Photo: Kickstarter One in five American teens suffers from a slight hearing loss and one in 20 from a more severe loss, in what are respectively 30% and 77% increases compared to 20 years ago, according to a study by the American Medical Association. The cause of this increase is believed to be the mass […]
Tag: united states
With its 391 units spread among 46 floors, the glass tower has transformed south Manhattan’s skyline. But it has been an utter business failure.
The midterm elections were a stinging defeat for Barack Obama. But it was also a wholesale indictment of U.S. politics, which is both disturbing and confounding when viewed from abroad.
What’s been catching our eyes, and the world goes by…
A rather bluesy version of “I’m Waiting for the Man” will be featured on the upcoming 45th anniversary reissue of the Velvet Underground “s third and self-titled album, released in 1969. The remastered edition is set to be released on Nov. 24 on Polydor. According to Pitchfork, this “super deluxe” version of “The Velvet Undergorund” […]
A second Obica location has now opened in New York, bringing the global chain’s high-end authentic mozzarella experience to a new level of global expansion.
Have you ever wondered if someone, somewhere in the world, once went through their playlist and selected the exact same song at the exact same moment you did? If you and a complete stranger, for a few minutes, shared a musical communion without knowing it? Spotify’s first “Artist in Residence” Kyle McDonald has. To answer […]
While elsewhere the ‘Obama factor’ may hurt Democrats, in South Dakota the Sioux tribe may tip the scales in the president’s favor as control of the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance.
Categories
International Delicacies
I’m not exactly an adventurous eater, but I did taste that alligator pie in Lafayette, Louisiana, during a big jazz festival. It tasted like veal. I also nibbled on a fried scorpion in China — tasteless — and, together with 12 fellow travelers in South Africa, ate a gigantic omelette made with a single ostrich […]
Looking at the business fundamentals, there are both very good and very bad signs for Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella. Is there a (positive) lesson in IBM’s evolution?
DALLAS — Greg Lucas wasn’t feeling at the top of his game. He’d gained weight, and the machines at the gym filled him with apprehension. “Sex wasn’t tops, but that wasn’t the problem,” he says. “I felt tired. I was dragging myself around.” Lucas was then 25 years old. He decided to go and see […]
Categories
Monumental Indeed
It doesn’t matter how many pictures of the Taj Mahal you’ve seen before, or how often you’ve seen the Iguazu Falls on TV: Seeing the world’s wonders in the flesh will always leave you awestruck. Same goes for Monument Valley’s gigantic sandstone buttes — yes, this speck of dust in the foreground is a car.
A German expat in California explains why American microbrews get it all wrong.
The only way to eradicate the destructive lionfish, non-native to the Atlantic Ocean and now endangering prey species along the U.S. coast, may be to eat it. But mind the venom.
Sixty years ago this week, on October 16, 1954, a 19-year-old Elvis Presley stepped on stage at the Louisiana Hayride radio show in the town of Shreveport, Louisiana. Backed by his band, the young man from Memphis, Tennessee, played a song he recorded just a few months earlier called “That’s All Right.” The first ever […]
Categories
Long-Lost Cousin
I was not expecting to find my surname in the list of immigrants featured on Ellis Island’s Wall of Honor. But after all, mallards are migratory birds, aren’t they?
Barack Obama is governing in a much different world than his predecessors. How will his foreign policy be remembered? Who does he most emulate? Hint: It’s not Jimmy Carter.
It is nearly too little, nearly too late, but there is still a way for the U.S. President to be the leader the world needs in the face of ISIS extremism.
With its racist ideology and its customs from another era, the KKK is still poisoning the minds of children and wreaking havoc. The movement aspires to create a “new white America.”
The author of a new book on the U.S. drone program reveals an early attempt to pilot drones out of Germany, without the German government’s knowledge.
