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Entertainment

‘Annette’ Evaluate: Love Hurts – The New York Occasions

‘Annette’ Review: Love Hurts - The New York Times

“Annette” is a musical about the unfortunate romance between two artists, a description that suggests an obvious relationship with “La La Land” and “A Star is Born”. Not for playing algorithms or anything, but if you enjoyed these movies, you will probably like this one too.

Or maybe not. While more or less part of the enduring genre of the backstage musical, “Annette” aims to be something darker and stranger than yet another fearful melodrama about the entanglements of ambition and love. It has some modern operas in its DNA – a garish strand of violence, madness and demonic passion that is reminiscent of Vienna or Berlin before World War II as well as classic Hollywood. Instead of breaking out into song or dance at appropriate moments, the characters pour their tortured consciousness through lyrics that are never as simple as they sound.

“We love each other so much.” That’s the chorus that stays in your head when you look at the tragic story of Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) and Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard), a performance artist and opera soprano whose marriage is catnip to the tabloid media . Their love is the premise of the film and its central dramatic problem. It’s also a red herring in a way. The sexual bliss and emotional relationship that fill the first act give way to anger and alienation, but this isn’t just a love story with a sad ending. It is more of a case study, a critique of romantic mythology on which its appeal seems to depend.

“Annette” is a collaboration between Ron and Russell Mael – better known as the long-lived, pigeonhole band Sparks – and director Leos Carax. “Annette” begins with an overture in the key of anti-realism. The Mael brothers who wrote both the script and the songs are in the recording studio. Carax and his daughter Nastya are sitting behind the mixer. The cast and crew take to the streets, and Driver and Cotillard slowly get drawn into their characters. He puts on a flowing dark wig and then a motorcycle helmet. She gets into a black SUV. You are now Henry and Ann. The boundary between artificiality and reality is clearly marked for us; for these two it will be blurry, permeable, and treacherous.

Carax, whose feverishly imaginative features include “Pola X” and “Holy Motors”, has never used the naturalism that most filmmakers use as a guide. The world of “Annette” has some familiar place names (including Tokyo, London and Rio, although most of it is set in Los Angeles), but it is a land beyond the literal, a product of set design, dream logic and hallucinatory expressionism. The fact that the characters sing more than they talk – even during sex – is in some ways the least weird thing about the film, which casts a series of mechanical puppets in the title role.

Annette is the name of Ann and Henry’s daughter, and to explain her centrality to the narrative, one could risk a spoiler or two. Not that the plot is terribly complicated or surprising; it unfolds with the relentless dynamic of a nightmare. First comes love, then marriage, then Annette comes in the stroller. What follows is drunkenness and murder; Shipwreck, ghosts and guilt.

But let’s go back to the beginning, Henry and Ann in their mutual enchantment. While everyone has a thriving career, it is Henry who gets the most attention. It’s partly charisma, partly narcissism and completely in line with his identity as an artist. He is the star and writer of “The Ape of God,” a one-man show (with backing singers) that deals with the kind of bellicose self-expression that popular culture sometimes confuses with honesty.

Henry storms onto the stage in a hooded bathrobe that opens to reveal tight boxer shorts and an impressively sculpted torso, preaching to the audience with intimate, often disgusting confessions. Shame and bravery are the changing currents of his deed, tensed by a hyper-articulate, cynical self-confidence. The audience laughs even though Henry isn’t telling jokes, but rather challenges the public to take his aggression seriously.

Is he an internal critic of toxic masculinity, or an exceptionally attractive example of it? That may be a distinction without a distinction. With Henry, as with some of his hypothetical real-life analogies, it is difficult to separate art from artist because the defiance of such a separation is the whole point of his art.

Ann is a different kind of artist and a less insistent presence in film. She seems at times to step back in the shadow of her husband’s larger, purer personality. This can seem like a failure of the filmmakers’ imagination, who portray them as the object of Henry’s lust, jealousy, and resentment rather than a creative force in its own right. She has more in common with the Cotillard characters in “Public Enemies” and “Inception” than with those in “Rust and Bone” or “La Vie en Rose”.

This imbalance turns out to be crucial in this film’s indictment of the cruelty excused in the name of the genius, his relentless dissection of masculine claims. This is less of a love story than a monster movie about a man unable to grasp the full reality of other people including his own wife and child. (The “not all men” objection is embodied by Simon Helberg, who plays a conductor who is Henry’s occasional rival for Ann’s affection.) The consequences are fatal, and the final reckoning is as devastating as anything I’ve come across in a recent one Saw the movie. musical or not.

Driver, whose so far best roles as restless men in the theater were (see also “Girls” and “Marriage Story”), wasted no energy to make Henry sympathetic or to exaggerate his villains. Instead, he’s completely believable, not because you understand Henry’s psychological makeup, but precisely because you can’t. His megalomania distorts everything. He’s not larger than life, but he thinks he is, and Driver’s performance perfectly matches that contradiction.

“Annette” masters her own paradoxes. It’s a highly cerebral, formally complex film about unbridled emotions. A work of art that is driven by a skepticism about where art comes from and why we value it the way we do. A fantastic film that challenges some of our culture’s most cherished fantasies. Totally unreal and absolutely true.

Annette
Rated R for Sturm und Drang. Running time: 2 hours 19 minutes. In theaters. On Amazon, August 20.

