I’m a hard-edged model maker.
我得先说一下——我并不是个雕塑家 我只是一个硬边模型制作者
32.You give me a drawing, you give me a prop to replicate, you give me a crane, scaffolding, parts from “Star Wars” — especially parts from “Star Wars” —
给我一张图纸，就给了我复制的动力 给我一台起重机，脚手架，不给我看《星球大战》 尤其不能给我看《星球大战》
33.I can do this stuff all day long.
然后我就能一整天鼓捣这些玩意
34.It’s exactly how I made my living for 15 years.
这就是我15年来如何谋生的
35.But you give me something like this — my friend Mike Murnane sculpted this; it’s a maquette for Star Wars, Episode Two — this is not my thing, I —
但如果你给我这样的东西 我的朋友迈克·默南做了这个雕塑 这是为《星球大战》第二部所做的初步模型 这不是我要做的
36.this is something other people do — dragons, soft things.
这是给别的人做的——龙，一些软活
37.However, I felt like I had looked at enough photos of dodo skulls to actually be able to understand the topology and perhaps replicate it —
但我觉得自己已经看了足够多的渡渡鸟骨架图片 实际上已经能够理解它的解剖结构 或许也可以复制一个了
38.I mean, it couldn’t be that difficult.
我是说，这并不是那么难
39.So, I started looking at the best photos I could find.
我开始看能找到的最好的那些图片
40.I grabbed all the reference, and I found this lovely piece of reference.
我搜寻所有的参考资料 找到了这篇可爱的材料
41.This is someone selling this on eBay; it was a woman’s — clearly a woman’s hand, hopefully a woman’s hand.
它是某人在eBay上出售的东西 这是，明显是，很可能是一只女人的手
42.Assuming it was roughly the size of my wife’s hand, I made some measurements of her thumb, and I scaled them out to the size of the skull.
假设它的大小和我妻子的手差不多 我测量了她的拇指，然后把数据扩展到头骨大小
43.I blew it up to the actual size, and I began using that, along with all the other reference that I had, comparing it to it as size reference for figuring out exactly how big the beak should be,
扩展到实际尺寸之后 我就开始把这些数据与其他的资料进行比较 弄清楚鸟喙实际到底应该有多大
44.exactly how long, et cetera et cetera.
实际应该有多长，等等
45.And over a few hours, I eventually achieved what was actually a pretty reasonable dodo skull. And I didn’t mean to continue, I — it’s kind of like, you know, you can only clean a super messy room
几小时后我终于搞清楚什么才是比较合理的渡渡鸟头骨 不过我没有继续下去 这有点像在清理一个超乱的房间时
46.by picking up one thing at a time; you can’t think about the totality.
你只能每次收拾一件东西，你不能想到所有的一切
47.I wasn’t thinking about a dodo skeleton; I just noticed that as I finished this skull, the armature wire that I had been used to holding it up
我当时没有想到渡渡鸟骨架 我只注意到自己完成了这个头骨 用来固定的支架金属线
48.was sticking out of the back just where a spine would be.
从原本应该是脊柱的位置穿了出来
49.And one of the other things I’d been interested in and obsessed with over the years is spines and skeletons, having collected a couple of hundred.
多年来我一直感兴趣并着迷的另一种东西 便是脊柱和骨架，我已经搜集了数百个
50.I actually understood the mechanics of vertebrae enough to kind of start to imitate them.
实际上我已经足够了解椎骨的力学机制 似乎可以模仿一下了
51.And so button by button, vertebrae by vertebrae, I built my way down.
接着我就一步一步，一块椎骨接着一块椎骨 自己鼓捣了起来
52.And actually, by the end of the day, I had a reasonable skull, a moderately good vertebrae and half of a pelvis.
最后到那天结束，我已经有了个不错的头骨 一个恰到好处的脊椎和半个骨盆
53.And again, I kept on going, looking for more reference, every bit of reference I could find — drawings, beautiful photos.
我继续寻找着更多的参考资料 绘画、漂亮的图片，以及一切能找到的资料
54.This guy — I love this guy! He put a dodo leg bones in a scanner — with a ruler.
我爱这个家伙！他把渡渡鸟腿骨和尺子 放到了扫描器里
55.This is the kind of accuracy that I wanted, and I just — every last — I replicated every last bone and put it in.
这就是我想要的“精确” 每一块 我复制了每一块骨头然后放进去
56.And after about — I’d say about six weeks, I finished, painted, mounted my own dodo skeleton.
大概过了六个星期 我安装、上漆 完成了属于我自己的渡渡鸟骨架
57.You can see that I even made a museum label for it that includes a brief history of the dodo.
你能看到我还给它做了个博物馆标签 写上有关渡渡鸟历史的简短介绍
58.And TAP Plastics made me — although I didn’t photograph it — a museum vitrine.
