Supper Shopping Mall（在线收听）

Supper Shopping Mall

Forget the ¹⁾notion about quiet, ²⁾suburban shopping centres. The twenty-first century mall is an involving world of retail drama. It’s a place where shoppers are ³⁾electrified with ⁴⁾exotic new sights, and a place where people find a sense of connection and community. It’s a whole experience unto itself. It’s a mall world.

Southdale, America’s first ⁵⁾enclosed shopping mall, opened in 1956. Drawing its ⁶⁾inspiration from European ⁷⁾arcades, architect Victor Gruen, found a perfect solution to Minnesota’s freezing winters and blistering summer heat. 

Margaret Crawtord(Urban Theorist, Harvard University): In the history of the mall, Southdale is a key moment, because it took a kind of loose outdoor collection of stores and services and unified it under a climate-controlled roof. And this really changed the nature of shopping and the entire experience. The ⁸⁾enclosure of the mall made a much more ⁹⁾dramatic and intense space. Architects, designers, developers began to really ¹⁰⁾orchestrate that, and to create almost urban levels of ¹¹⁾intensity. They became a whole other world, separate from the suburbs that they were located in. They became exciting and intense retail experiences. 

During the ’60s and ’70s, the “malling” of America took off. Liberated women were ¹²⁾empowered by their newly found ¹³⁾purchasing strength and ¹⁴⁾mobility. By the ’80s, look-alike malls had ¹⁵⁾dotted the landscape.  Something had to change.

Modern Mall—Mall of America

When Mall of America opens for business, the community screams delight. With up to nine hundred thousand visitors a week, it’s as though a new city is instantly born. 

Mall of America is composed of four themed shopping streets, forming a three story rectangle around Knott’s Camp Snoopy, a seven acre theme park. Mall of America is the nation’s number one tourist destination, attracting more visitors than Disney World, the Grand Canyon and Graceland combined. 

Karal Marling(Pop Culture Historian, Univ. of Minn.): One of the ways in which places like this tend to make their mark in this world is by ¹⁶⁾braggadocio. ¹⁷⁾Darn it, we might be cold, but we have a mall that’s bigger than 83 football fields. Uh, darn it, we have ¹⁸⁾tornadoes in the summer, but we’ve got a mall with the world’s largest indoor ¹⁹⁾amusement park.

Eric Nelson(Prof. of English, St. Olaf College): And just that title, Mall of America, is a ²⁰⁾dynamite selling point.  And, uh, ²¹⁾evocation of the flag and logo, its  bigness.

And ²²⁾draw in the crowds, it does, to popular attractions like Underwater Adventures…

Visitor: We had asked the children, if they could go anywhere they wanted, where would they like to go? The children said they wanted to come back to Mall of America because there was so much for them to do. You can see, they just love it. They ²³⁾have a ball. 

It’s a fantasy that you can walk through. Someone has described malls as “television that you walk through.” Walking through the Mall of America is like walking through cable, ²⁴⁾surfing the channels.

Modern malls have developed an amazing ²⁵⁾arsenal of new devices to attract consumers—thrill rides, special events, ²⁶⁾extravagant theming and interactive retail experiences.

Joe Pine(Co-author, The Experience Economy): If you look at the history of economic progress, we’ve moved from an ²⁷⁾agrarian economy, based on ²⁸⁾commodities, to an industrial economy based on goods, to a service-based economy. Today, what we’re doing is, we’re moving to an experience economy, where what consumers want are experiences; memorable events that engage them in an ²⁹⁾inherently personal way. 

Watts Wacker(Futurist): Retail has come to realize the power of new and different. And I think people today really know that, when they go to a mall, they’re going to have a unique experience with many ³⁰⁾stimuli that are different than they’ve ever seen before, even though the goods themselves may not be. 

注释：

1) notion [5nEuFEn] n. 观念, 想法

2) suburban [sE5bE:bEn] a. 郊外的, 偏远的

3) electrify [i5lektrifai] v. 使激动

4) exotic [i^5zCtik] a. 外来的, 奇异的

5) enclose [in5klEuz] v. 围住，包住

6) inspiration [7inspE5reiFEn] n. 灵感

7) arcade [B:5keid] n. 拱廊, 有拱廊的街道

8) enclosure [in5klEuVE] n. 围起来的场地

9) dramatic [drE5mAtik] a. 激动人心的，戏剧性的

10) orchestrate [5C:kistreit] v. 使和谐地结合起来

11) intensity [in5tensiti] n. 强烈, 强度

12) empower [im5pauE] v. 授权与, 使能够

13) purchase [5pE:tFEs] v. 购买

14) mobility [mEu5biliti] n. 灵活性，能动性

15) dot [dCt] v. 在……上打点

16) braggadocio [brA^E5dEuFiEu] n. 自吹自擂

17) darn it =damn it  该死的，可恶

18) tornado [tC:5neidEu] n. 旋风, 龙卷风

19) amusement [E5mju:zmEnt] n. 娱乐, 消遣

20) dynamite [5dainEmait] a. 超众的

21) evocation [7evEu5keiFEn] n. 唤出, 唤起

22) draw in 引诱; 使加入

23) have a ball <美俚>尽情作乐，狂欢

24) surf [sE:f] v. 在……冲浪

25) arsenal [5B:sinl] n. 库，任何事物的集成

26) extravagant [iks5trAvE^Ent] a. 过分的

27) agrarian [E5^rZEriEn] a. 耕地的

28) commodity [kE5mCditi] n. 日用品；农产品

29) inherently [in5hiErEntli] ad. 天性地, 固有地

30) stimuli [5stimulai] n. 刺激,刺激物（stimulus的复数形式）