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☆ ‘Dune: Part Two’ Gives Sci-Fi-Obsessed Silicon Valley a Reason to Party
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Mike Isaac | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In a top-floor atrium in downtown San Francisco on Thursday evening, tech workers from Google, Slack, X and Mozilla mingled next to a pair of cardboard cutouts of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya. Alex Stamos, the former head of security at Facebook, was also spotted. “Do you think they’ll let me take home one of the freaky sandworm popcorn buckets?” someone in the crowd tittered. The techies were all there to celebrate Silicon Valley’s newest obsession: “Dune: Part 2,” the latest movie adapted from the Frank Herbert-authored science-fiction saga, which helped inspire many of them to become interested in technology. The film, which follows the 2021 installment “Dune,” sold an estimated $81.5 million in tickets in the United States and Canada over the weekend, the biggest opening for a Hollywood film since “Barbie.”

Persons: Zendaya, Dustin Moskovitz, chatted, Tim O’Reilly, Alex Stamos, Frank Herbert, ”, “ Barbie Organizations: Google, Mozilla, Facebook Locations: San Francisco, United States, Canada

☆ At 40, J. Crew Shakes Off a Midlife Crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Maggie Bullock | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Since 2021, when her bosses asked her to make her Instagram account public, her following has gone from under 1,000 to 148,000. She’s not on TikTok, yet a search of her name there pulls up 2.2 million views. The selfies Ms. Gayot casually shoots in the full-length mirror of her office of herself wearing J. Crew with enviable ease — topped by her trademark mane of Botticelli curls — are starting to fill that Jenna Lyons cult-of-personality void without getting exactly personal, as Ms. Lyons is wont to do. Ms. Gayot started her new job in the very early days of the pandemic, pregnant with her second child and coming into the office daily, long before a vaccine was on the horizon.

Persons: She’s, Gayot, —, Jenna Lyons, Lyons, “, ”

☆ Linda R. Hirshman, Who Challenged Stay-at-Home Mothers, Dies at 79
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Penelope Green | More About Penelope Green | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Most of the women — including a gastroenterologist, a lawyer and a corporate vice president — had left their jobs to be stay-at-home mothers. “The home-economics trap involves superior female knowledge and superior female sanitation,” she wrote. ‘Where’s the butter?,’ Nora Ephron’s legendary riff on marriage begins. ‘Where’s the butter?’ actually means butter my toast, buy the butter, remember when we’re out of butter. Next thing you know you’re quitting your job at the law firm because you’re so busy managing the butter.”

Persons: ”, —, Hirshman averred, Don’t, ‘, ’ Nora Ephron’s Organizations: The New, American Prospect, Penguin Locations: The New York

☆ Jimmy Buffett Was More Than Beaches and Booze
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-02 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Jimmy Buffett built a pop-culture empire on the daydream of “wastin’ away again in Margaritaville”: just hanging out on a tropical beach, drink in hand, a little wistful but utterly relaxed. Buffett leveraged it into a major brand for restaurants, resorts, clothing, food and drink, as well as a perpetual singalong on his robust touring circuit, where his devoted fans — the Parrot Heads — gathered eagerly in their Hawaiian shirts. Buffett cannily marketed his good-timey image; it made him a billionaire. He came up with wry song premises like the one behind “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” which starts as the lament of an attempted vegetarian who can’t resist carnivorous impulses. But Buffett’s songwriting wasn’t all smiley and one-dimensional.

Persons: Jimmy Buffett, wastin ’, “, ”, Buffett, Buffett cannily, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Zac Brown, I’ve Locations: Margaritaville ”, Paradise, “, Paris

☆ Read Your Way Through Appalachia
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-09 | by ( Barbara Kingsolver | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Appalachia is a region and a mind-set. Appalachia has few large cities, our economies are land-based and, unless you live here, we’re probably not what you think. It’s “Appal-achia.” As in, “If you keep that up, I’ll throw this apple atcha.” But in fact, we won’t. We tend toward heart-blessing kindness in the way of small-town folks who rely on each other in good times and bad, and live together regardless. Weighing in at nearly three pounds, “Writing Appalachia: An Anthology,” edited by Katherine Ledford and Theresa Lloyd, is too big to pack but too wonderful to miss.

