Bluebird

 

The Book Beyond the Book

By DAVID STREITFELD

 | December 25, 2011, 10:24 AM

 

Kindle photograph by Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg News

As you open your Kindle or iPad on Christmas, consider this publisher who suggests that e-books and print books can live peacefully together.

 

That sound you hear is the wrapping being torn off of millions of Kindles and iPads. When those devices are fired up and start downloading texts, it will be the greatest shift in casual reading since the mass market paperback arrived six decades ago. Will this dislocation destroy the traditional book? Will it doom the traditional independent bookstore? Will Amazon and Apple control the distribution of thought and culture in America? All these questions will be played out imminently.

The migration to e-reading is usually reported as a one-way journey: You get a device, start downloading and never look back to the old-fashioned book. You start mocking those type-filled volumes reeking of another century. Meanwhile, the defenders of the old ways are digging in their heels. I know readers who swear never to read anything electronic, saying they find the format muddy and confusing and sad.

Dennis Loy Johnson, a former academic who is the proprietor of Melville House, a small but innovative publishing firm, wants to reconcile these warring factions. Why should electronic and traditional not collaborate?

“It seems to me that most of us in publishing have been far too quick to look to a print-book-less future,” Mr. Johnson said in an e-mail. “But that’s like saying we don’t need the wheel because someone invented the airplane.”

Melville has introduced a new series, HybridBooks, to meld the two cultures. On the physical side, the Hybrids are attractive, stripped-down paperbacks, with nothing inside but a short classic text. The first five were all called “The Duel,” reprinting tales by Casanova, Kleist, Conrad, Kuprin and Chekhov. The latest is Melville’s tale of the first Wall Street refusenik, “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Bartleby, for reasons that do not become clear until the end of his tale, decides to opt out. The connection with the Occupy Wall Street movement is clear, and is no doubt the reason the Melville House edition is already in its fifth printing.

The electronic element comes in with the ancillary material. The last page of the Melville edition directs readers to a Web site, where they will find an 1852 map of lower Manhattan: a recipe for Ginger Nuts, a biscuit that plays a role in the narrative; lengthy excepts from Emerson and Thoreau; a contemporaneous classified ad for a scrivener; and similar material.

“Basically, we decided to mimic our own reading process,” Mr. Johnson said “When I read a great classic, if I like it, I want the experience to somehow continue, so I will pursue more information about the writer, or the setting, or some aspect of the plot’s background. (Dueling? What’s up with that?) My mind wanders, imagining what the world of the book looked like. And so on. Now we have curated exactly that kind of material, and it allows you to linger in the world of the book, to understand more about it — to simply luxuriate in the world of the book longer. It’s something more than just the book, but something very much ‘of’ the book. This seems very innovative to me at the same time that it seems kind of an obvious innovation.”

Ginger nuts, it turns out, were one of the first really-bad-for-you snack foods. “It added a whole new level of meaning to the story for me, even though I’d not only read it a dozen times or so before publishing it but taught it,” Mr. Johnson said. “It made me aware of a detail lost to time, further clarified my visualization of Bartleby, and made the story — which truly represents the birth of American literary modernism, to Melville’s lasting trauma — much more deeply resonant with contemporary culture.”

Melville House calls its Hybrid line “enhanced print books.” It is a name that makes Mr. Johnson laugh. “Everyone’s always talking about enhanced e-books in this business,” he said. “They think I’m making fun of them when I call our print books enhanced.”

 

 

Winter solstice: The cold-weather celebration is hot again

December 21, 2011 | 12:55 pm

 

Winter solstice is a busy time of year for a Wiccan priestess -- especially now, when solstice traditions (observed even in ancient times) are hot once more.

"People are celebrating the solstice more than ever in recent memory," said Selena Fox, who isn't just any Wiccan priestess. She's a psychotherapist and the founder of Wisconsin's Circle Sanctuary, a nonprofit Wiccan church and, according to its website, a 200-acre nature preserve.

A solstice occurs twice a year, when the sun's position in the sky, as viewed from Earth, reaches its farthest points north and south from the celestial equator. The winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year; the summer solstice marks the longest.  [Updated 2:26 p.m. Dec. 21:  The solstice takes place this year Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.]