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Politics

Russia Bans Bard School – The New York Occasions

Russia Bans Bard College - The New York Times

Michael C. Kimmage, a former State Department official who specializes in US-Russian relations, said the bard action sent a terrifying message to academics.

“I can’t think of a responsible administrator at an American college or exchange program who doesn’t take this seriously and is concerned,” said Dr. Kimmage, now professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington.

Russia has taken several steps to reduce educational exchanges between the two countries, despite trying to establish educational partnerships elsewhere and improve the quality of its domestic public universities.

In 2014, the Russian government withdrew from the Future Leaders Exchange program, a US State Department-funded initiative to promote US study by foreign high school students, after a Russian teenager studying in Michigan sought political asylum had. More recently, limited consulate services have made it difficult for Russian students to obtain a visa to study in the United States.

Suspicions have also increased in the USA. In 2019, a program at the American University in Washington was criticized as being too soft on Russia, and the Russian ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, accused the US news media of Russophobia while calling for increased cultural exchange between the countries.

Several American universities set up programs in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but some of them have closed in recent years. In 2018, Stanford University announced that it was suspending its Russian study abroad programs, citing security issues. That same year, Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts began phasing out its program at Astrakhan State University in Astrakhan, Russia, citing the cost and difficulty of managing its program from the United States as reasons.

The decline may be largely symbolic, indicative of the deterioration in relations between countries. Russia has never been a major partner in international study programs with the United States and ranks low on the list of countries whose students come to the United States. And according to the Institute of International Education, the number of Americans studying abroad in Russia fell to 1,305 in 2019, and data is available for the last year, from 1,827 in 2011.

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Health

What Causes I.B.S.? – The New York Instances

What Causes I.B.S.? - The New York Times

IBS is the most commonly diagnosed gastrointestinal disease. Although symptoms can vary from patient to patient, they often include cramping, abdominal pain, gas, gas, and diarrhea or constipation, or both. The condition affects more women than men and is most common in people under 50. The annual medical cost of the disease exceeds $ 1 billion in the United States alone.

It is a chronic condition that requires ongoing management strategies such as: B. Always know the location of the nearest bathroom or wear diapers when access to the toilet is restricted. The emotional distress it can cause often leads to depression and anxiety, and can lead others to mistakenly think that the bowel disease is self-inflicted.

There is a known connection between the brain and the gut, and excessive stress can certainly make IBS symptoms worse. Cognitive behavioral therapy can benefit some patients, and many find it helpful to practice relaxation techniques such as positive imagery, progressive muscle relaxation, or meditation.

Yoga and other types of physical activity can also relieve irritable bowel syndrome symptoms and improve patients’ quality of life. A clinical study of 102 patients found that those who did vigorous physical activity three to five days a week had fewer physical and psychological symptoms.

Another calming technique that can be used anywhere, anytime to relieve pain and stress is diaphragmatic breathing, the opposite of being sucked into the bowel. Instead of pushing the chest out while the lungs fill with air, the diaphragm is pushed down toward the stomach, which lifts the abdomen. Practice by placing a hand over your navel to feel your stomach rise as you slowly inhale through your nose, then pull it back as you exhale through your mouth.

Patients can also minimize their symptoms by avoiding the foods or drinks that appear to trigger them. Common troublemakers are wheat and other gluten-containing foods, dairy products, citrus fruits, beans, cabbage and related gas-producing vegetables, and carbonated beverages. People can also react badly to spicy or fatty foods, coffee, or alcohol.

Some patients find dramatic relief by adopting a strict FODMAP diet that eliminates all fermentable starches and sugars and then gradually adding one food at a time to determine which symptoms are causing symptoms and are best avoided. The FODMAP diet positively changes the microbial population living in the gut and reduces gas-producing bacteria that thrive on fermentable foods. (See this website for details on diet.)

Categories
World News

Afghanistan Flood Kills 80 – The New York Occasions

Hong Kong Website Doxxing Police Gets Blocked, Raising Censorship Fears

KABUL, Afghanistan — At least 80 people were killed with a hundred more missing after a flash flood tore through a village in a Taliban-controlled area of eastern Afghanistan late Wednesday night, Afghan officials said.

The deluge swept away most of the village in the Nuristan Province, destroying around 200 homes, and caught most residents off guard because they were sleeping. By Thursday night, villagers had recovered around 80 bodies but as the search continues, local officials expect the death toll to surpass 200.

“It is wiped out, nothing remains after floods,” said Abdul Naser, a resident of the district who visited the village on Thursday. “No aid has arrived yet, and there are no measures for caskets, coffins and funerals.”

The flash flood is the latest blow for Afghanistan, where fighting between government forces and the Taliban has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in recent months and pushed the country to the brink of a humanitarian crisis, aid agencies say. Since international troops began withdrawing in May, the Taliban have made a swift military advance across the country, gaining control of more than half of the country’s 400-odd districts.

But as the militant group presses on in its offensive, raising the possibility of a complete Taliban takeover, many have questioned whether they could effectively govern the war-stricken and foreign aid dependent country if they seize power. The flood, in Kamdesh district, offered an early test for the Taliban’s ability to provide relief services — a sign of effective governance — in the areas they control.