而TAP塑料公司还做了个博物馆陈列橱窗给我 我没拍下来
59.I don’t have the room for this in my house, but I had to finish what I had started.
我屋里没空间摆放这个东西 但我必须完成我已经开始的工作
60.And this actually represented kind of a sea change to me.
实际上，这代表了我的某种彻底的转变
61.Again, like I said, my life has been about being fascinated by objects and the stories that they tell, and also making them for myself, obtaining them,
如我所说，我的生活都是关于 对事物及其背后的故事着迷 还有为自己制作、获得这些东西
62.appreciating them and diving into them.
欣赏它们，沉浸其中
63.And in this folder, “Creative Projects,”
而在这个“创造性项目”文件夹里
64.there are tons of projects that I’m currently working on, projects that I’ve already worked on, things that I might want to work on some day,
有许许多多我正在进行的项目 有的已经有所进展，有的将在未来某一天开始着手
65.and things that I may just want to find and buy and have and — and look at and touch.
还有一些东西我只是想找到、买到 看一看，摸一摸
66.But now there was potentially this new category of things that I could sculpt that was different, that I — you know, I have my own R2D2, but that’s —
现在还有了一类新的东西 我能够雕塑的东西 这很不一样 我有了自己的R2D2（星球大战里的机器人）
67.honestly, relative to sculpting, to me, that’s easy.
说实话对我来说，跟雕刻比起来，这简单多了
68.And so I went back and looked through my “Creative Projects” folder, and I happened across the Maltese Falcon.
因此我回头仔细审视了“创造性项目”文件夹 突然发现了《马耳他之鹰》
69.Now, this is funny for me: to fall in love with an object from a Hammett novel, because if it’s true that the world is divided into two types of people,
很有意思 我爱上了汉密特小说里的一件东西 因为如果它存在，世界上的人就将分为两种类型
70.Chandler people and Hammett people, I am absolutely a Chandler person.
“钱德勒”人和“汉密特”人，我绝对属于钱德勒人（钱德勒和汉密特均为美国侦探小说家）
71.But in this case, it’s not about — it’s not about the author, it’s not about the book or the movie or the story, it’s about the object in and of itself.
不过这里与作者无关 与书或电影或故事无关 只与这件物品自身有关
72.And in this case, this object is — plays on a host of — a host of levels.
在这里，这个物品 具有许多层的意义
73.First of all, there’s the object in the world.
首先，是有这么个东西
74.This is the “Kniphausen Hawk.”
这就是“Kniphausen Hawk”
75.It is a ceremonial pouring vessel made around 1700 for a Swedish Count, and it is very likely the object from which Hammett drew his inspiration for the Maltese Falcon.
一个仪式用的浇筑模型 是1700年为一位瑞典伯爵所制作的 它很可能就是汉密特 写《马耳他之鹰》的灵感来源
76.Then there is the fictional bird, the one that Hammett created for the book.
因此就有了汉密特为小说所创作的鸟
77.Built out of words, it is the engine that drives the plot of his book and also the movie, in which another object is created: a prop that has to represent the thing that Hammett created out of words,
由词汇制成 驱动着书的内容，以及电影情节的发展 故事中还创造了另一件东西 一个代表汉密特在书中所描述物品的道具
78.inspired by the Kniphauser Hawk, and this represents the falcon in the movie.
道具代表了电影中的猎鹰，其实还是受Kniphauser Hawk的启发
79.And then there is this fourth level, which is a whole new object in the world: the prop made for the movie, the representative of the thing,
然后就到了第四个层次 世界上又一个完全崭新的物品 为电影而做的这个道具
80.becomes, in its own right, a whole other thing, a whole new object of desire.
凭其本身 成为一个完全不一样的物品 一个完全的新的欲望象征
81.And so now it was time to do some research.
所以是时候做些研究了
82.I actually had done some research a few years before — it’s why the folder was there.
实际上我在几年前已经做了一部分研究 所以才有个文件夹在那里
83.I’d bought a replica, a really crappy replica, of the Maltese Falcon on eBay, and had downloaded enough pictures to actually have some reasonable reference.
我还在eBay上买了一个“马耳他之鹰”的复制品 一个十分蹩脚的复制品 我还下载了足够多的图片 作为适当的参考
84.But I discovered, in researching further, really wanting precise reference, that the bird had — one of the original lead birds had been sold at Christie’s in 1994,
但在做了更多研究后 特别是需要精确参考的时候 我发现 一只原版的铅制雕塑 1994年在克里斯蒂拍卖行被拍卖了
85.and so I contacted an antiquarian bookseller who had the original Christie’s catalogue, and in it I found this magnificent picture,
所以我就联系了一位爱好古董的书商 他有克里斯蒂拍卖行目录的原稿 我从中找到了这张极好的图片
86.which included a size reference.
还附有尺寸参照
87.I was able to scan the picture, blow it up to exactly full size.