PHOTOS: Winter solstice

Solstice is "widely celebrated today by Wiccans, druids, heathens and other pagans; by indigenous peoples practicing traditional ways in Africa, Asia, Polynesia, Australia, Europe and the Americas; by environmentalists and astronomers; by secular humanists and Freethinkers; by eco-Christians and those of other religions and philosophies," Fox told The Times in an interview Wednesday.

Fox speaks frequently on solstice traditions and practices of "nature religion" (to use an umbrella term). She said that "people are celebrating the solstice from more of a science-based worldview.  Nature centers are having solstice celebrations ... and some Christian churches are keeping the solstice."

Humankind has been "observing solstices for thousands of years," Fox said, but the celestial events have become even more of the moment. Why? Because this is an "age of climate change and a need to have sustainability on the planet," she said, so it makes sense that a holiday that has "connecting with the cycles of nature" at its core would become popular.

Plus, she said, it "makes sense to have a celebration that's time-tested."

And when it comes to winter solstice celebrations, we're talking old. "Even thousands of years ago," Fox said, "there was an awareness among humans about the rhythms of nature and the cyclic nature of these rhythms to the point that these amazing sites were constructed."

Such sites include Stonehenge in Britain, as well as Newgrange in Ireland. It is believed that primary axes of Stonehenge are aligned on sight lines pointing to the winter solstice sunset. For Newgrange, it's sunrise.

In the U.S., Fox points to Cahokia, near St. Louis, and its Woodhenge. Large oval-shaped pits at the 1,000-year-old site seem to be arranged in arcs of circles. According to the Cahokia website, posts set in the pits are believed to have lined up with the rising sun at certain times of the year. 

One topic on which Fox has become well-versed is how many holiday traditions have their roots in solstice customs -- "wreaths on doors, greens in household and public buildings, the exchange of gifts, the burning of the yule log, singing of songs, feasting and partying.

"So what you actually have ... is some old customs, across cultures, across time, connected with this 'holidays' celebration."

Fox, who said her personal holiday celebration will include the Scottish tradition of Hogmannay, sees the solstice's relevance stretching from thousand-year-old customs to the Web. She's been busy doing podcasts lately.

The solstice is not only about "keeping alive a very old practice for humans," she said, it's also "very much in the here and now."

ALSO:

Amy Hubbard

Photo: Druids gather at Stonehenge in December 2010 to celebrate the sunrise closest to the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Credit: Matt Cardy / Getty Images

 

R.I.P. "Ghost"

Ralph MacDonald, Pop Percussionist, Dies at 67

By PAUL VITELLO

Published: December 20, 2011

Ralph MacDonald, a Grammy Award-winning percussionist and composer whose understated Afro-Caribbean rhythms were known as “the ghost” behind the hit records of a multitude of 1970s and ’80s pop stars and who was a co-writer on the hit songs “Where Is the Love?” and “Just the Two of Us,” died on Sunday in Stamford, Conn. He was 67.

E

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Ralph MacDonald at home in Mount Vernon, N.Y., in 1977.

The cause was lung cancer, his family said.

Mr. MacDonald’s touch on the conga drums and dozens of other percussion instruments was ubiquitous for many years in pop music. It supplied the intimate undertow of Bette Midler’s “Do You Want to Dance?” (1972), the drive behind David Bowie’s “Young Americans” (1975) and the Caribbean lilt in Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville” (1977).

With a reputation in the industry as “the ghost behind the million-selling albums,” as The New York Times recounted in 1977, he made similarly defining contributions to records by Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, Phoebe Snow, Rod Stewart, George Benson, James Taylor, Billy Joel, Luther Vandross and Amy Winehouse. “My approach is to work with melody by simply enhancing it,” he told The Times. Mr. Simon, with whom he made six albums, “sings such pretty songs,” he said, that “it’s a challenge to enhance that without overdoing it.”

Mr. MacDonald began learning his craft at an early age. His father and five uncles, immigrants from Trinidad, all played professionally in calypso bands. It was one of his uncles, Urias Fritz, who taught him to play with his fingers, not his whole hand, and showed him where to hit the drum. “He didn’t just hit the top of the drum,” Mr. MacDonald said in an interview. “He’d hit it all over, for all types of sounds.”