On Thursday afternoon, local officials called on the Taliban to grant aid groups access to the district to provide emergency services. But by the afternoon, search and rescue teams had still not been able to reach the remote village largely because the Taliban control the roads into the district, according to a statement from the Ministry for Disaster Management. Local disaster management committees in nearby Kunar and Laghman provinces were working on getting their rescue teams to the area.

“The area is under Taliban control, if the Taliban allow us, we will take aid to the area,” said Hafiz Abdul Qayum, the governor of Nuristan Province.

In a statement Thursday evening, a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that the group welcomed aid organizations’ assistance.

Floods in northern and eastern Afghanistan are not uncommon this time of year. In August last year, flooding in Charikar, a city on the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains, in northern Afghanistan, killed at least 92 people and injured 108 others.

But the flash flood in Nuristan comes as extreme weather has taken a grim toll around the world this summer and scientists warn that warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions is changing the climate. Heavy rainfall is a visible sign of that change, they say, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture — producing more powerful rain.

This month alone, floods deemed once-in-a-millennium or rarer killed at least 170 people in Europe and caused billions in damages after homes, businesses, vehicles and electricity and sewer systems were wiped away. Floodwaters trapped terrified passengers in submerged subway cars, swept cars away and caused power outages in Zhengzhou, China. And monsoon rains set off a flash flood in the Grand Canyon in the United States.

In recent decades, flash floods have become increasingly common in Afghanistan after widespread deforestation largely destroyed the open woodlands and closed forests that once slowed the flow of water down mountainsides. With weak governance and entrenched conflict putting people in additional peril, Afghanistan consistently ranks as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change, according to the World Bank.

Of the 110,000 Afghans who have been affected by some sort of natural disaster so far this year, 75 percent experienced flooding, according to the United Nations.

Fahim Abed reported from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Zabihullah Ghazi from Jalalabad.

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Health

The epidemic will sweep throughout the U.S. at completely different occasions, Dr. Scott Gottlieb says

The epidemic will sweep across the U.S. at different times, Dr. Scott Gottlieb says

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC that he expects surging U.S. coronavirus cases, linked to the highly transmissible delta variant, to start decreasing in just a few weeks. 

“Probably, in two or three weeks, I think that we were probably about three weeks behind the U.K.,” said the former FDA chief in the Trump administration.  

“The U.K. clearly is on a downslope…I would expect some of the southern states that really were the epicenter of this epidemic to start rolling over in the next two or three weeks.”

While the epidemic is still expanding across southern states, the rate of expansion is showing signs slowing. Gottlieb told “The News with Shepard Smith” that the slowdown is a sign that those southern states may be reaching their peak. 

Gottlieb did warn, however, that northern states may start to see more delta spread, as rates decrease in the south. 

“Here, in this country, it’s going to be much more regionalized now, I don’t expect the density of the spread of delta in states like New York or Michigan to be what it was in the south,” Gottlieb said. “We have more vaccine coverage, up there, we’ve had more prior infection, but you will see an uptick in cases, even in states where there is a lot of vaccine coverage, probably just not as severe.” 

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion Inc. and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ and Royal Caribbean’s “Healthy Sail Panel.”

Categories
World News

Your Monday Briefing – The New York Occasions

Your Monday Briefing - The New York Times

In the UK, an average of nearly 45,000 cases of the coronavirus per day were reported over the past week, an 83 percent increase from the average two weeks ago. The death toll has risen 141 percent as England’s chief medical officer warned hospital admissions could double every three weeks and hit “scary numbers”.

Despite these troubling statistics, England is set to lift its final restrictions today, even though more than 500,000 people were quarantined by the National Health Service’s test-and-trace app after coming in contact with someone who had positive for the coronavirus.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his chief financial officer, who both had contact with an infected cabinet minister, are among the quarantined. Downing Street originally said yesterday that they would avoid quarantine, which sparked a quick and violent backlash from critics accusing them of double standards.

British Politics: Johnson is under fire for refusing to condemn crowds who booed England’s national football team for kneeling in protest against racial injustice. His refusal is a strong echo of former President Donald Trump’s targeting NFL players kneeling in the U.S. for the same cause

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

For other developments:

  • Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation, now has the highest number of new coronavirus infections in the world, with 57,000 new cases reported on Friday. Experts estimate that the real number is three to six times as high.

  • American tennis star Coco Gauff has tested positive for the coronavirus and will not be participating in the Tokyo Olympics, which is contributing to the first cases in the athletes’ village.

  • After scandals and outrages, congested host cities, and now a pandemic, some are wondering if the games are worth the effort.

  • Some local governments in China have begun requiring all students – and their families – to be vaccinated before students can return to school this fall.

First person: “The flash floods brought so much with them – cars and containers and torn trees – that it was impossible to launch lifeboats,” said one witness. “I’ve never seen such a raging, rushing river.”

Destruction: Videos, photos and a map show the extent of the damage.

Floods in Europe are just one sign of a global warming crisis, which highlights the reality that the world’s richest nations are unprepared for its aftermath. However, whether mounting disasters in developed countries, including forest fires in Canada and scorching weather in California’s wine country, will affect climate policy remains to be seen.

The extreme weather disasters come a few months before the UN-led Glasgow climate negotiations in November, which is practically a moment of reckoning whether the nations of the world will agree on ways to contain emissions enough to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

The European Commission last week presented an ambitious roadmap for change that includes a tax on imports from countries with less stringent climate policies. However, it is widely expected that the proposals will meet with fierce objections both inside and outside Europe.

