新视野大学英语读写教程听力 第三册 te-unit04-b

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[00:00.00]喜欢hxen.net，就把hxen.net复制到QQ个人资料中！Engelbreit's the Name, Cute Is My Game
[00:-1.00]Mary Engelbreit was a talented but struggling artist in her mid-twenties
[00:-2.00]when she flew to New York from her native Saint Louis,
[00:-3.00]hoping to find work illustrating children's books — her life's goal.
[00:-4.00]So she was disappointed when all the book
[00:-5.00]publishers she visited turned her down.
[00:-6.00]One even suggested her drawings might be better suited to greeting cards.
[00:-7.00]2  "I was crushed." Engelbreit admits.
[00:-8.00]Greeting cards seemed a come-down from her high expectations,
[00:-9.00]but the advice stayed with her,
[00:10.00]and she decided to give it a try.
[00:11.00]The results transformed her life forever.
[00:12.00]3  Today Mary Engelbreit sells an astonishing
[00:13.00]14 million greeting cards a year.
[00:14.00]Her popular designs appear on more than 2,000 products,
[00:15.00]including books, calendars, and kitchen items.
[00:16.00]She runs a retail company with shops in nine cities (16 more are planned),
[00:17.00]and her products are carried by 25,000 retailers.
[00:18.00]Annual retail sales are in the $100 million range —
[00:19.00]all as a result of that fateful,
[00:20.00]disappointing trip to New York.
[00:21.00]It's probably no accident that one of Engelbreit's bolder cards shows
[00:22.00]a young girl in overalls,
[00:23.00]her bare feet up on a desk,
[00:24.00]a farm field in the window behind her.
[00:25.00]"We Don't Care How They Do It in New York," the card boasts.
[00:26.00]4  Once you know Engelbreit's distinctive style,
[00:27.00]you can recognize her cards from 20 paces away
[00:28.00] — bright, funny, and with an eye to the past.
[00:29.00]Her cards usually have elaborate border designs comprised of repeated images:
[00:30.00]hearts, flowers, peaches, and teapots, for example.
[00:31.00]Most often, there's Ann Estelle, a woman
[00:32.00]with short,straight hair, big glasses, hat and an acid tongue.
[00:33.00]Ann Estelle (named after her grandmother) is
[00:34.00]the imaginary represen-tative of Mary's outlook.
[00:35.00]5  Engelbreit is cheerful, down-to-earth,humorous, and always cute.
[00:36.00]"I think the world could use more cuteness," she explains.
[00:37.00]Indeed, it's her trademark.
[00:38.00]Her business card once featured a drawing of Ann Estelle,
[00:39.00]cigar in her mouth and drink in hand,
[00:40.00]with the message "Engelbreit's the Name, Cute Is My Game." She adds,
[00:41.00]"As the world gets more complicated,
[00:42.00]it's nice to have old-fashioned stuff around to help
[00:43.00]people cope with the demands of modern life.
[00:44.00]It's like comfort food. This is comfort art."
[00:45.00]6  Old-fashioned art — and values —
[00:46.00]have always been at the core of Engelbreit's life.
[00:47.00]Born June 5, 1952, in St. Louis,
[00:48.00]the oldest of three daughters,
[00:49.00]she started drawing almost as soon as she could hold a pencil.
[00:50.00]7  One of her earliest memories, from age four,
[00:51.00]is of sketching her parents all dressed up to go out for the evening.
[00:52.00]"I was so impressed I had to record it," she says.
[00:53.00]But what impressed her most were illustrations
[00:54.00]from the children's books that her mother read to her.
[00:55.00]Artists such as Jessie Willcox Smith,
[00:56.00]illustrator of children's literary classics,
[00:57.00]and Johnny Gruelle, creator of Raggedy Ann,
[00:58.00]were very influential in hte development of her early drawings.
[00:59.00]8  While attending secondary school,
[-1:00.00]Engelbreit sold dozens of hand-drawn cards
[-1:-1.00]to a local shop for 25 cents a piece —
[-1:-2.00]her first venture into art and commerce.
[-1:-3.00]She ignored her teachers' advice to become an English teacher
[-1:-4.00]and didn't bother with going on to a university
[-1:-5.00]because "I was ready to plunge into my life as an artist."
[-1:-6.00]Working in an art-supply shop,
[-1:-7.00]"I met working artists and realized you can make a living doing this."