Mr. MacDonald was 17 when Harry Belafonte hired him for his touring orchestra. He worked with Mr. Belafonte for 10 years, and at some point informed him that despite his many gold records and despite being celebrated as the King of Calypso, Mr. Belafonte really didn’t know what calypso was.

Mr. Belafonte apparently took the criticism with magnanimity. According to Mr. MacDonald’s Web site, Mr. Belafonte invited the young man to write him a song. Mr. MacDonald wrote many, most of which ended up on Mr. Belafonte’s 1966 album “Calypso Carnival.”

After leaving Mr. Belafonte in the early ’70s, Mr. MacDonald and two partners, William Salter and William Eaton, began composing full time. One of their first songs, “Where Is the Love?,” was recorded in 1972 by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway and went on to sell several million copies and win two Grammy Awards. He and his partners wrote many more successful songs, including “Just the Two of Us,” a huge hit for Bill Withers and Grover Washington Jr. in 1981.

Ralph Anthony MacDonald was born in Harlem on March 15, 1944, the eighth of Patrick and Evelyn MacDonald’s eight children. His father was a calypso star known professionally as Macbeth the Great. In interviews, Mr. MacDonald said he had grown up almost literally with a set of drums in his hands and had been extremely lucky in his teachers: his father, his uncle and Mr. Belafonte.

He is survived by his wife, Grace; their children Nefra-Ann and Atiba; two children, Anthony and Jovonni, from a previous marriage; a sister, Sylvia Pristell; and three grandchildren.

Mr. MacDonald’s versatility made him a sought-after session player on records by jazz and jazz-soul fusion artists like Bobbi Humphrey, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Herbie Mann, David Sanborn, Ron Carter, Tom Scott, Maynard Ferguson and Mr. Washington, for whom he and his partners wrote the 1975 hit “Mr. Magic.”

He and his partners also wrote “Calypso Fever” for the soundtrack of “Saturday Night Fever,” which earned Mr. MacDonald two Grammys of his own in 1978 as a performer and a producer.

In the interview with The Times, Mr. MacDonald said he never regretted being a relative unknown, despite his renown among his peers. “I don’t want to be a superstar,” he said. “Above all, I’m a musician first.”

 

December 20, 2011, 3:39 PM
Losing Friends on Facebook
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
Wondering why a friend or acquaintance “defriended” you on Facebook?

New research from Nielsen shows that the No. 1 reason people remove others from their friend lists is something they said — or posted. Offensive comments were listed as the top reason for friend removals, with 55 percent of people in the study saying it was the primary motivator for cutting names off their friend list.

Other reasons that came up for booting a person from a friend list? The person posted too many “depressing” and “political” comments, or fell out of favor romantically: 11 percent of people said they removed someone after a breakup or divorce. The study also looked at differences in the way men and women use their social media accounts:

Facebook etiquette also plays a role, with updating too often or too little or having too many friends a consideration for some Facebook users. Social media activity also plays a role in these decisions, as research indicates that men are more likely to use social media for career networking and dating, while women use social media for a creative outlet, to get coupons or other promotions and to give positive feedback. More men add friends based on business networks or physical attractiveness, and women are more likely to add friends based on knowing someone in real life or to remove them because of offensive comments.
The findings, which were based on a sample of 1,865 adults across the country, were published online on a Nielsen McKinsey blog. To learn more, read the full report, “Friends & Frenemies: Why We Add and Remove Facebook Friends,” and then please join the discussion below.

Mummies in Antartica

December 19, 2011, 12:12 pm Awakening Streams and Mummified Seals

By ALIA KHAN

Alia KhanA mummified seal on a hike between Lake Bonney and Lake Hoare in the Taylor Valley.

Alia Khan, a graduate student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, writes from the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, where she is studying ephemeral glacier fed streams.

Thursday, Dec. 15

Early in the season, the streams are fickle. We arrived in the field on Oct. 22 and were greeted by cold temperatures and no flow the first five weeks we were in the field. While there was still plenty of prep work, like retrofitting stream controls and switching out data-logging systems from the end of last season, we eagerly awaited the arrival of flowing water.

