Word: effects
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...flew it solo across the country. At least that's what the proud residents of his hometown of Babbington, N.Y., think Peter did. Turns out he did cross the country, but strictly speaking, he never quite got off the ground. More than 40 years later, conscience-stricken by the effect his legend has had on the town, Peter goes about writing a memoir to set the record straight...
...people actually talk. They're more witty, more astute, and they express themselves with infinitely more pizazz. This is true even of Peter's winged steed, the charmingly anthropomorphized Spirit of Babbington, which may not be an ace at lifting off but proves a surprisingly excellent road buddy. The effect is like a happy-go-lucky Nabokov, with all the road-tripping wordplay and none of the incest. It's a joy to watch Kraft resuscitate stale idioms with a simple twist, as when Peter describes the verbally dexterous Albertine not as having a way with words but as having...
...rated mortgage bonds. In a rising real estate market, such risks were deemed acceptable. When it was issued in March 2007, 93% of the Jupiter deal was rated AAA. But when things unwind--and have they ever--any default gets compounded by the chain of linked bonds. The multiplier effect works like this: while 4.4% of the typical loans tied to Jupiter's bonds are in default, nearly 59% of Jupiter's investments are now worthless. Hello, toxic asset. (See the top 10 financial collapses...
Dismiss it as a flourish of modesty or a side effect of middle age, but U2 has steadily softened its ambition during its 30-year existence, and that's not such a bad thing. Early on, Bono sang with a moral force that suggested Cotton Mather with a mullet; not satisfied to rock you on "Sunday Bloody Sunday," he needed to convert you. In the towering period that spanned The Joshua Tree to Zooropa, U2 made stadium-size art rock with huge melodies that allowed Bono to throw his arms around the world while bending its ear about social justice...
...being a singer of songs and lifter of souls - it suddenly sounds less like a love song and more like a grievance. Each time Bono slips out of the Everyman first person ("I know a girl") and into the specific ("I was born to sing for you"), the effect is jarring enough to raise the question, Is he trying to speak...