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Saying Goodbye a Little Longer as Seattle Scrapes Off Its Gum Wall William Ward sells a lot of gum. He works at a newspaper stand just around the corner from a bizarre attraction called the gum wall near Pike Place Market just off the waterfront here, and people show up unprepared. He also sells a lot of hand sanitizer. 威廉·沃德(William Ward)卖出了许多口香糖。他的报刊亭就在稀奇古怪的“口香糖墙”景点的拐角，位于河畔派克农贸市场(Pike Place Market)附近。人们来这通常都没什么准备。他同时也卖出了很多洗手液。 “I tell people it’s the second-most disgusting tourist attraction in the world,” Mr. Ward, 31, said. In his view, only the Blarney stone in Ireland, which millions of tourists actually kiss, can top the gum wall on the gross-out scale. “我常跟人说这是全世界第二恶心的旅游景点，”32岁的沃德说。在他看来，只有爱尔兰的“亲吻巧言石”(Blarney stone)能与之媲美，在那里，成千上万的旅客真的在现场亲吻那块石头。相比之下，恶心规模可以胜过一筹。 But gum, in a dozen or so varieties — helped by the sign out front, “We sell gum!” — still flies off the shelves. In most cases, he said, the gum is destined for only the briefest of chews before commemoration or deposit or whatever it is that people do, usually with a photo, in making the wall one of this city’s strangest destinations. 但是因为店前写着“口香糖有售！”的招牌，十几种口味的口香糖依然飞快地销售一空。沃德说，通常这些口香糖的宿命，只是被飞快咀嚼几下，然后成为一种祭奠或存念，或是别的什么东西——通常要拍张照片，把这座墙变成了城市里最奇怪的一个地方。 Now, the gum is coming down, after accumulating for 20 years in a deeply encrusted pointillist display of perhaps a million pieces — and about 2,200 pounds of sugary, cavity-inducing weight that Pike Place officials say threatens the integrity of the 115-year-old brick wall. Crews on Tuesday morning started to remove the gum with garden rakes and superheated water, 260 degrees Fahrenheit, in a three-day display of industrial-strength dental hygiene. 20多年来，这幅仿佛出自点彩派画家之手的斑斓杰作，在墙壁上结成了硬壳。现在，派克市场的管理人员认为，这2200磅甜腻的、让人觉得要蛀牙的重物，对这座拥有115年历史的砖墙构成了安全威胁，应该被铲除。从周二早上起，工作人员开始用园用钉耙和260华氏度的过热水清理口香糖。三天的清除，如同一场工业级的牙科清洁技术展示。 In the days before the cleaning, there was a rush of last-minute visits and gum-themed selfies. People like the Fergus family, visiting from Phoenix this week, even stopped at Costco before leaving home to load up on supplies for a visit. 在清理开始前，一大批想赶上末班车的游客蜂拥而至，专程前来和口香糖墙热烈合影。像这周从凤凰城赶来的费格斯一家，甚至在出发前到好市多超市采购物资，为此行做准备。 “Five packs, 15 sticks in each,” Christie Fergus said. She and her husband, Brian, and their two children, Michael, 8, and Rachel, 3, chewed their way through the arsenal at a stop at the wall on Monday afternoon, then spelled the family’s name in large bright green spearmint. “五包，每包15条，”克里斯蒂·费格斯(Christie Fergus)说。她和丈夫布赖恩带着两个孩子——8岁的迈克尔和9岁的瑞切尔，在周一下午抵达前一路都嚼着口香糖。他们用薄荷味的口香糖，在墙上拼出自家硕大的姓氏。 “It was pretty disgusting, but also a really interesting and fun family activity,” said Ms. Fergus, a pharmacist. Michael, she said, gets credit for the family name idea. “这真的挺恶心。但是作为一项家庭娱乐，也很有趣，”职业是药剂师的费格斯解释道。她说拼出姓氏这个主意是孩子迈克尔想出来的。 Pike Place Market officials initially tried to protect the wall from gum after it began appearing there in the 1990s, added by people waiting to enter an improvisational comedy club. But after several cleanings, and the realization that mentions of the wall in tourist guidebooks like Frommer’s were spurring people on, they surrendered. A spokeswoman for the market, Emily Crawford, said she expected people would resume the practice the moment the wall was once again blank. 1990年代，排队准备进入一家即兴喜剧俱乐部的人们，随手将口香糖黏在墙上，逐渐形成了这座口香糖墙。最开始，派克农贸市场的管理人员企图保护墙壁。但经过数次清理，再加上像弗罗默旅行指南(Frommer’s)一样的旅行手册纷纷提到这堵口香糖墙，吸引了无数人前来参观，让管理人员放弃了继续清理的想法。市场的发言人艾米莉·克劳福德(Emily Crawford)称，她估计墙壁清理一空后，人们还会继续来黏口香糖。 “It’s a crowdsourced piece of public art,” Ms. Crawford said. “We don’t need to promote it.” “这是一件众筹的公共艺术作品，”克劳福德称。“我们不需要做宣传。” Chris Borgen, 31, a firefighter from a Seattle suburb who had never visited before, said he was prompted to come by his mother, who told him about the cleaning. He was there on Monday, holding up his son, Abbott, who is almost 2, for photos. 31岁的克里斯·博格斯(Chris Borgen)是来自西雅图郊区的一名消防队员。此前他从未参观过这座墙壁。他说，是他母亲告诉他现在的口香糖将被清除，催促他来看看。周一，他带着两岁的儿子艾伯特来到这里，拍照留念。 Mr. Borgen said he imagined coming back for a kind of time-lapse series as the gum gradually comes back and Abbott grows up. 博格斯说，随着日后墙壁上的口香糖重新多起来，艾伯特也慢慢长大，他打算带儿子重返旧地，拍一些见证时光流逝的照片。 Donna Prust, a retired technology worker, was taking photos on Monday of Ed the Clam, a smiley-faced clamshell character that has become a kind of “Kilroy was here” figure for many people, who post pictures of him on his Facebook page. Ms. Prust, 68, who has taken photos of herself and the clam in various places around the world, pressed the figure into the gum, which was several inches thick in spots, then pasted on a blue bubble as though Ed was chewing bubble gum. 唐娜·普鲁斯特(Donna Prust)是一名退休的技术人员，周一，她带着她的卡通玩偶Ed the Clam来拍照。她的这个摆出笑脸的蛤壳卡通玩偶，就像“Kilroy到此一游”的卡通形象一样，很多人拿着它在各处拍照，再把照片发到Facebook上。68岁的普鲁斯特曾经和Ed the Clam在全世界许多地方合影。这次，她把玩偶按进墙壁上的口香糖里（墙壁上有几处口香糖有几英寸厚），还在墙壁上贴了一个蓝色的泡泡，假装是玩偶自己在吹口香糖。 “Hand sanitizer!” she said, rifling through her purse when the task was done. 等做完这一切，她一边嚷着“洗手液”，一边在手袋里使劲翻找着。 Thanks to the scale of their gum deposit, and perhaps the gross-out factor as well, Ms. Fergus said the family’s visit to the wall had just about exhausted their desire for gum. 由于口香糖的量非常大，再加上确实也挺恶心，费格斯说全家此行后，算是彻底没有嚼口香糖的欲望了。 “I think we will take a break from chewing gum for a while after that,” she said in a telephone interview as they prepared to head home. “我觉得，这之后我们得有一阵子不嚼口香糖了，”当他们准备回家时，她在电话里这么说。 |
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