Chris DeanThree Stream Team members, Chris Jaros, Tyler Kohler, and Alia Khan, in a stream gauge box at the lower Onyx River. The boxes also double as an emergency shelter in severe weather.

The hydrological cycle in the McMurdo Dry Valleys is a unique system. The streambeds are covered with a layer of permafrost, there is less than 4 inches of water equivalent precipitation per year, and there are no groundwater contributions. Like most hydrological cycles, climate is a large driver; however, unlike many other locations, surface energy budgets play a larger role than precipitation. The source waters for the streams in this polar desert almost entirely come from glacial melt. Runoff from the glaciers is largely based on glacial elevation, solar radiation exposure, air temperature and winds. High winds, like katabatic events, can blow increased sediment loads onto the glaciers, which absorb more radiation because of their dark color, decreasing surface albedo and increasing rates of meltwater generation.

As the midnight sun came out, the 24 hours of daylight increased radiation on the glacier surfaces and raised average daily temperatures above freezing, two important factors in meltwater generation and the start of seasonal streamflow. The first sight of sparkling flowing water on Canada Stream, glistening under the sun on Nov. 29, filled me with excitement as I knew the flow season had begun. Canada is the first stream to flow each season because of the aspect of the glacier which enables it to receive more solar radiation compared with others in the valley. It is also at a lower elevation and has a short stream length. Since then, we had one week of warmer temperatures in which about 10 other streams started flowing. However, on any given day, just a few hours of below-freezing temperatures or cloudy skies can be enough to cause the streams freeze up and cease flowing.

Alia KhanThe F6 Hut, named after the stream gauge next to it. It is the 6th of 10 stream gauges in the Fryxell basin.

Alia Khan

Posts From Antarctica

• Extreme Ecology in a Polar Desert
• Camp Life in the Dry Valleys

A typical field day consists of visiting three to five streams. After having breakfast and morning coffee, we prepare our gear for the day. This includes items like a pygmy meter for measuring stream discharge, waders, water sample bottles, snacks and a field note kit. We split the heavy gear among team members as we often hike up to 5 miles to stream sites. After hiking, driving by all-terrain vehicle or flying to the sites, we measure the discharge and take water samples for chemical analysis. The water samples are filtered at the hut after returning to camp that day, stored in a refrigerator and then sent to McMurdo for analysis.

Alia KhanEmily Bernzott takes water chemistry samples on Bowles stream, a stream with abundant algal mats.

Lee StanishA light microscope image of live Antarctic algae. Despite the harsh conditions, stream microbial mats harbor a diversity of organisms.

Biological analyses of algal mats are also a focus of the streams. Diatoms, cyanobacteria and green algae are the abundant microbes. Diatoms are unicellular algae that can be found all over the world in a variety of environments. Existence of microbial life in the Dry Valleys is especially interesting because of the oligotrophic (low nutrient) and harsh environment. Despite extreme conditions, diverse communities exist in this polar desert.

The peak flow time for the streams here is late December to early January. There is still no telling if it will be a high or low flow season, but both can have significant impacts on the connectivity of the ecological systems in the Dry Valleys. High flows can scour algal mats, decreasing microbial activity, whereas under low-flow conditions, some streams may not flow at all, prohibiting nutrient transport to algal mats along the streambed. Since the streams are also the primary transport mechanisms of nutrients to the lakes, high- and low-flow seasons can also have significant impacts on their biogeochemistry.

One of my favorite gauge sites is on the Onyx River, the longest river in Antarctica. It is in the Wright Valley, one valley north of Taylor Valley, where we spend a majority of our season. Since we can’t see this river from our home base, our eyes and ears are often the helicopter pilots who frequently fly over the streams and inform us if they have begun flowing. A task this year is also to implement telemetric systems that will allow us to monitor flow remotely.

Alia KhanA helicopter sling carrying empty barrels for urine and graywater.

Alia KhanMummified seal on Lake Fryxell.

