The Whoomper Factor

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【1】As this is being written, snow is falling in the streets of Boston in what weather forecasters like to call “record amounts.” I would guess by looking out the window that we are only a few hours from that magic moment of paralysis, as inStorm Paralyzes Hub. Perhaps we are even due for anEntire Region Engulfedor aNortheast Blanketed, but I will happily settle for mere local disablement. And the more the merrier.

【2】Some people call them blizzards, others nor’easters. My own term is whoompers, and I freely admit looking forward to them as does a baseball fan to April. Usually I am disappointed, however; because tonight’s storm warnings too often turn into tomorrow’s light fl urries.

【3】Well, fl urries be damned. I want the real thing, complete with Volkswagens turned into drifts along Commonwealth Avenue and the MBTA’s third rail frozen like a hunk of raw meat. A storm does not even begin to qualify as a whoomper unless Logan Airport is shut down for a minimum of six hours.

【4】The point is, whoompers teach us a lesson. Or rather several lessons. For one thing, here are all these city folks who pride themselves on their instinct for survival, and suddenly they cannot bear to venture into the streets because they are afraid of being swallowed up. Virtual prisoners in their own houses is what they are. In northern New England, the natives view nights such as this with casual indifference, but let a whoomper hit Boston and the locals are not only knee deep in snowbut also in befuddlement and disarray.

【5】The lesson? That there is something more powerful out there than the sacred metropolis. It is not unlike the message we can read into the debacle of the windows falling out of the John Hancock Tower; just when we think we’ve got the upper hand on the elements, we fi nd out we are fl ies and someone else is holding the swatter. Whoompers keep us in our place.

【6】They also slow us down, which is not a bad thing for urbania these days. Frankly, I’m of the opinion Logan should be closed periodically, snow or not, in tribute to the lurking suspicion that it may not be all that necessary for a man to travel at a speed of 600 miles per hour. In a little while I shall go forth into the streets and I know what I will fi nd.People will actually bewalking, and the avenues will be bereft of cars.It will be something like those marvelous photographs of Back Bay during the nineteenth century, wherein the lack of clutter and traf fi c makes it seem as if someone has selectively airbrushed the scene.

【7】And, of course, there will be the sound of silence tonight. It will be almost deafening. I know city people who have trouble sleeping in the country because of the lack of noise, and I suspect this is what bothers many of them about whoompers. Icy sidewalks and even fewer parking spaces we can handle, but please, God, turn up the volume. City folks tend not to believe in anything they can’t hear with their own ears.

【8】It should also be noted that nights such as this are obviously quite pretty, hiding the city’s wounds beneath a clean white dressing.But it is their effect on the way people suddenly treat each other that is most fascinating, coming as it does when city dwellers are depicted as people of the same general variety as those New Yorkers who stood by when Kitty Genovese was murdered back in 1964.

【9】There’s nothing like a good whoomper to get people thinking that everyone walking towards them on the sidewalk might not be a mugger, or that saying hello is not necessarily a sign of perversion. You would think that city people, more than any other, would have a strong sense of being in the same rough seas together, yet it is not until a quasi catastrophe hits that many of them stop being lone sharks.

【10】But enough of this. There’s a whoomper outside tonight, and it requires my presence.

汉译英原文：

佛像前的沉吟（节选）

文/二月河

【1】打开中国的历史去看，有件很有意思的事，佛教似乎总在与诗歌相伴。也不知谁先谁后，抑或是先后辉映，两家差不多是彼兴我兴，彼衰我衰。汉如此，唐如斯，元、明、清也“庶乎是矣”。

【2】世界上还有一件有意思的事，形成宗教的国家总是留不住宗教。创教的圣人们不是被本国的乡亲们赶得走投无路，就是到处碰壁，弄得头破血流。释迦牟尼待遇似乎好一点，但他创的佛教，印度人却没留住，跑到了中国。

【3】有人说少林寺出名，是因为《少林寺》这个电影，一炮走红了。这个话也对，也不完全对。我以为，少林寺兴旺的根本原因在于它本身原本就拥有的文化内涵。

【4】使少林名声大噪的，并不是它的“禅”，是少林和尚的“拳”。到少林的人多数是看那几个练拳练出来的坑儿，书痴才会在立雪亭前发呆。但是，那拳头是太硬了，太有劲了。史有明载图有丹青作证，十三棍僧救唐王。有这擎天保驾的功劳，佛教得到了中央政权力助，自然更加熏灼炙人。回想，玄奘取经原本是偷偷去的印度，回来却受到政府盛大的欢迎。本来，大臣中灭佛反对佞佛的势力也很大的，但随形势转换，可以看到二者的结合愈来愈密切，一方面说，可以看到唐政府自身的文化品位与度量。两个文化稍有梗介到密弥相友，其间多少磨合，终于是握起手来了。

【5】这样的握手，造出无数宏大奇伟的寺院丛林，蔚为万千气象，也许是冥冥中上苍有这样的安排，文化的另一支，伟大的、瑰丽无双的唐诗也应时而生。

【6】我喜爱这样迷人的文化。