《秋分时节，达妮·卡帕尔博已早早规划好了自己的秋季活动。整个秋季，她将在波士顿公寓里穿着温暖舒适的衣物，煮上热腾腾的高碳水化合物大锅料理。她的灵感源自多年前在卡拉布里的山间遇到的一位仁慈女巫——斯特雷加·诺娜，这是托米·德帕奥拉1975年出版同名儿童书中的人物。
她曾在童年图书馆中首次遇见这个角色，但最近她开始看到有人在网上以这位秋天圣母的身份出现。达妮在TikTok上发布了向斯特雷加·诺娜致敬的帖子，获得了超过30万次观看。其他粉丝也开始模仿她，声称自己正从“狂躁夏季”转向一个更加纯真的“斯特雷加·诺娜秋季”。
在一份与《美食街》的一月访谈中，作家兼罐头鱼公司联合创始人卡罗琳·戈尔达伯提到，“斯特雷加·诺娜的核心精神非常符合我的2024年，我内心深处向往古老而宁静的生活。”
尽管这些内容是互联网文化下每个季节的标签产物，但它们也表达了对一个以平静生活和温柔教导著称的角色的持久着迷——这并非网络名人典型的成名之道。
名为“祖母巫婆”的斯特雷加·诺娜是一位治愈师，能用魔力让她的神奇意大利面锅填满魔幻面条。她招了一位名叫大安东尼的小伙子帮助，但在控制烹饪魔法时出了错，导致面条泛滥成灾。这本书的插图由德帕奥拉创作，展现丰富的意大利乡村色彩——陶土屋顶、宝石色孔雀和跨页延展的螺旋面条。
30岁的达妮认为书中营造了一种适合冷天的舒适氛围。她还提到，角色的“邪恶”在万圣节前是个不错的预热。
“夏季总会有大闹特闹的人”，她说道，“现在，你只想待在家里，用你的神奇面条锅做点意大利面。”
德帕奥拉在重新讲述《法师学徒》的故事后创造了斯特雷加·诺娜。这本书为他赢得了儿童文学最高荣誉之一——卡莱科奖，并衍生出多部续作。
尽管它曾因表现魔法而遭到一些书籍禁售，但这并未阻止它的流行和再次复兴。如2015年“布罗德城市”节目中，斯特雷加·诺娜激发了一场毒品狂欢的炖菜；去年新泽西州奥尔德桥森林里的面条堆，让不少网民猜测是斯特雷加·诺娜干的。
她的粉丝们经常将这个儿童故事角色与成熟主题混合在一起，比如24岁的茱丽安娜·特雷西就在最近的万圣节打扮成了“性感斯特雷加·诺娜”。她穿着白色枕头做的帽子和丝袜。
这种童年与成年之间的对比似乎就是图画书角色成为网络梗的原因。另一个人物——阿诺德·洛贝尔创造的青蛙和蟾蜍，也曾因Reddit上的专属页面在2017年重新受到关注。
41岁的克拉希莎·门多萨是一位加利福尼亚德尔诺的第一学年教师，她计划为她的学生讲述青蛙与蟾蜍的友谊，并在天气变冷时将他们带入斯特雷加·诺娜那个充满魔法和面条的世界中。
“我要为这一代的孩子们重新唤醒她”，她说，“她那永无止境的意大利面应该被记住。”
新闻来源：www.nytimes.com
原文地址：It’s ‘Strega Nona September’ on TikTok
新闻日期：2024-09-23
原文摘要：
By the autumnal equinox on Sunday, Danni Capalbo had already had her fall game plan in place for weeks. She would spend the coming months wrapped in cozy layers in her apartment in Boston, stirring up steaming vats of carbohydrates. Her inspiration for the season is a benevolent witch she met in the hills of Calabria, many years ago: Strega Nona, the title character of a 1975 children’s book of the same name by Tomie dePaola. “She’s so relatable,” said Ms. Capalbo, 28. “She’s a little Italian witch who makes pasta all the time.” She first encountered the character in her childhood library. But lately she has been seeing Strega Nona pop up on social media, recast by adults as a patron saint of autumnal nostalgia. She joined in by posting a tribute to the character that has been viewed more than 300,000 times on TikTok. Other fans have enumerated the signs of a “Strega Nona September,” or joked that they were trading the chaos of “brat summer” for a more wholesome “Strega Nona fall.” “Strega Nona core is very much my vibe for 2024, being old in spirit and hunched over a pot,” Caroline Goldfarb, a writer and co-founder of a tinned-fish company, said in an interview with Grub Street in January. If these posts are an outgrowth of the online habit of branding every season, they also represent an enduring fascination with a character known for her quiet way of life and gently administered lessons — not exactly the typical recipe for internet fame. Strega Nona, whose name means “Grandmother Witch,” is a healer who enchants the townspeople with her magically refilling pasta pot. When she recruits the help of a young man named Big Anthony, he bungles the spell that is supposed to halt pasta making. The town overflows with noodles. What about this story has bewitched fans well into adulthood? Margaret Duncan, 29, a health care worker in Boston, finds herself reaching for characters like Strega Nona every