There are no polar bears in Antarctica, but penguins and seals are plentiful on and near the sea ice. In the Dry Valleys, it is extremely rare to encounter a live animal, but there are a surprising large number of mummified penguins and seals. Miles away from the ocean, it is hard to think what could inspire a marine mammal to journey into the Dry Valleys. The jagged rocks, rough sediments and lack of running water and prey are an unfortunate and sure death for the animals. My adviser, Diane McKnight, has an interesting story about a live seal she came across in the Dry Valleys. This was the first documented live encounter with a seal here; it was relocated to the sea ice and a stream in the Fryxell basin is now called “Lost Seal.”

Barbie gets a Fro

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Awesome Natural Hair Group Gives Barbie An Afro For Christmas

by Julia Rubin | 1:31 pm, December 14th, 2011

Well, this is the best. An African-American natural hair group in Georgia is gifting natural hair Barbies this holiday season.

While there are indeed black Barbies, Candace McBride (who is spearheading the project) noted that nearly all dolls have straight hair: “It’s tricky even to find ones with brown eyes.” So she took to the internet and found a tutorial on how to make natural-looking doll hair. The group plans to give away 40 dolls to girls this Christmas.

RELATED: WATCH: Sesame Street Tells Black Girls To Love Their Hair

Explained member Jennifer Henderson to the Ledger-Enquirer: “We wanted to show the girls that basically, it’s okay the way God made you.” Now that’s a holiday message we can get behind.

Heck, yeah!

LEVI’S IN THE LIMELIGHT: Levi’s for the first time will show its core collections during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 15. The denim giant is planning a big-budget presentation in a SoHo space to showcase its first global Levi’s lines, part of an overarching strategy that has eliminated regional segmentation in product design, marketing and in-store displays.

“Fall ’12 is the first cohesive collection we’ll market globally that consolidates all our product lines for all our regions in Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America,” explained Len Peltier, creative director of Levi’s. “We wanted to show in New York because it’s such a global stage. We’re building out our presentation ideas now, and it’ll be something more interactive than just a runway show.”

The presentation will include the Levi’s Red Tab, Levi’s Vintage Clothing and Made & Crafted lines. In September 2007, the brand showed its Warhol Factory x Levi’s x Damien Hirst capsule collection on the runway during New York Fashion Week.

Ravenous | In Praise of Parsley

Food

|

By MONIQUE TRUONG

| December 19, 2011, 9:00 am

Damijan Saccio

I’m partial to parsley, flat leaf and curly.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m passionate about parsley. Passion requires some searching out, a limited season of availability or perhaps even an acquired taste. Parsley has none of these things, but it’s an herb with surprising depth.

Parsley is often described as having a “fresh” taste, which is as lazy as food writing can get. It’s like describing Meryl Streep as “blond.” The flavor of parsley, especially the flat-leaf variety, begins in the nose — the moment you bite down on those sturdy leaves they release apiol, an aromatic oil. Think of the scent of toasting coriander seeds mingled with the pleasant wood note of a just-snapped twig. Then begins the wave of grassy flavor that the verdant leaves promise, and finally a slight tingling on the tongue (also courtesy of apiol).

Knee-deep now in the season of decorative greenery, I’ve been thinking about how unfortunate it is that sprigs of holly and sprigs of parsley are used with similar intent and purpose. Both are sturdy, slow to wilt and certainly not there to be eaten. Their bright green hues signify an elusive freshness and, thus, a note of festivity. The sprigs are traditional, decorative and could be replaced by a plastic stand-in. (In the case of parsley, the stand-in is increasingly a raw piece of curly kale, as close to plastic as plant life can get.)

I was born into a culinary tradition that venerates fresh herbs. A Vietnamese dish, especially from the southern region of the country, is often accompanied by a minimum of four or five fresh herbs, carefully presented on a platter. All are meant to lend their specific tart, fruit or peppery flavors to the meal. So when I first encountered the lone curly parsley sprig perched on an American plate of food, I was perplexed. But I ate it, which made me even more perplexed.

The parsley had the nontaste and rubbery texture that came with sitting in the fridge for too long. Clearly there was no reason to eat this jaunty-seeming leaf. I didn’t think of parsley as an actual herb then, even after I encountered its other common use: chopped and glommed fungus-like on top of a baked potato or a piece of grilled white fish.

Is it clear from these food items that my first encounter with parsley was in the era of flared polyester slacks, all-you-can-eat salad bars and Jimmy Carter’s presidency?