Persons: we’re, “, King James Bible, ”, Katherine Ledford, Theresa Lloyd, — James Still, Jesse Stuart, Harriette Simpson, Steven Stoll’s, Stoll, otherness Locations: Appalachia, Georgia , Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, State

☆ The Amiable, Unswerving Tony Bennett
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Has there ever been a more purely likable pop figure than Tony Bennett? Throughout a career that began in the 1940s, Bennett, who died on Friday at 96, maintained one mission, amiably and unswervingly. Instead, he let listeners — and, in recent decades, much younger duet partners — come to him, generation after generation. Bennett sang vintage pop standards, the pre-rock canon sometimes called the Great American Songbook. He was always unplugged — a simple fact that cannily recharged his career when he played “MTV Unplugged” in 1994.

Persons: Tony Bennett, Bennett, didn’t, —, Ralph Sharon, “ Organizations: American, “ MTV

☆ Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga Dueted. Their Stars Were Reborn.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( Lindsay Zoladz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

In August 2021, while battling Alzheimer’s disease, Bennett, who died on Friday at 96, made his final public appearance on that very same stage, again with Lady Gaga. A poignant “60 Minutes” segment captured Bennett’s struggles in rehearsals but his ultimate triumph when he took the stage. He sang with more eclectic and, in some cases, even younger musicians on his series of “Duets” albums, from 2006 to 2012. Gaga satisfied Bennett’s desire to stay active and involved with a younger generation of musicians, and her professional stability made her into the most committed of his duet partners. I felt dead,” Gaga said of the time before “Cheek to Cheek.” “And then I spent a lot of time with Tony.

Persons: Alzheimer’s, Bennett, Lady Gaga, Bennett’s, Gaga, “, ’, ”, “ Cheek, Cheek, I’d, ” Bennett, Elvis Costello, K.D, Lang, Amy Winehouse, ” Gaga, Tony Organizations: MTV Locations: Radio City

☆ Putin’s ruthless power play may not preclude a revival of Ukraine grain deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Stephen Collinson | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Guterres said that he’d sent Russia proposals to keep the grain deal alive but that he was “deeply disappointed” that his efforts went unheeded. The UN chief’s comments reinforced a view that, for now, Russia sees a point of leverage in refusing to renew the Black Sea grain deal. Erdogan won prestige and the gratitude of his fellow NATO leaders and developing nations for brokering the original grain deal. So it may risk damaging its own priorities by triggering widespread food shortages, especially since much of Ukraine’s grain is used in World Food Programs to alleviate famine in Africa. While the end of the grain deal would cause significant global hardship, its worst effects may be weeks away – so there could be time for diplomacy to work.

Persons: Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden, Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky’s, Antony Blinken, it’s, ”, There’s, Dmitry Peskov, General António Guterres, Guterres, he’d, “, autocrats — Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Erdogan, cannily, He’d, Michael Kimmage, ” Kimmage, Kimmage, “ That’s, ” John Kirby, Nicolay Gorbachov, Isa Soares Organizations: CNN, United Nations, NATO, Kremlin, UN, Putin, State Department, Catholic University of America, National Security Council, Ukrainian Grain Association, CNN International Locations: Ukraine, Africa, United States, Crimean, Russian, Turkey, Russia, West, Eurasia, Moscow, Turkish, Europe, Washington

Biden rolls out the red carpet for Modi and business is watchingThe White House is rolling out the red carpet for Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, with a state dinner on Thursday. High on the agenda: Talks to strengthen economic and security ties as the Biden administration cultivates partners to counter China. met Mr. Modi in New York on Tuesday and said India had more promise than any other big country. Enticed by the country’s sustainable energy potential, Mr. Musk said he hoped his electric carmaker could start doing business there “as soon as humanly possible.”India is booming. Mr. Modi has cannily managed to stay in the good graces of the West and Russia since the Kremlin declared war on Ukraine.

Persons: Biden, Narendra Modi, India’s, Elon Musk, Modi, Musk, cannily Organizations: Modi, SpaceX, Kremlin, Investors Locations: China, New York, India, West, Russia, Ukraine

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