With his new Kickstarter project, “The DNA Project,” Israeli-born and Brooklyn-based musician j.viewz wants to produce a new kind of album in which his fans will be able “reach into and trace each song back to its origin,” he explains on the crowdfunding site. The project offers several different interactive innovations between the artist and […]
When the Black Keys decide to cover other people’s songs, the result is usually pretty good. And when they decide to cover a masterpiece, such as Edwyn Collins’ 1994 “A Girl Like You,” it is truly a special occasion. Indeed, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, the band’s bluegrass rockers, saved the song for a gig […]
Categories
The Popularity Of Repetitive Music Explained
There might be a reason why everyday radio tunes tend to sound the same: most humans prefer repetition over variation in their music. According to an online TED lesson by Elizabeth Hellmuth Marguli, the director of the Music Cognition Lab at the University of Arkansas, hearing the same loops and songs over and over again […]
OXFORD — The walls in this Oxford, Mississippi, bookstore are covered with pictures of authors. One by one, Richard Howorth comments on them, as if this place were an open book narrating a multitude of unfinished stories. With his wife, this keen-eyed slender man with a dry humor has owned and managed Square Books, housed […]
Photo: Sachyn Mital James Murphy, the 44-year-old American musician of LCD Soundsystem fame, announced at the start of the 2014 U.S. Open that he was teaming up with IBM to create an algorithm that would turn raw data from tennis matches into music. Now that the tournament is over and Serena Williams and Marin Cilic […]
Categories
In A Galaxy Not Too Far Away
Don’t worry, I haven’t traveled that far. This was just one of the tourist attractions at Universal Studios Hollywood back in 1988.
Some of the notable passings during the past month.
Photo: Bosley Facebook page BALTIMORE — Soul and funk are two of the few music genres that have never really gone out of fashion. Which may partly explain why the Baltimore-based band Bosley, by combining both styles with talent, was just elected best band of their city in this month’s issue of Baltimore Magazine. Bosley […]
Ravens tend to have a bad rap. In the Middle Ages, because they fed on corpses after executions, they were associated with gallows. In mythology, two ravens symbolizing wisdom and intelligence were attributes of the northern god Odin. But ravens — and other members of the corvine family like crows, jackdaws and magpies — are […]
Categories
Texas Cousins
When people hear the word “cajun,” they automatically think about Louisiana. But a small community of these descendants of French-speaking Acadian exiles also lives in Texas. The association “Les Acadiens du Texas” was founded in Beaumont in the late 1970s to preserve their history, which included traditional dances in not-so-traditional outfits.
Categories
Lauryn Hill Releases Tribute To Ferguson
American singer Lauryn Hill has released a recorded version on Soundcloud of her track “Black Rage,” which she had only played live for the past two years. The former Fugees frontwoman dedicated the song to the residents of Missouri, where tension is still high after African-American teenager Michael Brown was killed by a police officer […]
After 15 years of living and working in the United States, a Die Welt correspondent says good-bye, not only to his adopted country but also to the pre-9/11 grandeur the U.S. once enjoyed.
Categories
New Guitar Center Prompts Worst Jam Ever
What happens when you mix a bunch of wannabe rock stars, a brand new music shop with probably the world’s best instruments and amps, and a lack of music cabins or headphones? The hilarious video below. It was taken at the new Guitar Center in New York’s Times Square that opened earlier in August, and […]
Many countries agree that the U.S. politicizes the dollar by punishing nations who don’t abide by U.S. sanctions. With this American approach comes isolation, and the risk of the dollar being replaced as global currency.
As disturbing as it is, what’s happening in Ferguson, Missouri, is simply evidence of American police becoming increasingly militarized, a trend that’s been building for years.
Categories
Duke The Dog Elected Mayor Of Minnesota Town
CORMORANT — A 7-year-old dog named Duke has been elected honorary mayor of the small town of Cormorant, Minn. Winning just 12 votes, he is said to have won by a “landslide.” Local residents hope the furry pol, who will officially be sworn in Saturday, will continue guarding the town, making the community safer and […]
President Barack Obama’s decision on the limited U.S. intervention in Iraq seems to have no long-term strategy behind it. Even Obama seems to know that.
Categories
Change Of (Marine) Life
The owners of SeaWorld San Diego bought Los Angeles’ Marineland of the Pacific in early 1987 before suddenly closing it. That meant all the animals had to be transferred to San Diego. A year later, when we went to see them, Corky the killer whale had been renamed “Shamu.”
-Analysis- WASHINGTON — It was almost as a spectator earlier this week that the United States welcomed Egypt’s announcement of a 72-hour ceasefire in Gaza between the Israeli army and Hamas, which has since ended. The clearest sign yet of how Washington has begun to lose control over events came Aug. 1 when U.S. President […]
To remember the iconic canopied path of the Oak Alley Plantation in Louisiana, I took both this picture and a piece of bark that had fallen down. I keep it in my living room, next to an ornate leaf from the Taj Mahal which had also fallen down — I’m not that kind of tourist! […]