I hardly gave parsley another thought until the early 1980s, when I saw a recipe for a roasted tomato sauce for spaghetti (what middle-Americans ate before we knew it was “pasta”) that called for an outrageous two cupfuls of flat leaf parsley, a k a. Italian. What is this exotic variety and why had I never seen it in the supermarket? Before you judge me for my lack of culinary worldliness, I was 13 years old at the time and growing up in an America not yet baptized with E.V.O.O. by the Food Channel. Parsley was curly. Oil came from corn. These were dark times.

My mother thought that we would find flat leaf parsley (and the extra virgin olive oil that the recipe called for) in a market in the part of town where the art museums were and where the houses looked like art museums too. She was right. Apparently, wealth allows you access to the future.

In addition to redeeming a humble herb, this sauce has the added benefit of transforming tasteless supermarket tomatoes into something quite respectable, even worthy of serving to company.

Roasted Tomato Sauce with Parsley
1½ to 2 pounds of fresh tomatoes
1/3 to 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 ounces anchovy fillets
2 cups coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley (curly is fine too, but the taste will be milder)
Fleur de sel or sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Dried red pepper flakes
1 pound of spaghetti, cooked al dente.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Slice the tomatoes into very thick slabs and remove the hard core, if needed.
3. In a soufflé dish or similar baking dish with high sides, place a layer of tomato slices. Top with some anchovy fillets, a grind of black pepper, a sprinkling of red pepper flakes and a pinch or two of fleur de sel. (The fillets are salty, but the additional salt is necessary to achieve the right balance of flavors.)
4. Continue building the layers. You’ll end up with three or four in total. For the top layer, do not use any anchovy fillets. You want them to melt into the sauce, not to get crispy or charred.
5. Pour the extra virgin olive oil over the layers.
6. Bake for an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes until the oil and the juices given off by the tomatoes are bubbling, and the top layer takes on an appealing roasted appearance.
7. Place the spaghetti in a large bowl and carefully pour or ladle the piping sauce over it. Toss until coated. Right before serving, add all the chopped parsley and toss again. Check to see whether more salt or red pepper is needed.

Dressing the goth-punk heroine of 'Dragon Tattoo'

Rooney Mara's Lisbeth Salander gets a dark, fierce look in 'Girl With a Dragon Tattoo.'

Fleece hoodies and thermal wear lend street cred to “Girl With a Dragon Tattoo’s” lead character Lisbeth Salander, played by Rooney Mara. (Merrick Morton, Columbia Pictures / October 28, 2011)

By Melissa Magsaysay, Los Angeles Times

December 18, 2011

It couldn't be further from the conventional period drama with the nipped-waist bodices and ostentatious accessories that frequently garner award show attention for costuming. Nonetheless, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," the American film based on the first book of Stieg Larsson's popular Millennium trilogy, is likely to attract some attention with its hard-hitting looks that reflect a darker side of contemporary street fashion.

The producers of the film, which opens Dec. 20, put together a style dream team to transform actress Rooney Mara into Lisbeth Salander, a waifish, goth-punk heroine who becomes an unlikely ally for a journalist involved in a twisted mystery.

Trish Summerville, the veteran stylist and costume designer (former clients include Christina Aguilera and Pink) created the costumes. Pat McGrath, recognized in fashion and cosmetic circles as one of today's most influential makeup artists, designed Salander's hollow-cheeked, kohl-eyed look. And Danilo (longtime hairstylist to Gwen Stefani) envisioned the blunt bowl cut that frames Mara's pale and delicate features.

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"The thing that stood out was how tiny she was, but she also has this ferocious velocity about her even though she's so slight," Summerville says about the Salander character. The designer worked to make Mara look as thin and asexual as possible, pairing pieces so the character's silhouette is tight at top and loose at the bottom. (Salander walks the streets in fitted leather biker jackets, drop-crotch cargo pants and plenty of piercings.) "I wanted her to have this external shell like a protection around her," Summerville adds.

Mara portrayed a college student who looks like the girl next door in the 2010 film, "The Social Network," and Summerville says the strawberry-blond actress was open to a dramatic transformation for "Girl." "Her face has such a striking bone structure," Summerville says. "She has a long thin neck and intense eyes. You can do anything to that face.

