Hell or high water

After a powerful New Year’s Eve storm triggered landslides, blackouts and road closures across California, residents were left to deal with the aftermath Sunday as forecasters warned of even more rain in the coming days. The heavy wind and downpours left tens of thousands of homes in Northern California without power for much of Sunday, while record high waters on the Cosumnes River near Sacramento breached three levees and inundated the area. Flash flooding along Highway 99 and other roads south of Sacramento submerged dozens of cars near Wilton, where the water poured over the levees. Search and rescue crews in boats and helicopters scrambled to pick up trapped motorists. A t least one person was found dead in a submerged car near Dillard Road and Highway 99, according to local media reports. “I don’t want to use the term apocalyptic, but it’s ugly,” Sacramento County spokesman Matt Robinson said by phone from a stretch of Highway 99 that he described as a vast lake. “We … [Read more...] about Deadly storm pummels Northern California, breaching levees, forcing many water rescues

IT was just around the time when the giant eagle swooped out of the greater Philadelphia night to rescue a creature called a narf, shivering and nearly naked next to a swimming pool shaped like a collapsed heart, that I realized M. Night Shyamalan had lost his creative marbles. Since Mr. Shyamalan’s marbles are bigger than those of most people, or so it would seem from the evidence of a new book titled “The Man Who Heard Voices” (and how!), this loss might have been a calamity, save for the fact that “Lady in the Water” is one of the more watchable films of the summer. A folly, true, but watchable. A bedtime story that plays like a stab at a modern myth, “Lady in the Water” follows Mr. Shyamalan’s sensationally entertaining breakout (“The Sixth Sense”), a pair of misfires (“Unbreakable” and “Signs”) and a raging bore (“The Village”). As before, this film involves characters who, when faced with the inexplicable, behave less like real people than idealized movie audiences: they … [Read more...] about Finding Magic Somewhere Under the Pool in ‘Lady in the Water’

After a powerful New Year’s Eve storm slammed the state, forecasters are warning Californians to prepare for another “brutal” weather system that could bring widespread flooding starting midweek. After a weaker storm that moved in Monday, forecasters are focused on an atmospheric river that’s expected to bring heavy rain and strong winds Wednesday and Thursday. In the Sacramento Valley and northern San Joaquin Valley, forecasters are expecting at least 2 inches of rain, with upward of 3 inches in some places. The foothills could get anywhere from 2 to 5 inches of rain, said Scott Rowe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. Advertisement A flood watch will be in effect for virtually all of the Sacramento Valley from Wednesday to Friday mornings. “The flood threat is going to be renewed at least at this point from an urban standpoint, with folks that live in city limits, with poor drainage, low-lying areas, low-lying roads, those are some of … [Read more...] about Another major storm to slam California, heightening dangers in battered NorCal

New work by important filmmakers is always hyped by early publicity, some of it flattering enough to have been written at gunpoint. Now M. Night Shyamalan has set a new high-water mark for this sort of sycophancy. He has deigned to allow Michael Bamberger, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, to follow him adoringly through every stage of the filmmaking process. The upshot is not just a puff article but a full-length, unintentionally riotous puff book. Who is M. Night Shyamalan? The point is that you're supposed to know already. By some lights (namely his own and Mr. Bamberger's) he is an A-list Hollywood legend whose work is ablaze with beauty and wisdom. By others, he's the guy who made a mint with "The Sixth Sense," starred in an American Express ad and has now directed "Lady in the Water." The book makes landfall on July 20, a day before the movie does. "The Man Who Heard Voices" isn't really the filmmaker's fault. His only serious misstep was allowing it to happen. It was … [Read more...] about Snubbed by Disney, What’s Shyamalan to Do? Walk (and Diss)

Ben Gorham was looking for his coasters. Mr. Gorham, the founder of Byredo, the cult perfume line based in Stockholm, was in New York to supervise the opening of his store, at 62 Wooster Street, on Tuesday. Between the stacks of boxes and the construction workers and their drills, the coasters he designed for the shop’s sitting area, which includes furniture he also designed, were nowhere to be found. Coasters may seem a strange detail for a perfumer, but Mr. Gorham, 37, has made a name for himself with his attention to minute detail and a willingness to pursue whimsical projects. When he founded Byredo in 2006, the idea was to “translate memories into smells,” he said. His first scents were Green (sage, orange and musk), recalling the way his father smelled, and Encens Chembur (temple incense, lemon, ginger), named after the place in India where his mother was born. “I would say, ‘Here’s a place, there’s incense and wood,’ creating a kind of perfume brief,” Mr. … [Read more...] about Byredo Brings Its Scent Memories to SoHo

A series of atmospheric river storms has brought California heavy rains and above-average snowpack across the Sierra Nevada, but experts say the state still needs many more storms to begin to emerge from drought. The Sierra Nevada snowpack measures 174% of average for this time of year, but there are still three months left in the snow season, and the snow that has fallen to date remains just 64% of the April 1 average. “It’s definitely a very exciting start to the year and a very promising start to the year. But we just need the storm train to keep coming through,” said Andrew Schwartz, lead scientist at UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory. Advertisement Storms swept in from the Pacific last week, bringing torrential rains and triggering major flooding in the Central Valley and other areas. “The significant Sierra snowpack is good news, but unfortunately these same storms are bringing flooding to parts of California,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the … [Read more...] about California snowpack is far above average amid January storms, but a lot more is needed