Quotable: “Although not everyone is equally affected, this tragic event is a reminder that no one is safe in a climate emergency, whether they live on a small island nation like mine or a developed Western European country,” Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives, said of the flood .

Scenes in Siberia: The people of northeast Siberia are suffering from the worst forest fires they can remember. Thick smoke hung over Yakutsk, the coldest city in the world. Outside the city, villagers were digging trenches to keep fires away from their homes and fields.

Four months after the mega-ship Ever Given got stuck in the Suez Canal, neither the canal nor the shipping industry addressed some of the most critical problems that led to the bottoming out. Our investigation examines what went wrong.

Emmanuelle Polack is a 56-year-old art historian and archivist who tries to uncover the difficult history of some of the Louvre’s precious works – and to help them find their way back to their rightful owners.

France has been criticized for lagging behind countries like Germany and the United States in identifying and returning works of art looted during World War II. The Louvre has recently tried to change its image and examine the provenance of its works more thoroughly.

The museum houses more than 1,700 stolen works of art that were returned to France after the Second World War and for which no legal owners have yet reported.

For Polack, the key to uncovering the secret stories of works of art suspiciously changed hands during the Nazi occupation is to follow the money. She sifts through the Louvre’s voluminous files to see how works of art have been bought and sold over the years. The backs of paintings often give clues of sales, restorations, and framers that could lead back to their owners.

“During the occupation, I kept a secret garden above the art market for years,” she says. “And finally, it is recognized as a crucial study area.”

Read more about the Louvre’s restitution efforts.

This icebox cake adds a twist to banana pudding by using chocolate waffles instead of the classic vanilla.

Naomi Osaka, a new three-part miniseries on Netflix, cleverly explores the psychology of the tennis star rather than focusing on her technical skills.

In “The Cult of We”, Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell investigate how Adam Neumann, a co-founder of WeWork, built a billion dollar company from renting joint workspaces.

Categories
Health

Sluggish-Wheeling to the Sea – The New York Occasions

Slow-Wheeling to the Sea - The New York Times

“People will be watching,” warned Minna Caroline Smith at Lapham’s Quarterly about her groundbreaking three-wheeler tour of the North Shore in eastern Massachusetts. Not only were the adult self-propelled tricycles new, so were the women who rode them. It was 1885.

The gender shock may be gone now, but as the only person who drove a tricycle on the same streets a century and later, I knew exactly what the incisive Smith meant. My weekend travel comfort, a low recumbent tricycle that was driven with hands instead of feet, was probably even more attention-grabbing. This was a first attempt at adaptive bike touring. After riding around the world for a lifetime, I switched to a handwheel after suffering from spinal cancer and a complication that partially paralyzed my legs.

I hesitated at first as I was aware of how low the riding would look. When I finally flipped the mental switch, I went all-in. In the ultra-light performance trike I rented from a store called Northeast Passage in Durham, NH, I was on my back with my legs hanging on aluminum hangers as if they were stretched out on a low chaise longue with my head and my longue Upper body on a back pillow for my husband. The pedal handles were at eye level, the black cranks and the silver chain whirred around like a hamster wheel in front of me. A long pole with flashing LED lights and an orange flag pulled behind me to alert the rest of the world to me.

In two days as I retraced Smith’s 35-mile route from Malden Center to Cape Ann, kids raved about me and my curious device, and young adults secretly stuck their iPhones out of car windows to catch me on video. One yelled so unreservedly that it shook the quiet of the village in Manchester by the sea.

“Are you falling asleep in that thing?” an elderly man in the Magnolia neighborhood of Gloucester asked eagerly. At Singing Beach in Manchester, a driver complained that I was difficult to see and suggested safety. “You should go find a lead somewhere, ”he said.

I was happy to be able to ride again. I identified with the 19th century Smith, not as a free-thinking crusader but as part of the disenfranchised – a disabled man trying to join the fun with healthy bodies. I felt a tie. Our modern, mixed-gender, middle-aged group consisted of six riders: some experienced cyclists, some beginners. My wife Patty used an e-bike with pedal assistance, the rest of them standard racing bikes. The mood would be reserved; there was no need to rush.

Boston’s North Shore has always been a top cycling destination. In and Around Cape Ann, a popular guide book for cycling guides published in the 1880s, praised the view from the mostly well-maintained and stepped dirt roads. In 1898, in the heyday of the bicycling frenzy in front of the car, a Boston newspaper printed a richly illustrated map of our bike tour route with hand-drawn panels devoted to snapshots of bridges, churches, gates shaded by elms, and the signature of views off the coast.

The start of the modern route wasn’t a postcard from Currier & Ives – a busy Route 60 lay in front of our assembly point in the parking lot of the suburban hockey rink. But minutes later, the automotive commotion disappeared as we hit the Northern Strand Trail, a eight-mile, newly built railroad path through Everett, Malden, Revere, Saugus and the coastal town of Lynn. The trail is also part of the East Coast Greenway, a partially completed 3,000-mile cycle and pedestrian network connecting cities from Key West, Florida, to Calais, Maine.