"Her look [as Salander] is very animalistic," Summerville says. "Her strength is unexpected."

Summerville tapped a couple of L.A.-based designers for the character's signature leather jackets. Cerre, a company that has just taken over the old Costume National space on Melrose Avenue as its new atelier, created one of the jackets as well as a leather backpack. The other jacket was made by Agatha Blois, who has designed custom leather pieces for Aerosmith and Sheryl Crow. Summerville aged and distressed the jackets (and most of the Salander wardrobe) to give them a well-worn feel true to the punk-influenced character.

The jackets are accompanied by layers of thermal shirts and pants as well as fleece hoodies, which makes for a drapey, cloaked silhouette — adding to the character's mystery.

Other pieces worn by Salander, such as jeans, thermals and torn T-shirts, were pulled from mass-market brands including Sweden's H&M, Germany's Closed and the British label All Saints. The chunky leather moto boots were made by Belstaff as well as Fiorentini and Baker. Summerville also dressed her unconventional heroine in custom-made sneakers to convey a sporty-streetwise sensibility.

The worn-in, rough-and-tumble pieces provided inspiration for Summerville's collection for H&M, which went on sale Dec. 14. The line contains several pieces that are replicas of (or inspired by) items featured in the movie, including a leather jacket and waffle thermals. Other garments — black skinny jeans and muted colored hoodies — were designed to convey the brooding darkness of the Salander character.

The character, with her piercings, bleached eyebrows, bowl cut and military-meets-the mosh-pit sense of style, doesn't exactly shriek "fashion icon," but it's possible the edgy look will inspire a new generation of street style.

melissa.magsaysay@latimes.com

My favorite stroke

A Devoted Following for the Lord of the Breaststroke By KAREN CROUSE Danny Moloshok for The New York Times Dave Salo, the men’s and women’s coach at Southern California, has a reputation for getting the most out of breaststrokers no matter their background or swimming style.

LOS ANGELES — Dave Salo was barking “back flat!” and “heel speed!” as he crisscrossed the pool deck at the University of Southern California. Salo, the Trojans’ men’s and women’s coach and a member of the United States’ 2012 Olympic staff, has earned a reputation as a breaststroke whisperer for his success working with swimmers with different backgrounds and disparate styles.

 

Danny Moloshok for The New York Times

Michael Alexandrov uses paddles during a workout with Dave Salo, a revered breaststroke coach at the University of Southern California.

His breaststroke training contingent on a Saturday morning last month included Kosuke Kitajima, the 2008 Olympic double gold medalist; Eric Shanteau, the American record-holder in the 100 and 200 meters; Michael Alexandrov, the American record-holder in the 100 and 200 yards; Rebecca Soni, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist in the 200 meters; and Jessica Hardy, the world record-holder in the 100 meters.

Shanteau, Alexandrov, Soni and Hardy will take a break from racing one another to battle a European team of all-stars in the Duel in the Pool on Friday and Saturday in Atlanta. It will be a homecoming for Shanteau, 28, who grew up in Lilburn, 20 miles northeast of Atlanta, before pulling up his roots for fertile training grounds at Auburn University and later at Texas Aquatics in Austin.

A 2008 Olympian, Shanteau was a seeker drawn to Southern California nearly a year ago by the cult of 20-something breaststrokers subjecting themselves to Salo’s esoteric practices.

“I felt like I needed to do something completely different to get to the next level,” Shanteau said. “If you’re in the top 99.9 percent, how do you beat that one-tenth percent? I needed to shock my body.”

Shanteau said he was still adapting to Salo’s low-mileage, high-quality, technique-driven training regimen when he placed fourth in the 200 breaststroke over the summer at the world championships in Shanghai. The second-place finisher was Kitajima, who contemplated retirement after successfully defending his Olympic breaststroke titles in the 100 and 200 at the 2008 Beijing Games.

A celebrity who is recognized everywhere he goes in his native Japan, Kitajima escaped to Los Angeles. He was renting a house in Santa Monica in the spring of 2009 when he sampled a few Salo workouts. Within weeks, Kitajima had left thoughts of retirement behind.

