经济学人 文艺 2013-3-11

Handy work 手工劳动

Anyone who has taken an axe to a laptop battery and thrown the bits in a pond (they explode: wear goggles) will like Mark Frauenfelder's book. Those who haven't will find a tantalising whiff of what they are missing. The author takes a hands-on approach to suburban life in Los Angeles. He rewires his espresso machine to produce what he calls proper coffee, keeps bees and chickens, whittles spoons from scrap wood, makes a ukulele and a cigar box from toothpicks, grows his own vegetables and tries to teach his children maths at home.
任何一个曾用斧子砍破笔记本电脑的电池并把碎片扔进水塘里（爆炸物：请戴护目镜）的人都会喜欢马克·弗劳恩菲尔德的书。那些还没这么做的人则会对他们错过的事感到蠢蠢欲动。作者对洛杉矶的郊区生活采取的是一种亲自动手的方式。他改接了意式咖啡机的电路以制作出他所谓的好喝的咖啡，饲养蜜蜂和鸡，把废木料削成勺子，用牙签做成夏威夷四弦琴和雪茄烟盒，自己种菜，还试着在家里教他的孩子们学数学。

The lawn is the archetypal enemy. Why do Americans spend such huge amounts of time, money, water, fertiliser and fuel on growing a useless smooth expanse of grass? Much better to cultivate something useful, like tomatoes. But how to do it? Mr Frauenfelder considers using herbicide to kill his unwanted lawn, but settles for covering it thickly with newspaper and weeding any grass that grows through: as with many of his projects, it is fun to start with, but becomes laborious.
草坪就是个典型的敌人。为什么美国人要把如此大量的时间、金钱、水、化肥和燃料花在一大片平整却毫无用处的草地上呢？还不如栽培些实用的东西，比如西红柿。可是该怎么做呢？弗劳恩菲尔德先生也考虑过用除草剂来消灭那些无用的草坪，但他最终决定用报纸把草坪层层覆盖，然后再除去从中长出的任何一根草：这和他的很多方案一样，开头都很有趣，可随后就变得既耗时又费力。