英语阅读如何免避职业生涯陷入停滞.docxVIP

The Museum of Modern Art is a temple of useful design. It has sponsored chair-making competitions, turned a vacant lot into a showcase of prefabricated housing and exhibited paper clips as if they were Rothkos. Its retail arm, the MoMA Store, is filled with beautiful but sensible objects. 现代艺术博物馆（Museum of Modern Art，简称MoMA）是实用设计的殿堂。它赞助过椅子制作比赛，将一块空地变成活动板房的陈列场，还展出过回形针，仿佛它们是罗斯科（Rothko，抽象表现主义艺术家——译注）的作品似的。在其零售部门MoMA艺术品商店(MoMA Store)里，摆满了美观而实用的物件。So I was surprised to find the Helicone among the store’s spring introductions. 所以，当我发现MoMA艺术品店推出的一款春季新品竟然是螺旋松果(Helicone)时，我很惊讶。The Helicone is made of paddle-shaped wood pieces arrayed around a metal rod. Depending on which way you spin it, the pieces rearrange themselves into two shapes: a helix and something like a pine cone. 螺旋松果是由桨形木片围绕着金属棒排列而成。根据不同的旋转方式，木片会排列成两种不同的形状：要么变为螺旋，要么形似松果。This is to say that the Helicone is delightful to look at and manipulate, but has no obvious purpose. 也就是说，螺旋松果虽然赏心悦目，把玩起来乐趣十足，但是却没有明显的用途。Ditto for the Crookes Radiometer, which MoMA also just began selling. An updated version of a late-19th-century invention, it is a glass globe encasing thin squares of mysteriously whirling metal. (The effect depends on the way the squares respond to light). Looks: 10; utility: questionable. MoMA即将开售的另一件新品，是克鲁克斯辐射计的仿照版(Ditto for the Crookes Radiometer)，模仿19世纪末的一项发明制作而成，外面是一个玻璃球，里面包裹着旋转的超薄方形金属片，颇具神秘感（其视觉效果取决于方形金属片对光线的反应）。美观度：10分；实用度：有待商榷。“Do my eyes deceive me,” I asked Emmanuel Plat, the museum’s director of merchandising, “or are these executive toys?” “我没看错吧，”我问博物馆采购总监伊曼纽尔·普拉特(Emmanuel Plat)，“难道这些是办公室玩具(executive toy)？”Mr. Plat is French, but he had no trouble understanding my question. In French, the phrase is “gadget de bureau.” In German, it is “managerspielzeug.” 普拉特是法国人，但是他听得懂我的问题。办公室玩具“在法语中称为gadget de bureau，在德语中称为managerspielzeug。”“They have something poetic about them,” he said of both. “它们蕴含着某种诗意。”他这样形容那两件设计。In any language, “executive toy” refers to an object that sits on a desk in a workplace or h