The wide, well-marked path was a revelation, creatively lined with community gardens, living murals, public sculptures, and various green spaces and expansive salt marshes. The road surface started with asphalt and then continued on gravel and gravel (there have been several improvements to the trails since our ride in Northern Strand in 2019, including a nice new bridge over the Saugus River and pavement while).

We crossed the path under the Route 1 flyover and around the Revere Showcase Theaters. All of us, lifelong New Englanders and some who live just a handful of miles away, kept saying a variation of the same: We had no idea this was.

The Rumney Marsh Reservation, a beautiful 600 acre salt marsh that borders the trail and encompasses parts of Saugus and Revere, would have made Smith’s poetic heart beat faster. Just five miles from downtown Boston, the habitat was a stopover for migratory birds and a constant gathering place for majestic tidal giants such as great blue herons, one of which we saw flying overhead.

As expected, large oaks and birches lined the path; unlikely to have splintered shallow-rooted maples over it, the result of a recent northeast. On the eight miles of bike-to-sea path between Malden and Lynn’s winding coastal boulevard, at least half a dozen trees had fallen, triggering all sorts of inventive bypasses: under, over and basically through the roughage.

My Low Rider, which is not necessarily seen as a versatile all-terrain machine because the seat is only a few inches above the ground, was actually so low that I could roll under splintered branches. Where I couldn’t, I accepted a nudge, or even, in the case of a crumbling Saugus River footbridge, a brief transfer. I wasn’t demoralized – I needed help. It was an all-for-one, one-for-all group adventure.

We drove one last paved, car-free path into downtown Salem, which is part of a new network of protected lanes throughout the city, which are reached at the start and finish through black metal gates that are reminiscent of high bikes. Smith’s group also stopped here for lunch and for a tour portrait shot at the iconic 17th-century Salem Common.

We knew about the photo from digital reproductions, but were surprised that the Essex Institute original was framed and hung three and a half meters in the Witch City Mall. Her formal attire – long dark dresses for the women, military-style uniforms for the men – belied her unmistakable sense of self-irony.

Above all, the men were ham sitting on the ground in front of their thrown high bikes, as the high-wheel bikes of the time were called. One of the riders looked to the side, as if pondering a bewitching vision (he was looking exactly south of today’s Goodnight Fatty), the sensational mainstay of biscuit and soft serve in the brick courtyard across the street.

The 1885 ladies lost much of their party after the official photo was taken; the rest of the riders continue to an inn in Manchester. We didn’t get quite that far and ended a 20-mile day at the Wylie Inn in Beverly City. The inn (owned and operated by Endicott College) is on a historic summer estate and is one of several stately homes on the Gold Coast that sit on headlands and secluded boardwalks.

The next day we happened to meet the owners of one of the advertised properties. We were admiring a perfectly formed cove at Kettle Cove in Gloucester, about ten kilometers northeast of the Wylie Inn, when an elderly couple stepped out of a hidden, overgrown path onto the coastal road. “This is Black Beach,” offered the man, dressed practically in high waders, a shell jacket and heavy, shrub-repellent gloves. “The other is white, but we don’t call them that, we call them Pebbly and Sandy. “

My father, Oliver Balf, was one of the many New York artists who came to Cape Ann in the 1940s. Like many others, he came in the summer and stayed forever. I’m pretty sure that as a young man his gaze was drawn to the same open-air backdrops we’ve seen all weekend: the working fishing boats chugging in the pocket harbors, low banks of starchy offshore clouds against a wide, blue sky with cold water .

On the second day we cycled the long route between Beverly Farms and Gloucester, branching off Route 127 onto Ocean Street and Shore Road, each of which offers breathtaking branch routes with ocean views. We came across a sign etched in granite that said WOE TIDES and a weathered wooden arrow over a stone for Old Salem Path. In an attempt to take a shortcut back to Main Street, we bypassed Thunderbolt Hill, a steep, curving, granite-lined street near Singing Beach in Manchester, where James Fields, founder of The Atlantic Monthly, was once Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, entertained, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The tour with a hand trike, two large wheels behind me and a third in the middle in front, was surprisingly great. Of course I sat there, could relax and enjoy the passing landscape in peace. But I was entertained excitingly on the descent, leaning like a slalom driver to quickly carve corners. The pedaling power of my upper body was consistent and reliable, and as the tour continued I didn’t feel any different, even though I knew I looked different. Trikes and e-bikes ensure a level playing field. More inclusive tours and a wider variety of them are likely to follow. But it was also good to know that you can go cycling with old cycling friends, one of whom thought the whole weekend in a historic tweed vest, tie and shirt with a collar.

Minna Caroline Smith had originally planned that her trip should end in Magnolia, but a growing craving for Gloucester clams brought her another six kilometers to a hotel near Pavilion Beach. We thought the trip would end in downtown Gloucester as well, but after a perfect fried fish and chowder lunch at the Causeway Restaurant, a local lunchtime eatery, we drove on a total of 12 miles to circumnavigate Cape Ann and complete the day.

Todd Balf is the author of several non-fiction books and most recently a memoir about his disability journey entitled Complications.

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Categories
Health

Gradual-Wheeling to the Sea – The New York Occasions

Slow-Wheeling to the Sea - The New York Times

“People will look,” warned Minna Caroline Smith in Lapham’s Quarterly about her pioneering tricycling touring of the coastal North Shore in eastern Massachusetts. It wasn’t just that the self-powered adult tricycles were novel, but so, too, were the women riding them. It was 1885.

