愛排隊的紐約客

If you are a true New Yorker, you have probably spent a Sunday waiting in line at a restaurant that serves the same brunch dishes as the empty joint next door, while your earbuds play some sort of yacht rock music provided by your insurance company or mortgage holder, which has, of course, put you on hold.

如果你是真正的紐約客，你可能會花費整個星期天在一家餐廳排隊等位，其實隔壁空蕩蕩的小店就提供相差無幾的早午餐;與此同時，你的耳機里響著某段游艇搖滾樂，由你的保險公司或抵押持有人提供，當然，是讓你等待電話轉接時聽的。

It’s how New Yorkers build up the reserves of hostile energy that keep the lights burning.If you are a visitor to New York, a go-to activity might be lining up in front of a Broadway theater well before the house opens, even though your ticket guarantees you the same seat if you arrive at the last minute. It’s where you meet the most interesting people, none of them New Yorkers.

紐約人就是靠著這個來積蓄敵意的能量，讓生命之火常燃。如果你是來紐約的游客，必選的一項活動可能是不等開門就開始在某家百老匯劇院外排隊——盡管你的票保障你最后一刻到達也能坐上同一個位子。在這樣的地方，你可以遇到最有意思的人，他們都不是紐約人。

Either way, as Lou Reed sang, “First thing you learn is that you always gotta wait.”The photographer Natan Dvir, who moved to New York from Israel in 2008, was stunned by the local tendency toward lines. He was waiting amid a crowd at a bus stop, and when the bus pulled up, everyone magically took positions in line, as if they had choreographed it in advance.

無論以哪種方式，正如盧·里德(Lou Reed) 唱的那樣，“你學到的第一件事就是總要等待。”2008年從以色列搬到紐約的攝影師納坦·德沃(Natan Dvir)對這里的人們喜歡排隊這件事感到震驚。他在一個公共汽車站，在人群中等車，當公共汽車停下來時，每個人都神奇地排起了隊，好像提前設計過一樣。

“That sounds normal, right?” he said. “Not in Israel. In Israel, everybody would rush to the bus door. It’s survival of the fittest. I found it so shocking that I almost missed the bus. How did everybody know where to stand? In most of the world, that doesn’t happen.”He found lines at bus stations, restaurants, bathrooms and outside boutiques offering limited-edition sneakers, where posting photos of the line on Instagram was half the fun. Lines were subcultures unto themselves. The lines in Midtown Manhattan were different from those in Flushing, Queens; the lines for Cronuts were different from those outside the Human Resources Administration.

“這聽起來很正常，對嗎?”他說。“但在以色列不是這樣。在以色列，每個人都會沖向公交車門口。這是適者生存法則。我覺得這太震撼了，我?guī)缀蹂e過了公共汽車。大家怎么知道該站在哪里?在世界上大部分地區(qū)，這種情況都不會發(fā)生。”他在公交車站、餐廳、浴室以及出售限量版運動鞋的街頭精品店都發(fā)現了長隊，當然，在Instagram貼出排隊購買限量鞋的照片也是其中的一半樂趣。排隊已經發(fā)展出自己的亞文化。曼哈頓中城的隊伍與皇后區(qū)法拉盛的隊伍是不一樣的;可頌甜甜圈店外的排隊與人力資源管理局外的排隊也是不一樣的。

“People stand in line because it’s cool, or because they’re part of a community,” Mr. Dvir said. “Being in the line is a huge part of the experience, if not the main part of the experience.”After a decade in New York, he said, he has not adopted the city’s lust for lines. If there is a wait to eat at his chosen restaurant, he will eat somewhere else. “It blows my mind,” he said of standing in line. “I hate it with a passion.”

“人們排隊，是因為它很酷，或者因為它們是社區(qū)的一部分，”德沃先說。“排隊就算不是體驗的主要成分，也是重要成分。”他說，在紐約生活了十年之后，他還沒有接受這個城市對排隊的熱情。如果去他想去的餐廳吃飯要排隊，他會換一家去吃。“這太讓我震驚了，”他在談論排隊時說。“我對此恨之入骨。”