Word: surfing
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...Banner has been told that the waves have come. And he is ready for Mavericks, the legendary surf contest timed to the optimal moment when winter storms push the Pacific's waters over singular underwater reefs to create enormous and deadly waves off the Northern California coast not far from Half Moon Bay. Like a matador choosing his cape before facing a bull, Banner, a contestant, pauses between two of his sleek surfboards. One is 9 ft. 8 in. and curved like a bow. More maneuverable, it will let him slash his turns across the face of the monstrous...
Surfers speak of Mavericks with awe and dread. The surf break was discovered in the 1970s, when a few intrepid teenage surfers from Half Moon Bay, led by Jeff Clark, thought it might be possible to ride the giant waves without ending up on the rocks. They survived. "It isn't like Hawaii, where you just ride it straight down to the foam. At Mavericks, you have a long ride - over a minute - and you find yourself dancing with the massive power of nature," says Clark, now 52. For years, Clark tried to spread the word that Mavericks existed...
Later that night, we did what everyone does on a trip abroad: surf the Internet. We remembered the unknown word from earlier and quickly Google Translated that mother. Turns out we weren’t as cultured as we thought. Soja means...soy. We were nothing better than the needy, vegan Americans we scorned, too concerned with their own dietary restrictions to enjoy an authentic Spanish chocolate...
...sources are letters and journals written by soldiers, and they yield hundreds of shockingly vivid vignettes from the beaches and trenches. You won't soon forget the account of Bill Millin, bagpiper for the 1st Special Service Brigade of the British Army, who had to march out of the surf onto Sword Beach under rifle and mortar fire playing "Highland Laddie." And Beevor focuses on things other writers have neglected. For example, he doesn't gloss over the hideous costs paid by French civilians. The Allies, before liberating them, bombed them relentlessly in an attempt to paralyze the German army...
...cracked pseudo-religious language, but it’s obvious from the beginning that, for the first time in a long time, lyrics don’t matter very much to the Flaming Lips. The downright raucous “Aquarius Sabotage,” a sort of ecstatic surf-rock jam, equipped with glockenspiel and an orchestral coda, raises the paradox as its thesis: the Flaming Lips want their bull and their china shop too. The sonic center of the album, “Powerless,” is a sinister instrumental piece over which guitarist Steve Drozd erratically...