The gender shock may now be gone but as the only person steering a tricycle on the same roads a century plus later, I knew exactly what the incisive Smith meant. My weekend travel convenience, a low-riding recumbent trike powered by hands instead of feet, was arguably even more attention-getting. This was a first try at adaptive bike touring. After a lifetime of riding around the world, I was changing to a hand cycle after spine cancer and a complication that left my legs partially paralyzed.

I had hesitated initially, aware of how low-riding would look. When I finally flipped the mental switch, I went all in. In the ultralight, performance trike I had rented from a shop called Northeast Passage in Durham, N.H., I was supine with my legs suspended in aluminum stirrups as if stretched on a low chaise longue with my head and upper torso propped up with a back-cradling husband pillow. The pedal hand grips were eye level, the black cranks and silver chain whirring around in front of me like a hamster wheel. A long pole with blinking LED lights and an orange flag trailed behind me to alert the rest of the world to notice me.

In two days retracing Smith’s 35-mile route from Malden Center to Cape Ann, I had kids gush at me and my curious rig, and young adults clandestinely stick their iPhones out car windows to catch me on video. One person whooped so unreservedly it shattered the village quiet in Manchester by the Sea.

“Do you fall asleep in that thing?” an older man in the Magnolia section of Gloucester asked covetously. At Manchester’s Singing Beach, a motorist complained I was hard to see and offered a safety suggestion. “You should go find a track somewhere,” he said.

I was glad to be riding again. I identified with the 19th-century Smith, not as a freethinking crusader exactly, but as part of the disenfranchised — a disabled man trying to join able-bodied fun. I felt a tie. Our modern, mixed-gender, middle-aged party consisted of six riders: a few experienced cyclists, others first timers. My wife Patty used a pedal assist e-bike, the rest standard issue road bikes. The vibe would be low key; there was no need to rush.

Boston’s North Shore has always been a premier cycling destination. “In and Around Cape Ann,” a popular wheelman’s guidebook published in the 1880s, lauded the views from the largely well-tended and graded dirt lanes. In 1898, in the heyday of the pre-car bike riding mania, a Boston newspaper printed a lavishly illustrated map of our bike touring route, devoting hand-drawn individual panels to snapshots of bridges, churches, elm tree-shaded gateways and signature offshore views.

The modern route’s start was no Currier & Ives postcard — a bustling Route 60 fronted our suburban hockey rink parking lot gathering point. But minutes later the automotive tumult disappeared as we set out on the Northern Strand Trail, an eight-mile, newly constructed rail trail through Everett, Malden, Revere, Saugus and coastal Lynn. The trail is also part of the East Coast Greenway, a partially completed 3,000-mile bike and pedestrian network linking towns and cities from Key West, Fla., to Calais, Maine.

The wide, well-marked trail was a revelation, creatively bordered with community gardens, vibrant murals, public sculpture and assorted green spaces and sprawling salt marshes. The road surface began with pavement then continued on gravel and dirt (since our Northern Strand ride in 2019 there have been several trail improvements, including a handsome new bridge across the Saugus River, and pavement throughout.)

We traversed on the trail beneath the Route 1 overpass and around the Revere Showcase cinemas. All of us, lifetime New Englanders and some living only a handful of miles away, kept saying some variation of the same thing: We had no idea any of this was here.

The Rumney Marsh Reservation, a gorgeous 600-acre salt marsh bordering the trail and spanning parts of Saugus and Revere, would have sent Smith’s poetic heart soaring. Only five miles from downtown Boston, the habitat was a stopover for migratory birds and a permanent hangout for majestic tidal giants like great blue herons, one of which we saw flying overhead.

Large oak and birch trees, as expected, lined the path; not expected were shallow-rooted Norway maples splintered across it, the result of a recent nor’easter. Over the eight miles of the Bike-to-Sea path between Malden and Lynn’s winding seaside boulevard there were at least a half dozen trees down, precipitating all types of inventive bypasses: under, over and basically through the roughage.

My low rider, not necessarily viewed as a versatile all-terrain machine because the seat bottom is mere inches from the ground, was actually so low I could roll beneath splintered tree limbs. Where it couldn’t, I accepted a nudge, or even in the case of a then-crumbling Saugus River footbridge, a brief portage. I wasn’t demoralized — I needed help. It was an all-for-one, one-for-all group adventure.

We rode a final paved, auto-free path into downtown Salem, part of a new network of protected lanes throughout the city, this one accessed at start and finish by black metal gates resembling high wheelers. Smith’s group stopped here, too, for lunch, as well as for a touring portrait taken at the iconic, 17th-century Salem Common.

We knew about the photograph from digital reproductions, but were surprised to find the Essex Institute-owned original framed and hung in three-and-half by two-and-half-foot glory at the Witch City Mall. Their formal attire — long dark dresses for the women, militarylike uniforms for the men — belied their unmistakable sense for self-satire.

The men in particular were hams, sitting on the ground before their thrown-down penny farthings, as the high-wheel bikes of the day were known. One of the riders looked off sideways, as if ruminating on an entrancing vision (he was looking in the exact southerly direction of present day Goodnight Fatty), the sensational cookie and soft serve mainstay in the brick courtyard across the street.

