Archive for May, 2009

New Orleans has Mardi Gras. Brazil has Carnival — a dancing-in-the-streets celebration that lasts for a week just before Ash Wednesday. The elaborate parades include lots and lots of music from some of the country’s biggest singing stars. It’s good stuff, and trucks bring it. Specially adapted to become moving stages, outfitted with a stadium quality sound system, these rolling entertainment vehicles are known as trios eletricos. The first were created about 50 years ago from …

Hating the Yankees is as time-honored a tradition among baseball fans as wolfing down hot dogs and Cracker Jack. But it’s awfully hard to aim bad feelings toward easygoing manager Joe Torre, who arrived to extremely low expectations and then led the New York team to multiple championships in his 12 years at the helm. He’s a reasonable and calming background presence in this audiobook, read by Spo…

When Sandy Moret watched an 80-pound tarpon grab the fly on the end of his line 40 years ago, it wasn’t just the fish that was hooked. Moret, a newcomer to Miami at the time, didn’t know much about fly fishing. Though he had plenty of experience with bass and baitcasting tackle, when a friend took him to the saltwater flats near Miami to chase tarpon with a fly rod, he really didn’t know what to expect. It was pretty cool to see this fish actually move up and grab the fly, but when I set the h…