美国国家公共电台 NPR A Songwriter Gives Voice To The Silenced Women Of Rockwood Asylum

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Simone Schmidt is a Canadian singer-songwriter who does solo work under the name Fiver. Her latest album is an ambitious project, a novelistic undertaking¹ to tell the stories of real people who were committed to an institution for the criminally insane. It's called "Audible Songs From Rockwood."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STABLE SONG")

FIVER: (Singing) When first was forced entry to Rockwood's misery², the nurses sat me opposite a doctor's scrutiny³. He said, my girl, your file read you've led your life to mess. Now what might be the matter here, do you hazard any guess?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So tell me about the Rockwood Asylum⁴. It's a real place?

SIMONE SCHMIDT: Yeah. The Rockwood Asylum was built between 1856 and 1868 on the north shore of Lake Ontario, right around what's known as Kingston now. And it was built as a way to deal with a class of criminal and person designated insane that the Kingston Penitentiary⁵ and the Toronto psychiatric institution couldn't handle.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Each of the songs on the album is in the voice of a different person who was committed at the Rockwood Asylum. Let's listen to some of "Worship The Sun (Not The Golden Boy)."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WORSHIP THE SUN (NOT THE GOLDEN BOY)")

FIVER: (Singing) James had a wide mouth that all men trusted, told a good story, caught a good game. His eyes were the eyes of a wise man gone busted⁶. Strong were his hands and the marks they made.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What's the singer's story?

SCHMIDT: Well, this singer would have been the last member of the Brook's Bush Gang. Effectively, this gang just hung out in the Don Valley, which is on the eastern edge of Toronto, and they would feed themselves by stealing eggs from local farmers and do all sorts of things like brew⁷ their own whiskey. And one way that they made a living was they collected tolls⁹ on the bridge that crossed the Don River.

Anyways, they were very famous for this murder that happened. And it was the murder of a local member of government who tried to cross the bridge and refused to pay a toll⁸. And as a result, he was murdered by a few members of the Brook's Bush Gang. And it's widely agreed that the man who was punished for his murder didn't actually do the murdering. And so the character that I kind of carved out of this case file gives an alternate perspective from the peripheral¹⁰ perspective of a woman who was in that gang.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WORSHIP THE SUN (NOT THE GOLDEN BOY)")

FIVER: (Singing) There are all kinds of tales a well-oiled mouth will tell you if ever she's pressured to recall that day.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You've mentioned case files. Tell me how you researched this.

SCHMIDT: The case files of anyone who was incarcerated¹¹ in a public institution over 100 years ago are available to any member of the public. So these ones were in the archives of Ontario. And I just put an order in for them, and they came to me eventually.

And I flipped¹² through these brittle¹³ papers. They're blue and cover a lot of them. The warrants are white, and they're handwritten. And so you really get a sense of the script of the superintendent¹⁴ who would have been filling them out. And they have all kinds of information, although very little when you think of these case files being the only thing left of a lot of the people.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: When you were looking over the documents, what kind of things emerged? What were you - what were the themes or stories that you kind of got to glimpse into?

SCHMIDT: You know a lot of them are very sparse¹⁵. So I got everything from a series of letters between a superintendent and one of the inmate's husbands. The husband writes to the superintendent to check on his wife, and he's writing from Temple, Texas. And the superintendent writes back to tell him, you're wife's fine. You should come pick her up. And what happens over the course of these letters is you realize that the husband never comes.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOUSE OF LOST WORDS")

FIVER: (Singing) Temple town Texas can hear me (ph).

SCHMIDT: And then there's another letter that was dated 30 years later from the inmate's daughter who wonders where her mother was and if she was still alive. And the superintendent, of course, writes back and says, yeah, your mom is totally fine. You should come pick her up. She's in sound body and sound mind.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOUSE OF LOST WORDS")

FIVER: (Singing) With sound body and sound mind, how could heaven left behind. Temple town Texas, can hear me (ph).

SCHMIDT: And then you look at the case file, and it also says that this same woman died a year after that letter was sent. So you know that she lived 33 years in the asylum.

(SOUNDBITE OF FIVER SONG, "HOUSE OF LOST WORDS")")

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I read in an interview that you gave a few years ago where you said, I often take refuge in the characters that I write. What refuge did your Rockwood characters give you?