The 1885 ladies lost much of their party after the official photo was taken; the remaining riders continuing on to an inn in Manchester. We didn’t get quite as far, ending a 20-mile day at the Wylie Inn in the city of Beverly. The inn (owned and operated by Endicott College) is on the grounds of a historic summer estate and is one of several magnificent Gold Coast homes dotting headlands and secluded waterfronts.

We happened to meet the owners of one of the heralded estates the next day. We were admiring a perfectly sculpted Kettle Cove bay in Gloucester, about six miles northeast of the Wylie Inn, when an older couple emerged from a hidden overgrown trail onto the shoreline street. “This is Black Beach,” offered the man, practically dressed in high wading boots, shell jacket and heavy briar-repelling gloves. “The other one is White, but we don’t call them that, we call them, Pebbly and Sandy.”

My father, Oliver Balf, was one of the numerous New York City artists who came to Cape Ann in the 1940s. Like many others he came for the summers and stayed for good. I am pretty sure as a young man his eye was drawn to the same en plein-air backdrops we saw throughout the weekend: the working fishing boats chugging about pocket harbors, low banks of starchy offshore clouds against a wide, cold-water blue sky.

On the second day, we cycled the long route between Beverly Farms and Gloucester, detouring off Route 127 onto Ocean Street and Shore Road, each stunning spur routes to ocean views. We came across a sign, etched in granite, that read, WOE TIDES and a weatherworn wooden arrow above a stone for “Old Salem Path.” On one attempt to take a shortcut back to the main road, we bypassed Thunderbolt Hill, a steeply curving, granite-lined drive near Singing Beach in Manchester where James Fields, the founder of The Atlantic Monthly, once entertained Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Touring with a hand trike, two big wheels behind me and a third centered in front, was surprisingly great. I was sitting, of course, able to relax and leisurely take in the passing countryside. But I was thrillingly entertained on downhills, leaning like a slalom skier to carve corners at speed. The pedal power from my upper body was steady and dependable, and as the tour continued, though I knew I looked different, I didn’t feel different. Trikes and e-bikes help level the playing field. More inclusive tours, and a greater variety of them, are likely to follow. But it was also good to know you can set off with old cycling friends, one of whom saw fit to ride all weekend in a period tweed vest, tie and collared shirt.

Minna Caroline Smith had initially planned for their trip to end in Magnolia, but a deepening craving for Gloucester clams brought her another four miles to a hotel near Pavilion Beach. We figured the trip would end in downtown Gloucester, too, but after a perfect fried fish and chowder lunch at the Causeway Restaurant, a noontime local favorite, we went farther, 12 miles in all, keen to round Cape Ann and thoroughly use up the day.

Todd Balf is the author of several nonfiction books and most recently, a memoir about his disability journey called Complications.

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Your Friday Briefing – The New York Occasions

Your Friday Briefing - The New York Times

The Trump Organization, the family real estate business that catapulted Donald Trump to prominence, was charged Thursday with running a 15-year tax fraud scheme. The charges open up an aggressive new phase in a long-running criminal investigation into the former president and his company.

While the former president himself was not charged, his long-serving and trusted chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, surrendered to the authorities. He is accused of avoiding taxes on $1.7 million in income and faces grand larceny, tax fraud and other charges.

The charges stem from the Manhattan district attorney’s ongoing inquiry into the business practices of Trump and his company. Prosecutors have been looking into whether Trump and the Trump Organization manipulated property values to obtain loans and tax benefits, among other potential financial crimes.

Test of loyalty: Weisselberg is coming under increasing pressure to turn on the Trump family.

Analysis: The charges may hurt Trump’s finances, because indictments can jeopardize relationships with banks and Trump has large outstanding loans.

Digital vaccine cards went into effect in the E.U. to allow residents of member states to travel more freely. But there has been friction over which vaccines qualify — only those made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca — and how the certificates are used.

There are already discrepancies in how member states are using the system, with some countries denying airlines access to the vaccine cards because of privacy concerns.

A month after Greece reopened to tourists, coronavirus cases in the country reached a record low while the numbers of visitors, especially from the U.S., continued to climb. But in Portugal, the government is set to reintroduce nighttime curfews in certain cities — including some tourism hubs — as it struggles to cope with the spread of the Delta variant.

Other travel news: The top executive of the airline holding company Air France-KLM has called on the U.S. to relax restrictions on visitors from the E.U. The Biden administration is considering lifting its ban, the press secretary said.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other developments:

A total of 130 nations have agreed to a blueprint in which multinational corporations would pay tax rates of at least 15 percent wherever they operated. The plan would generate $150 billion in additional tax revenue each year, the O.E.C.D. said.

The conceptual framework also includes rules that would force Big Tech companies and other global businesses to pay taxes in countries where their goods or services are sold, even if they have no physical presence there.

Despite earlier wariness, China, Russia and India are among the signatories. But some major tax havens, including Ireland and some Caribbean nations, still have not signed on to the deal, which could weaken its effectiveness.

Details: The Irish government has said that a deal would need to allow small countries to continue to compete with large ones to make up for the loss of any tax advantage.

Statement: “Today marks an important step in moving the global economy forward to be more equitable for workers and middle-class families in the U.S. and around the world,” President Biden said in a statement.

