Para1An artist who seeks fame is like a dogchasing his own tail who, when he captures it, does not know what else to do but to continue chasing it.The cruelty of success is that it often leads those who seek such success to participate in their own destruction.艺术家追求成名，如同狗自逐其尾，一旦追到手，除了继续追逐不知还能做些什么。

成功之残酷正在于它常常让那些追逐成功者自寻毁灭。

"Don't quit your day job!" is advice frequently given by understandably pessimistic family members and friends to a budding artist who is trying hard to succeed. The conquest of fame is difficult at best, and many end up emotionally if not financially bankrupt. Still, impure motives such as the desire for worshipping fans and praise from peers may spur the artist on. The lure of drowning in fame's imperial glory is not easily resisted.对一名正努力追求成功并刚刚崭露头角的艺术家，其亲朋常常会建议“正经的饭碗不能丢！”他们的担心不无道理。

追求出人头地，最乐观地说也困难重重，许多人到最后即使不是穷困潦倒，也是几近精神崩溃。

Fame's spotlight can be hotter than a tropical jungle－a fraud is quickly exposed, and the pressure of so much attention is too much for most to endure.It takes you out of yourself: You must be what the public thinks you are, not what you really are or could be. The performer, like the politician, must often please his or her audiences by saying things he or she does not mean or fully believe.Curiously enough, it is those who fail that reap the greatest reward: freedom! They enjoy the freedom to express themselves in unique and original ways without fear of losing the support of fans. Failed artists may find comfort in knowing that many great artists never found fame until well after they had passed away or in knowing that they did not sell out. They may justify their failure by convincing themselves their genius is too sophisticated for contemporary audiences. Unit2He was an immensely talented man, determined to a degree unusual even in the ranks of Hollywood stars. His huge fame gave him the freedom—and, more importantly, the money—to be his own master. He already had the urge to explore and extend a talent he discovered in himself as he went along. "It can't be me. Is that possible? How extraordinary," is how he greeted the first sight of himself as the Tramp on the screen.But that shock rousedhis imagination.Chaplin didn't have his jokes written into a script in advance; he was the kind of comic who used his physical senses to invent his art as he went along. Lifeless objects especially helped Chaplin make "contact" with himself as an artist. He turned them into other kinds of objects. Thus, a broken alarm clock in the movie The Pawnbroker became a "sick" patient undergoing surgery; boots were boiled in his film The Gold Rush and their soles eaten with salt and pepper like prime cuts of fish (the nails being removed like fish bones). This physical transformation, plus the skill with which he executed it again and again, is surely the secret of Chaplin's great comedy.He also had a deep need to be loved—and a corresponding fear of being betrayed. The two were hard to combine and sometimes—as in his early marriages—the collision between them resulted in disaster. Yet even this painfully-bought self-knowledge found its way into his comic creations. The Tramp never loses his faith in the flower girl who'll be waiting to walk into the sunset with him; while the other side of Chaplin makes Monsieur Verdoux, the French wife killer, into a symbol of hatred for women.It's a relief to know that life eventually gave Charlie Chaplin the stability and happiness it had earlier denied him. In Oona O'Neill Chaplin, he found a partner whose stability and affection spanned the 37 years age difference between them, which had seemed so threatening, that when the official who was marrying them in 1942 turned to the beautiful girl of 17 who'd given notice of their wedding date, he said, "And where is the young man? "—Chaplin, then 54, had cautiously waited outside. As Oona herself was the child of a large family with its own problems, she was well prepared for the battle that Chaplin's life became as many unfounded rumors surrounded them both—and, later on, she was the center of calm in the quarrels that Chaplin sometimes sparked in his own large family of talented children.Unit3A welfare client is supposed to cheat. Everybody expects it. Faced with sharing a dinner of raw pet food with the cat, many people in wheelchairs I know bleed the system for a few extra dollars. They tell the government that they are getting two hundred dollars less than their real pension so they can get a little extra welfare money. Or, they tell the caseworker that the landlord raised the rent by a hundred dollars.I have opted to live a life of complete honesty. So instead, I go out and drum up some business and draw cartoons. I even tell welfare how much I make! Oh, I'm tempted to get paid under the table. But even if I yielded to that temptation, big magazines are not going to get involved in some sticky situation. They keep my records, and that information goes right into the government's computer. Very high-profile.As a welfare client I'm expected to bow before the caseworker. Deep down, caseworkers know that they are being made fools of by many of their clients, and they feel they are entitled to have clients bow to them as compensation. I'm not being bitter. Most caseworkers begin as college-educated liberals with high ideals. But after a few years in a system that practically requires people to lie, they become like the one I shall call "Suzanne", a detective in shorts. When welfare learned I was making money on my cartoons, Suzanne started "visiting" every fortnight instead of every two months. She looked into every corner in search of unreported appliances, or maids, or a roast pig in the oven, or a new helicopter parked out back. She never found anything, but there was always a thick pile of forms to fill out at the end of each visit, accounting for every penny.There is no provision in the law for a gradual shift away from welfare. I am an independent businessman, slowly building up my market. It's impossible to jump off welfare and suddenly be making two thousand dollars a month. But I would love to be able to pay for some of my living and not have to go through an embarrassing situation every time I need a spare part for my wheelchair.There needs to be a lawyer who can act as a champion for the rights of welfare clients, because the system so easily lends itself to abuse by the welfare givers as well as by the clients. Welfare sent Suzanne to look around in my apartment the other day because the chemist said I was using a larger than usual amount of medical supplies. I was, indeed: The hole that has been surgically cut to drain urine had changed size and the connection to my urine bag was leaking.Unit 4A transformation is occurring thatshould greatly boost living standards in the developing world. Places that until recently were deaf and dumb are rapidly acquiring up-to-date telecommunications that will let them promote both internal and foreign investment. It may takea decade for many countries in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe to improve transportation, power supplies, and other utilities. But a single optical fiber with a diameter of less than half a millimete can carry more information than a large cable made of coppe wires. By installing optical fiber, digital switches, and the latest wireless transmission systems, a parade of urban centers and industrial zones from Beijing to Budapest are stepping directly into the Information Age. A spider's web of digital and wireless communication links is already reaching most of Asia and parts of Eastern Europe.All these developing regions see advanced communications as a way to leap over whole stages of economic development. Widespread access to information technologies, for example, promises to condense the time required to change from labor-intensive assembly work to industries that involve engineering, marketing, and design. Modern communications "will give countries like China and Vietnam a huge advantage over countries stuck with old technology".Still, there's little dispute that communications will be a key factor separating the winners from the losers. Consider Russia. Because of its strong educational system in mathematics and science, it should thrive in the Information Age.The problem is its national phone system is a rusting antiqu that dates from the l930s. To lick this problem, Russia is starting to install optical fiber and has a strategic plan to pump $40 billion into various communications projects.But its economy is stuck in recession and it barely has the money to even scratch the surface of the problem. Meanwhile, Hungary also hopes to jump into the modern world. Currently, 700,000 Hungarians are waiting for phones. To partially overcome the problem of funds and to speed the import of Western technology, Hungary sold a 30% stake in its national phone company to two Western companies.To further reduce the waiting list for phones, Hungary has leased rights to a Dutch-Scandinavian group of companies to build and operate what it says will be one of the most advanced digital mobile phone systems in the world.In fact, wireless is one of the most popularways to get a phone system up fast in developing countries. It's cheaper to build radio towers than to string lines across mountain ridges, and businesses eager for reliable service are willing to accept a significantly higher price tag for a wireless call—the fee is typically two to four times as much as for calls made over fixed lines.。