Новости за 13.08.2015

Remember the epiphany — life changed irrevocably in a gorgeous zinger moment of pure consciousness (the last paragraph in James Joyce’s “The Dead” or the last paragraph in John Cheever’s “Goodbye My Brother”)? What her stories lack in intensity and self-conscious virtuosity they make up for in a fundamentally less moral approach to the short story than the one that prevailed in the Salinger-Cheever-Updike era. Like Wolfe’s, Beattie’s method favored intensive, immersive research into what felt like verbatim texts from somebody’s material life.

Married and pregnant by 16, a mother of seven, never literate (her grocery lists consisted of tiny drawings), all her “teeth pulled when she was thirty-six,” Fanny in Brown’s telling was never a victim but an eccentric, outlandish, endearing and finally prosperous “woman/ up from poor soil, bad dirt,” “sturdy, thorned, green.” Later in life, Fanny drove an “Eldorado, a car impossibly/ long with impossible fins,” kept a gun among her hair rollers, and wore the same outfit — “a businessman’s short-sleeve... Читать дальше...

On Dec. 28, 1969, a Puerto Rican nationalist group called the Young Lords, deeply influenced by the Black Panthers, took over a church in East Harlem. Unexpectedly, a 25-year-old Puerto Rican man, a Vietnam veteran named Pedro Pietri, took the microphone and read a many-pages-long poem called “Puerto Rican Obituary.” Dressed all in black, with a bushy mustache and a long, deeply expressive face, he read his tribute to the tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans who gave up their homeland, their language... Читать дальше...

In the excellent seventh-season “Mad Men” episode “The Monolith,” Sterling Cooper’s creative team loses its brainstorming/smoking/drinking lounge to make way for an enormous 1969 state-of-the-art office appliance. Filled with retro tech-industry ads, magazine covers and other commercial artworks, this erudite book takes readers on a cultural history tour that sharply reveals “art’s ability to touch the intangible and render it visible.” Consider, for example, the artistic conundrum raised by something like electronics... Читать дальше...

Recommended books, Aug. 16 The Complete Stories By Clarice Lispector; translated by Katrina Dodson; edited and introduced by Benjamin Moser Lispector’s work is enjoying a robust renaissance, and her gifts surface instantly in even the earliest of these stories — dry, incisive freshness of language; fierce, finely parsed description; ruthless determination to tear to the bone of the riddle of life. Part coming-of-age tale and part survival guide and blistering critique, Coates’ book — written as an open letter to his son ... Читать дальше...

In Adam Johnson’s 2012 novel “The Orphan Master’s Son,” winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the San Francisco author escorted readers around the frightening hermit kingdom of North Korea. In “Nirvana,” the nameless narrator is a Palo Alto computer programmer employed by a company called Reputation Curator, which “threatens Yelpers and Facebookers to retract negative comments about dodgy lawyers and incompetent dentists.” To cope, Charlotte listens endlessly to Nirvana on her headphones, bonding with Kurt Cobain. Читать дальше...

Historians write about the ages of kings or empires; the foot-soldiers, traders, widows and mistresses are cast away; they are rarely given a name, their existence barely acknowledged. Amitav Ghosh is trained as an anthropologist, and over the past three decades he has judiciously combined his research skills with humane empathy and the gift of telling a good yarn to write novels on a big scale. The Ibis was a ship with “sails like wings and a long beak” that set sail in 1838 with a motley bunch of convicts and migrant workers... Читать дальше...

Sports calendar, Aug. 13-14 Baseball Minors: N.Y. Yankees at Cleveland MLBNet Cincinnati at L.A. Dodgers MLBNet Washington at Giants Channel: 11 Basketball USA showcase: Blue-White scrimmage ESPN2 Golf PGA Championship TNT U.S. Women’s Amateur FS1 LPGA: Portland Classic GolfCh. NFL Exhibition games Green Bay at New England NFLNet Tennis Rogers Cup ESPN2 Arena football Playoffs: Baseball N.Y. Yankees at Toronto MLBNet Cincinnati at L.A. Dodgers MLBNet Minors: Washington at... Читать дальше...

Seth Roberts bidding to join Raiders’ wide-receiver corps Raiders quarterback Derek Carr invited the Raiders’ receivers to his family’s spread in Bakersfield a few weeks before training camp, and Seth Roberts was blown away. Not by the field or weight room where Rodger Carr developed his sons into two NFL quarterbacks, but by the living room. “His family has chalkboards all over the place, even in the living room,” the second-year receiver said. Roberts spent last year, his rookie season, on the practice squad... Читать дальше...

MONTEREY — Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has disputed Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s charge that Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama are largely responsible for the rise of the group Islamic State, even as he expressed concern that the administration needs “a larger strategy on how to deal with the Middle East.” On Tuesday in a foreign policy speech at the Reagan Library, Bush said the United States’ “premature withdrawal” from Iraq was a “fatal error” that created a void filled by the Islamic State... Читать дальше...

[...] biologists have rediscovered a species of that eight-arm sea creature that's even stranger and shares some of our social and mating habits. With their shifting shapes, mesmerizing eyes, and uncanny intelligence, octopuses "are one of the most mysterious and captivating species," said Rich Ross, a senior biologist at the California Academy of Sciences. The critters just didn't fit the loner denizen-of-the-deep profile that scientists had drawn for the rest of the 300 or so octopus species. Читать дальше...