autumn, when her nostalgia swells with the back-to-school season. “I think that there’s a longing for simplicity,” she said. “Her biggest problem is that this young man who helps her made too much pasta.” Even that problem, Strega Nona is able to solve: She hands Big Anthony a fork and tells him to start eating. The illustrations in the book, also by Mr. dePaola, feature the rich colors of the Italian countryside, replete with terra cotta shingles, jewel-tone peacocks and curling tendrils of pasta that extend across page breaks. Ms. Capalbo said that the book conjured a certain snug atmosphere that was welcome as she hunkers down for colder weather. The character’s witchiness, she added, is also a nice prelude to Halloween. “Everyone has their big fun summer,” she said. “Now you just want to be cozy and make pasta from your magic pasta pot.” “Strega Nona” is Mr. dePaola’s retelling of a German folk tale, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” The book earned him the Caldecott Medal, one of the most prestigious awards in children’s literature, and yielded more than a dozen follow-ups including “Strega Nona Does It Again” and “Strega Nona Takes a Vacation.” It also became a subject of book bans, according to The New Yorker, for its portrayal of witchcraft. (Writing for the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton University, one scholar argued in 2019 that Strega Nona’s powers, which included soothing headaches and curing warts, seemed rather benign to warrant such a ban.) Mr. dePaola died in 2020, at 85. His longtime assistant, Bob Hechtel, said it was bittersweet that the author had not lived long enough to see his story’s latest renaissance. “I think he would have been completely thrilled that Strega Nona has in some way become a little bit of a cultural reference,” said Mr. Hechtel, 70, who now manages the author’s estate. “Tomie did not want to be forgotten.” The character has already cycled back into popular culture in unexpected ways. Strega Nona inspired a drug-infused stew in a 2015 episode of the show “Broad City.” Last year, when 15 wheelbarrow loads of pasta were dumped in a forest in Old Bridge, N.J., many an online sleuth blamed Strega Nona. Some of her fans seem to take a certain glee in remixing the children’s book character with more mature themes. Julianna Tracey, 24, who lives in western New York, dressed up for a recent Halloween as “Sexy Strega Nona.” She wore a bonnet made from a cream-colored pillowcase and a pair of fishnets. Perhaps that juxtaposition of childhood and adulthood is why picture-book characters so often become meme fodder. Another recent example: Frog and Toad, the Arnold Lobel characters that resurged online thanks to a dedicated page on Reddit in 2017. Krisha Mendoza, 41, a first-grade teacher in Delano, Calif., has been teaching her students about Frog and Toad’s friendship. She plans to bring them into Strega Nona’s mystical, noodle-filled world once the weather gets cooler. “I’m going to bring her back for this generation,” Ms. Mendoza said. “Her never-ending pasta needs to be remembered.”