由此我便能扫描图片，将它放大到完整的尺寸
88.I found other reference. Avi [Ara] Chekmayan, a New Jersey editor, actually found this resin Maltese Falcon at a flea market in 1991,
我还找到另一个参照，来自Avi [Ara] Chekmayan 新泽西的一位编辑 是他于1991年在一个跳蚤市场上 发现了这个树脂制的马耳他雄鹰
89.although it took him five years to authenticate this bird to — to the auctioneers’ specifications, because there was a lot of controversy about it.
因为争议很大 他总共花了五年时间 才验明这就是 拍卖商说明书描述的真品
90.It was made out of resin, which wasn’t a common material for movie props about the time the movie was made.
它是用树脂做的 这在当时并不是一种做电影道具的常见材料
91.It’s funny to me that it took a while to authenticate it, because I can see it compared to this thing, and I can tell you — it’s real, it’s the real thing,
有意思的是，我花了好一会才鉴定它是真的 当它和这一个比较 我能保证，这的的确确是真的
92.it’s made from the exact same mold that this one is.
都是从一个模子里出来的
93.In this one, because the auction was actually so controversial, Profiles in History, the auction house that sold this — I think in 1995 for about 100,000 dollars —
这一个，因为拍卖会实际上很有争议 我记得Profiles in History拍卖行 1995年时为它拍出了10万美金
94.they actually included — you can see here on the bottom — not just a front elevation, but also a side, rear and other side elevation.
可以从底部看到 他们不仅仅提供了正面图 还提供了侧面、背面 和其他角度的视图
95.So now, I had all the topology I needed to replicate the Maltese Falcon.
这样，我就有了所需的结构资料 来复制马耳他之鹰
96.What do they do, how do you start something like that? I really don’t know.
他们怎么做的，如何开始？我一无所知
97.So what I did was, again, like I did with the dodo skull, I blew all my reference up to full size, and then I began cutting out the negatives and using
所以这一次，我就跟做渡渡鸟头骨那样 把参照材料放大到完整尺寸 然后删去不合适的材料
98.those templates as shape references.
再利用那些模版作为形状参考
99.So I took Sculpey, and I built a big block of it, and I passed it through until, you know, I got the right profiles.
接着我就用Sculpey雕塑土做了一个雏形 直到我获得正确的侧面图之后我才
100.And then slowly, feather by feather, detail by detail, I worked out and achieved — working in front of the television — and Super Sculpey —
慢慢地，一根羽毛一根羽毛地 逐渐逐渐做出了想要的结果 ——在电视前鼓捣雕塑土
101.here’s me sitting next to my wife — it’s the only picture I took of the entire process.
这是我坐在妻子旁边 这也是整个过程中我拍的唯一一张照片
102.As I moved through, I achieved a very reasonable facsimile of the Maltese Falcon.
到最后，我终于 做成了一个很不错的马耳他之鹰复制品
103.But again, I am not a sculptor, and so I don’t know a lot of the tricks like, you know, I don’t know how my friend Mike gets beautiful, shiny surfaces with his Sculpey;
但我仍然不是一个雕塑家 有好多技巧我都不知道 我不知道老友Mike做的雕塑表面为何既漂亮又光彩照人
104.I certainly wasn’t able to get it.
我就是没办法做到
105.So, I went down to my shop, and I molded it and I cast it in resin, because in the resin, then, I could absolutely get the glass smooth finished.
所以我去到我的店里 做了个模型，用树脂铸了一个 因为用树脂做，我就绝对能进行玻璃光面精整
106.Now there’s a lot of ways to fill and get yourself a nice smooth finish.
有很多填充和光面精整的方法
107.My preference is about 70 coats of this — matte black auto primer.
我喜欢的是用这种粗糙的黑色汽车底漆 涂上大概70层
108.I spray it on for about three or four days, it drips to hell, but it allows me a really, really nice gentle sanding surface and I can get it glass-smooth.
我喷了三四天，油漆滴个不停 不过得到的磨砂表面相当的不错 我才可以对它做玻璃抛光
109.Oh, finishing up with triple-zero steel wool.
噢，最后以000#钢丝绒收尾
110.Now, the great thing about getting it to this point was that because in the movie, when they finally bring out the bird at the end,
现在，这件非同寻常的作品就出炉了 因为在电影里，当他们最后把鸟拿出来的时候
111.and they place it on the table, they actually spin it.
他们把它放在桌上，旋转它
112.So I was able to actually screen-shot and freeze-frame to make sure.
所以我可以利用 屏幕截图和停格显示来确定
113.And I’m following all the light kicks on this thing, and making sure that as I’m holding the light in the same position, I’m getting the same type of reflection on it —
我按照电影里的灯光照射方式 确保用同样位置的灯光照射能取得相同的反射光
暂无讨论，说说你的看法吧