Activists slammed the TV show “In the Dark” for casting a sighted actress in a blind lead role. The protests invite the question: Is there a right way to act blind?

The most authentic performance of blindness is by turns precise and fumbling, writes Andrew Leland, who has been steadily losing his sight. “For most of the day, blind people are simply people, until they encounter an obstacle or someone says something that returns them to awareness of their difference.”

In the 1950s, the hamlet of Cherry Grove, on New York’s Fire Island, was a refuge for gay men and lesbians. See dozens of enlarged photos from the era.

China yesterday celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of its ruling Communist Party. Xi Jinping, the country’s leader, delivered a defiant speech in which he declared China’s rise unstoppable, as a crowd of 70,000 people waved flags, sang and cheered in unison.

The event was staged to convey a powerful nation at ease while the rest of the world struggled with the pandemic. “The Chinese people will never allow foreign forces to bully, oppress or enslave us,” Xi said, clad in a Mao suit. “Whoever nurses delusions of doing that will crack their heads and spill blood on the Great Wall of steel built from the flesh and blood of 1.4 billion Chinese people.”

The party’s longevity has baffled its critics, and as The Economist reports, no other dictatorship has transformed so much — from a famine crisis in the Mao Zedong era to the world’s second-largest economy. Economic growth and a sharp decline in rural poverty in many places, more than ideology, have won the hearts of many citizens.

For this week’s event, officials are rewriting parts of history and clamping down on criticism in order to glorify the party’s contributions to Chinese citizens. But some party members wonder if Xi is doing enough to move the country forward. They also worry that he has done away with the checks and balances, introduced under Deng Xiaoping, that helped the party avoid embarrassing mistakes and left the economy to flourish.

Related: We compiled pictures showing the improbable rise of a party born in the rubble of dynasty. The anniversary has also inspired a wave of state-approved art.

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Your Wednesday Briefing – The New York Instances

Your Wednesday Briefing - The New York Times

We cover new restrictions as Asia and Australia battle the Delta variant and as rebels recapture Tigray’s capital.

Asia-Pacific countries with slow vaccination campaigns are trying to slow the spread of the more contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus by resorting to a new round of restrictions.

Bangladesh and Malaysia are urging residents to stay home, and Bangladesh is sending soldiers to patrol the streets to make sure no one is outside. In Australia, authorities in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Darwin have imposed strict curfews.

Tired residents become frustrated as in some cases they have already gone through multiple locks. “My restaurant is known for its hospitality and communal dishes, the opposite of social distancing,” said a restaurant owner near Kuala Lumpur. For his business, this lock could be “the last straw,” he said.

Context: Studies have shown that Covid-19 vaccines against the Delta variant are still largely effective, although protection is significantly lower for those who are partially vaccinated. “If we can get a really high vaccination rate, it will change the game completely,” said an epidemiology expert in Melbourne.

Eight months after the attack by the Ethiopian army on the Tigray region, the civil war takes a turn: Tigrayan fighters recapture the regional capital Mekelle. Local residents celebrated in the streets. Here are the latest updates.

The rebels have signaled that they have little desire for a ceasefire. Senior rebel members said they would continue to fight and be ready to pursue Eritrean troops who have joined Ethiopian forces on their territory.

The dramatic turnaround was a blow to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who launched an offensive last November that he promised would be over in a few weeks. After eight months of violence accusing Eritrean troops of atrocities, the war now looks like it could drag on.

Turn the tide: The war began with Tigrayan troops clearly on the defensive. But the rebels have managed to regroup. In addition, the invasion and human rights violations have drawn numerous recruits into the arms of the group.

The toll: Almost two million people have been displaced from their homeland. The region faces a long list of crises, including water and education shortages, and a famine that leaves millions of people starving.

The commander of the US-led mission in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin Miller, warned that the country could be on the path to a chaotic, multi-layered civil war as US and international forces prepare to withdraw in the coming weeks.

“Civil war is certainly a path that can be imagined if it continues on its way,” Miller said during a rare press conference in Kabul. “That should concern the world.”

He did not provide a timeline for completing the withdrawal, but said he had reached a point where he would soon end his command, which began in September 2018.

New York’s dining scene has changed due to the creative outdoor table settings made necessary by the pandemic. But how does the city keep the romance alive while the outbreak subsides and the rules are relaxed? Our food reviewer has a few answers.

In 1897 invading British soldiers stole thousands of artifacts from the Kingdom of Benin, now part of Nigeria. In the UK, the events are known as the Punitive Expedition. In Nigeria, they are known as the Benin massacres because of the residents who killed British troops.

Activists, historians and royals in Nigeria have called for the art to be returned, but museums resisted, arguing that their global collections served “the people of every nation.”

However, given Europe’s grappling with its colonial history, some institutions are changing their position. Germany has announced that it will return a significant number of Benin bronzes (as the items are called) over the next year, and the National Museum of Ireland is planning to return 21 items. The work is expected to move to a new museum in Benin City due to be completed in 2026.

That’s it for today’s briefing. Until next time. – Melina

PS Christina Goldbaum, a reporter at the Metro desk who reported from East Africa, strengthens our Afghanistan team.

The latest episode of “The Daily” is about the building collapse in Miami.

Claire Moses wrote the arts and ideas. You can reach Melina and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.