“There’s no stress here,” Kitajima said. “I thought, I can do this.” He added, “My breaststroke’s different from Jessica, from Eric, but Dave knows what advice to give all of us.”

Alexandrov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. His father, Plamen Dontchev, was a 1980 Olympian in the 100-meter breaststroke. Alexandrov competed for his homeland at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. A former Northwestern standout who has called the United States home since grade school, he gained dual citizenship in 2006. After the 2008 Olympics, Alexandrov sat out a year of international competition so he could represent this country. He trained in Tucson before joining Trojan Swim Club in April.

“Dave helps you go faster when you think you’re already peaking,” Alexandrov said. “He notices little things in your stroke that can make a big difference.”

The breaststrokers who train under Salo catch the water on their pulls in the same place, but that’s where the similarities end. Hardy, who also is expected to contend for an Olympic medal in the 50 freestyle next year in London, has a core of steel to complement her Gumby-like leg flexibility.

Her strengths are not to be confused with those of Soni, who has neither an extraordinary pull nor an extraordinary kick, but her timing when she puts the two together is exquisite. Kitajima has a powerful kick, but his technique is what makes him hard to beat. His body position is so efficient, he skims the surface like a water bug. Shanteau has a powerful kick that compensates for a weaker upper body.

Different strengths call for different approaches. At one workout last month, Shanteau was swimming a breaststroke set in the 50-meter racing pool, which was set up for short-course yards. Kitajima was in the adjacent diving well doing his best impression of a yo-yo. He was performing a drill in which he swam breaststroke while wearing a belt with a surgical tubing tail that a teammate held to create extra resistance. When he was done, the teammate reeled him in as Kitajima continued to stroke, a sensation akin to riding a wave into shore.

Soni and Hardy were in the same pool as Shanteau, but Soni was in a middle-distance group that included Shanteau, while Hardy was ensconced with the sprinters.

The breaststrokers race head-to-head plenty of times, but it is not as if a mini-Olympics breaks out at every workout. Salo has created an atmosphere that manages to be competitive and collaborative without becoming cutthroat.

“It starts with Dave because he’s able to keep everybody engaged,” Alexandrov said. “It’s addictive, actually, because there’s so much adrenaline. People don’t back down. It’s two hours of all-out swimming, going as fast as you can while maintaining your technique.”

While not a one-workout-fits-all proponent, Salo does insist on one time interval for all, which is a departure from the way other coaches typically handle those who swim the breaststroke, the slowest of the four competitive strokes. The conventional wisdom is to give breaststrokers more time to complete each distance in stroke-specific training.

Salo’s approach is to let the breaststrokers go last in the same lane with the butterfly swimmers and backstrokers and to challenge them to keep up. He adopted the method in the 1990s, when he was coaching a teenage Amanda Beard to the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.

“It helps that there’s so many of us breaststrokers out here and we’re all in the same boat,” Shanteau said.

During another workout in the fall with the other postcollegians, Soni, who graduated from Southern California in 2009, was kicking breaststroke in a lane with swimmers doing the dolphin kick, or flutter kick. After a few hundred meters, Soni looked like an iceberg that had broken away from the floe. She was several meters behind her nearest teammate.

“She’ll come in and be frustrated,” Salo said. “I know she’s working hard. That’s kind of our understanding of each other.”

Salo had a successful age-group career in the breaststroke, and he knows what his swimmers are feeling — sometimes better than they do.

“You’ll talk to swimmers, they’ll say they feel like they’re kicking their arms into the recovery,” he said. “But if you look at the videotape you see that the arms are leading the way. That’s the challenge of coaching breaststrokers. You have to be able to describe what you want them to do in a way that makes sense to them because they operate so much on feel.”

In July, Hardy, 24, stood atop the podium after winning the 50-meter breaststroke at the world championships. She was flanked by Russia’s Yuliya Efimova and by Soni, who was third. It was a sweet result for the United States and a clean sweep for Salo, who also works with Efimova.

“He really, really, has a technical understanding of the breaststroke better than anyone on the planet,” Hardy said, adding, “I hear in my dreams every night: ‘Back flat. Back flat.’ He sounds like the Aflac duck.”