SCHMIDT: When I say I take refuge, it's that feeling of displacing oneself into the consciousness of another. And so if I were to tell you more about my life, then I would be describing what it is that I'd be taking refuge from. But it's that joy of obsession¹⁶, I find. And even when it's somber¹⁷ material or when it's difficult material, I don't necessarily find it that much difficult than what it is to live in this world.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAIR OF THE DEAD")

FIVER: (Singing) Rushed to the bottom of the pearly gates...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That was Fiver. Her new album is called "Audible Songs From Rockwood." She spoke¹⁸ to us from the CBC studios in Toronto. This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Thanks for listening. I'm Lulu Garcia-Navarro.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAIR OF THE DEAD")

FIVER: (Singing) Return my mind to me. I dreamed I sat on a porcelain¹⁹ fence. Then he had you come to reconvince me (ph).

1 undertaking   

n.保证，许诺，事业

参考例句：

• He gave her an undertaking that he would pay the money back with in a year.他向她做了一年内还钱的保证。
• He is too timid to venture upon an undertaking.他太胆小，不敢从事任何事业。

2 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

3 scrutiny   

n.详细检查，仔细观察

参考例句：

• His work looks all right,but it will not bear scrutiny.他的工作似乎很好，但是经不起仔细检查。
• Few wives in their forties can weather such a scrutiny.很少年过四十的妻子经得起这么仔细的观察。

4 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

5 penitentiary   

n.感化院；监狱

参考例句：

• He worked as a warden at the state penitentiary.他在这所州监狱任看守长。
• While he was in the penitentiary her father died and the family broke up.他坐牢的时候，她的父亲死了，家庭就拆散了。

6 busted   

adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You are so busted! 你被当场逮住了！
• It was money troubles that busted up their marriage. 是金钱纠纷使他们的婚姻破裂了。

7 brew   

v.酿造，调制

参考例句：

• Let's brew up some more tea.咱们沏些茶吧。
• The policeman dispelled the crowd lest they should brew trouble.警察驱散人群，因恐他们酿祸。

8 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

9 tolls   

（缓慢而有规律的）钟声( toll的名词复数 )； 通行费； 损耗； （战争、灾难等造成的）毁坏

参考例句：

• A man collected tolls at the gateway. 一个人在大门口收通行费。
• The long-distance call tolls amount to quite a sum. 长途电话费数目相当可观。

10 peripheral   

adj.周边的，外围的

参考例句：

• We dealt with the peripheral aspects of a cost reduction program.我们谈到了降低成本计划的一些外围问题。
• The hotel provides the clerk the service and the peripheral traveling consultation.旅舍提供票务服务和周边旅游咨询。

11 incarcerated   

钳闭的

参考例句：

• They were incarcerated for the duration of the war. 战争期间，他们被关在狱中。 来自辞典例句
• I don't want to worry them by being incarcerated. 我不想让他们知道我被拘禁的事情。 来自电影对白

12 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

13 brittle   

adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的

参考例句：

• The pond was covered in a brittle layer of ice.池塘覆盖了一层易碎的冰。
• She gave a brittle laugh.她冷淡地笑了笑。

14 superintendent   

n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长

参考例句：

• He was soon promoted to the post of superintendent of Foreign Trade.他很快就被擢升为对外贸易总监。
• He decided to call the superintendent of the building.他决定给楼房管理员打电话。

15 sparse   

adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的

参考例句：

• The teacher's house is in the suburb where the houses are sparse.老师的家在郊区，那里稀稀拉拉有几处房子。
• The sparse vegetation will only feed a small population of animals.稀疏的植物只够喂养少量的动物。

16 obsession   

n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感)

参考例句：

• I was suffering from obsession that my career would be ended.那时的我陷入了我的事业有可能就此终止的困扰当中。
• She would try to forget her obsession with Christopher.她会努力忘记对克里斯托弗的迷恋。

17 somber   

adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• He had a somber expression on his face.他面容忧郁。
• His coat was a somber brown.他的衣服是暗棕色的。

18 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

19 porcelain   

n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的

参考例句：

• These porcelain plates have rather original designs on them.这些瓷盘的花纹很别致。
• The porcelain vase is enveloped in cotton.瓷花瓶用棉花裹着。