(AP) — A day after sharply criticizing Hillary Rodham Clinton while outlining his strategy to fight the Islamic State, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said Wednesday the key to winning the 2016 election is "campaigning with your arms wide open" and "joy in your heart." During a meet-and-greet in Reno, the former Florida governor told about 200 people to resist getting behind those candidates who appeal to voters' anger and fear about the future. Bush's campaign swing through Nevada came... Читать дальше...

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis was one of a handful of local elected officials across the country that stopped issuing marriage licenses after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in June. “Kids for cash”: A federal judge has approved a $4.75 million settlement between a businessman at the center of a Pennsylvania juvenile justice scandal and youths sent to his detention centers by a corrupt judge. Robert Powell was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in the scandal... Читать дальше...

In an apparent daredevil attempt to evade arrest, a woman who wrecked a stolen car on the Bay Bridge early Wednesday fell about 70 feet from the span to the water and got away after pulling out of the grip of a California Highway Patrol officer, authorities said. Impossible — unfolded shortly after 2 a.m. when CHP officers heading west on the bridge saw a Nissan Maxima spin out and crash on the eastbound side of the span. The officers turned around, found the Nissan abandoned and saw three women... Читать дальше...

Warriors’ 2015-16 schedule: Familiar foes to open the season The NBA apparently liked what it saw from the Warriors in the postseason. The league released its schedule Wednesday and it has Golden State playing a franchise-record 25 national TV games in a title-defending season that opens with four games against the three teams the Warriors met in the Western Conference playoffs. [...] on Christmas Day, the defending NBA champions will host LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team they beat in six game in the Finals in June. Читать дальше...

A federal judge put the NFL on the defensive over its four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady on Wednesday, demanding to know what evidence directly links Brady to deflating footballs and belittling the drama of the controversy. “What is the direct evidence that implicates Mr. Brady?” Judge Richard M. Berman repeatedly asked NFL lawyer Daniel L. Nash at the first hearing in the civil case in Manhattan federal court with Brady and Commissioner Roger Goodell in the room. Читать дальше...

A central figure in revelations of back-channel dealings with utilities that embarrassed the California Public Utilities Commission and prompted federal and state criminal investigations assumed a controversial new role Wednesday — leader of reform efforts at the state agency. Mike Florio, a former lawyer for a customer-advocacy group who was appointed to the regulatory commission in 2011, has endured months of criticism — some of it from his former allies — since the disclosure last year that he... Читать дальше...

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. chief has fired the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic over the force’s handling of dozens of sexual and other misconduct allegations, including rape and killing, in the year and a half of its existence. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking with unusual force, said Wednesday that he has accepted the resignation of Gen. Babacar Gaye of Senegal and declared, “Enough is enough.” “I cannot put into words how anguished and angered and ashamed... Читать дальше...

Shower heads and bathroom faucets sold at stores will soon pack a little less punch under restrictions passed by California regulators Wednesday. The latest regulation approved by the California Energy Commission requires shower heads to spray no more than 2 gallons per minute, starting in July, and no more than 1.8 gallons per minute two years later. The new standards for shower heads are expected to save more than 2.4 billion gallons of water in their first year and 38 billion gallons over 10 years, as the inventory turns over. Читать дальше...

DERRY, N.H. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John Kasich defended millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally as "people who are contributing significantly" to the nation, taking on a divisive issue Wednesday as he promised to redefine conservatism during his latest New Hampshire appearance. Kasich, a second-term Ohio governor, addressed immigration among other delicate political issues before a crowd of more than 200 packed into a small VFW hall, his second public stop in a two-day swing through the first-in-the-nation primary state.

When the Seattle Mariners beat Baltimore 6-5 in 10 innings Tuesday night, it marked the first time in baseball history all 15 home teams won on the same day. Viewing every game as a 50-50 proposition independent of all other factors, Stats LLC figured the odds of a home sweep on a night with a full major-league schedule was 1 in 32,768. Research by the Elias Sports Bureau, baseball’s official statistician, indicated that previously the best performance by home teams had been 12-0 on May 23, 1914. Читать дальше...

The Denver Broncos’ quarterback says Tom Brady apologized to him — unnecessarily — after taking a shot at him in recently released e-mails. The New England quarterback’s exchange with friends in November was contained in documents released as part of the NFLPA’s lawsuit on behalf of Brady seeking to quash his four-game suspension. The NASCAR and IndyCar team owner will be inducted into the Sonoma Raceway Wall of Fame on Aug. 29, a day before the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma Verizon IndyCar Series season finale. Читать дальше...

Finding affordable housing means a longer commute for one Silicon Valley worker

Rory McIlroy ready for duel with Jordan Spieth Rory McIlroy faces a different set of questions from the last time he played, and he had answers for most of them. McIlroy is No. 1 in the world ranking. Spieth has four wins this year, one more than McIlroy; two of them are majors. “If you were to go by this year, you would have to say Jordan,” McIlroy said. “I’ll tell you at the end of the week,” McIlroy joked. PGA Championship Defending champion:

Rad relinquished the CEO title and became company president in March after he was accused of sexual harassment and misogyny by female cofounder Whitney Wolfe. Rad and cofounder Justin Mateen allegedly “subjected Ms. Wolfe to a barrage of horrendously sexist, racist, and otherwise inappropriate comments, emails and text messages,” according to a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court last summer. Payne was hired to assert stronger leadership at Tinder in light of the sexual harassment scandal. Читать дальше...