One of America's best-known artist colonies, the MacDowell Colony, will turn 110 next year. It is a place where artists of all types can sweep away distractions (令人分心的事物) and just create.

    MacDowell's operations are funded by foundations, corporations and individuals. Writers, composers, photographers, filmmakers and sculptors — both famous and unknown —compete for the 32 free studios at the place. Once accepted, an artist can stay for as little as a couple of weeks, or as long as a couple of months.

    When they arrive, artists find a kind of isolation (隔绝) hard to find in our world. There's no phone. No fax. No friends. No family. It's just a cabin in the snowy woods.

    Writer Emily Raboteau lives in New York City. She came to MacDowell to work on a novel. She received a desk, chairs, pencil and paper — and ice grippers. The walk from one isolated, one-room studio to another is icy, so colony residents (居住的人) fasten the ice grippers to the bottom of their shoes.

    Another colony resident, Belfast composer Elaine Agnew, plays a piece called “To a Wild Rose,” written by Edward MacDowell. She says it's so famous that every pianist in the world has played the tune. A hundred years ago, Macdowell owned the land where the colony now sits. He liked its isolation and his ability to get work done there. After his death, his wife, Marion, encouraged other artists to come.

    And for the last century, artists have accepted the invitation, coming to step outside of their daily lives for a short time. Privacy is respected, but cooperation and discussion is common.

    Screenwriter Kit Carson — who wrote Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and the film adaptation of Sam Shepherd's play Paris, Texas — has visited MacDowell twice. He says that the interdisciplinary (学科间的) discussion there is valuable.

    “You sit around at dinner, talking, and then somebody runs off and brings you back some stuff and shows it to you,” he says. “That, I didn't realize, was part of the magic here, because people are really open to showing their opinions here.”

    Jessica Tandy probably is best known for winning an Academy Award in 1989 for the movie Driving Miss Daisy. She was the oldest person to have won the award. But for many years, she had received praise for her great performances.

    Jessica Tandy was born in London in 1909. After her father died, her mother taught and took other jobs at night to make extra money to raise her, three children. Jessica's older brothers showed an interest in the theater and often put on shows at home. Jessica said later that she was terrible in all of them. But she said taking part in those plays as a child created a desire in her to be someone else.

    Jessica loved going to the theater. This love led her to attend an acting school in 1924. She performed in her first play called The Manderson Girls at 18. But few people watched this play. In 1932, she married the famous actor Jack Hawkins. Their wedding pictures were on the front page of many British newspapers. In the same year, critics in London recognized her great acting skill in her performance in the play Children in Uniform.

    In 1940, Jessica ended her first marriage and moved to the USA. In New York, she met actor Hume Cronyn. Two years later, they married and moved to Hollywood.

    Her turning point came in 1947 when she played the lead part in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire. Tandy won the first of her four Tony awards for best actress in it. After that Hollywood producers began to choose her to be in the movie.

    Jessica Tandy said she hated seeing herself in the movies. She was surprised when she won the Academy Award for Driving Miss Daisy. She said that the wonderful part she had made up for her lack of experience in movies.

C

    As cultural symbols go, the American car is quite young. The Model T Ford was built at the Piquette Plant in Michigan a century ago, with the first rolling off the assembly line（装配线） on September 27, 1908. Only eleven cars were produced the next month. But eventually Henry Ford would build fifteen million of them.

    Modern America was born on the road, behind a wheel. The car shaped some of the most lasting aspects of American culture: the roadside diner, the billboard, the motel, even the hamburger. For most of the last century, the car represented what it meant to be American—going forward at high speed to find new worlds. The road novel, the road movie, these are the most typical American ideas, born of abundant petrol, cheap cars and a never-ending interstate highway system, the largest public works project in history.

    In 1928 Herbert Hoover imagined an America with "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." Since then, this society has moved onward, never looking back, as the car transformed America from a farm-based society into an industrial power.

    The cars that drove the American Dream have helped to create a global ecological disaster. In America the demand for oil has grown by 22 percent since 1990.

    The problems of excessive（过度的）energy consumption, climate change and population growth have been described in a book by the American writer Thomas L. Friedman. He fears the worst, but hopes for the best.

    Friedman points out that the green economy（经济）is a chance to keep American strength. "The ability to design, build and export green technologies for producing clean water, clean air and healthy and abundant food is going to be the currency of power in the new century."

    Australia was first used as an island prison by Britain to solve their problem of having a fast growing prison population. These early settlers were those who were sent from all over Great Britain, including Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. Later events, such as the gold rush, caused several waves of immigration (移居) from Europe, Asia and other parts of the world. It is commonly thought that Australians are offspring (后代) of those criminals (罪犯)! In fact, only a part of Australians are those criminals' offspring. Also, in those days, people could be put into prison or sent to Australia for small crimes, like stealing a loaf of bread. Today Australia is home to the largest Greek and Italian communities in the world, outside Greece and Italy. This has helped the Australian accent develop.

    Australian English was created by the first generation of children born in the new area. Since they talked with people who have different accents, they began to speak a distinct dialect of English that was to become the language of the nation. These differences were first noted by late arrivals in the early 1800s, and the language sounds like Cockney English, spoken by the working­class in London.

    Soon, words from native languages were to become part of the Australian English. Here are some words you may consider them to be Standard English. In fact, they are from native Australian languages!

    The names of many places and animals, including Canberra (the Australian capital, meaning "meeting place" in a local language).

    Hard yakka — meaning "hard work", coming from the language of the Brisbane area.

    Cooee — a call used traditionally by native Australians to attract attention, because the sound can travel long distances.

    Bung — meaning "dead", but also used to mean broken or useless, for example, "He has a bung eye".

The Amazon Clipper

    Join the Amazon Clipper for an exciting journey through the world's most plentiful river and largest typical jungle. The river is surely an excellent way to get to know the complex secrets of the Amazon rainforest.

    Day 01 Wednesday: Departure

    The boat departs from the Tropical Experience Hotel at 11:30 am. Once on board, you'll be introduced to the staff and to your room. The hotel will be ready to serve some delicious food for lunch. You'll then navigate towards the Pagodao River.

    Day 02 Thursday: Amazon

    In the morning you'll have a hike in the forest with a specialist guide. You'll have the chance to know the local vegetation(植物) ,as well as spend some time with a native family. You'll see how they prepare manioc (树薯) flour, very typical of the Amazon dietary culture. You'll then sail through Anavilhanas, the largest fresh water archipelago (群岛)in the world.

    Day 03 Friday: Amazon

    Today you'll sail to Praia Grande or another white sand beach. Hopefully there will be some time to swim! Then, you'll take a canoe trip on Lake Acajatuba, to observe the typical vegetation. Then, you'll stop at Paricatuba to see some abandoned buildings from the rubber growing age.