Maurizio Cattelan is one of the glittering stars of contemporary art. In 1996 when he appeared at a show in Amsterdam he stole another artist’s exhibition, reframed it and entitled it Another F***ing Readymade (expunged courtesy of Fortune). The following year, he dug a coffin-sized hole into a gallery’s floor to illustrate that death was preferable to the pressure of creating art. Ironic considering how well paid he is. Cattelan’s wax sculpture of supermodel Stephanie Seymour, which depicts her as a trophy, entitled Trophy Wife, sold for $2.4 million.

This is one of the many anecdotal gems that fill Don Thompson’s The Supermodel and the Brillo Box (Palgrave Macmillan; released May 27th, 2014). Purportedly Thompson tackles the reasons behind the 2008 art market crash. In reality, he explains the moving forces behind the outrageous prices and glamorous auctions of contemporary art and picks them apart one by one: artists, dealers, auction houses, the market.

This is a book for anyone who has ever wandered through New York’s Museum of Modern Art and wondered how dot paintings could sell for millions of dollars, or for enthusiasts who want to learn more about the finer points of the art market. Thompson unpeels each element of the art world, packing his narrative with quirky anecdotes, sharp insights, and illustrative statistics, laced with dry humor. Take for example his explanation of contemporary art:

“Beautiful or not, the central characteristic of twenty-first-century contemporary art is that traditional art skills of composition and coloration have become secondary to originality, innovation, and shock—however achieved. There are now few restrictions on methods or materials. As British contemporary artist Grayson Perry put it, ‘This is art, because I’m an artist and I say it is.’”

Toward the latter half of the book, Thompson flags. His language gets repetitive, and he includes exhaustive lists of artists and dealers, without explaining what distinguishes one from another.

Ultimately though, Thompson neglects to answer the question that drives most readers to the book: why? Why do a small fraction of artists rise while most fail? What’s the line between art and the ridiculous and why do people pay? Why does a Damien Hirst spot painting executed by technician Rachel Howard sell for 25 times more than the same painting sold as Howard’s own? (Howard still sold her painting for $90,000.) What makes someone pay millions of dollars for a spot painting in the first place?

However, Thompson dances tantalizingly close. He discusses the importance of branding and explains people don’t necessarily buy art because they want the object itself, but because they want the glamor of owning art. But who decides what worthy art is and what they base their decision on remains a mystery. Still, if Thompson doesn’t quite have clear answers, he gives the reader enough information to let them draw their own cynical conclusions.

Summary: Art is “quite useless” but people still pay millions of dollars for it anyway. Don Thompson explores why in The Supermodel and the Brillo Box.


Miracles on ice: Flight to North Shelf by Philip Hughes

It is curious that two people, from dissimilar backgrounds with different interests, should end up 30 years later obsessed by the same subject, that of the continent of Antarctica.

In 1965 having left my home town of Liverpool, I was living in the top-floor flat of a house just off the Finchley Road in Hampstead, northwest London. Below me lived a husband and wife who had been forced to leave South Africa because she was black and he was white. The flat beneath them was rented by an elderly lady who was held to be the sister of a Russian spy. I hadn't met the people who inhabited the ground floor, but it was rumoured they owned a chow dog who lived in the memory because he had once tried to bite the politician George Brown.

Then, in March of that year, I gave birth to a daughter, expelled in a thunder storm and helped into the world by a midwife with the unfortunate name of Nurse Bormann. There was nothing suitable in which to wash the baby, until the occupants of the ground floor flat, Philip and Psiche Hughes, came up trumps and loaned their chicken casserole dish. A year or so later we both went off to live in houses of our own, though no more than a bus ride apart. I had remembered to return the casserole dish and we became close friends.

Years later Philip Hughes, once an engineer with the Shell International Petroleum Company, founded Logica, the computer firm, and I published my first novel. We also had a joint exhibition of paintings at the Monks Gallery in Sussex. I was an amateur painter, one concerned only with illustrating a story, and was at the time fixed on Napoleon retreating from Moscow, mostly without his trousers.

Hughes's work was abstract; he drew and painted scenes devoid of figures and without recognisable features such as trees and cottages. His was a dissection of landscape rather than a portrayal. Starting in 1979, and subsequently every two years until the present day, Hughes's work went on show at the Francis Kyle Gallery in Maddox Street, in London's Mayfair.

Throughout the years, he travelled extensively and produced drawings and paintings of the landscapes of Australia, Iceland, South America and the Vaucluse region of France.

In 1988 he began to keep notebooks, originally bought in Vienna and made of recycled paper, in which to draw the sketches he would later make into paintings. Before, he had always used high-quality paper, for which a hardened pencil was the must satisfactory tool; but now, the rougher quality of the paper forced him to choose a softer pencil, a change that released his work from its previous rigidity of line.

The following year he made another discovery, one which was to have an even greater impact, namely his use of the photocopying machine. The enlargement of his drawings, and the magnified texture of the paper on which they appeared, had a dramatic effect. I am not an art critic and, even though Hughes often explained to me what he was doing, I never really took it in; as far as I was concerned he was still producing abstracts. All the same, under his influence I took snapshots of my children to Dan's stationers shop on the high street and had them blown up into A4 size, black and white. The results were amazing, a transformation of the mundane and immediate into a Proustian and grainy remembrance of time past.

Some time after this, I went to a lecture given by Hughes at the Royal Geographical Society, during which he showed satellite photographs of the earth alongside his own drawings. An engineer by training, his vision extended beyond external features and concentrated on underlying structures. For the first time I looked at Hughes's paintings with a different and more informed eye.

That same year, I wrote a novel centred around JM Barrie's play Peter Pan . During my research on the author, I discovered that he had once been a great friend of the explorer Captain Robert Scott. I later wrote a novel about the 1912 doomed expedition to the South Pole. Without my knowing, Hughes had also become interested in the frozen continent, having studied the photographs of the American Robert Clare.

In 2001 the Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey decided to extend its activities by setting up an artists and writers programme. It invited Hughes to travel south with his notebook and, in November of that year, he was at sea between the Falklands and the Antarctic land mass. There were two ships, but only his managed to get through the ice to land at the British base of Rothera.

Hughes didn't waste his time, or the pages of his notebooks; he climbed mountains, camped on the glacier, trekked across the ice, flew four hours by aeroplane to reach the high shelf. One can truly say that he had found a world that he had been looking for all his life, and the resulting paintings - the frozen landscapes with their cracks and crevices, the purity of light, the luminous contrast between black rock and white iceberg - leap far beyond his previous work.

Quite simply, he has achieved a miracle: that of turning scientific observation into art.

· Philip Hughes is at the Francis Kyle Gallery, London W1, until Thursday. Details: 020-7499 6870.

Summary: Antarctica has long fascinated Beryl Bainbridge - but it wasn't until she saw Philip Hughes's drawings that she really appreciated its frozen landscapes


Reporter: It is the spring of 2014. Even as the snow is melting from the mountains of aspen, evidence in the Nancy Pfister murder case is piling up like a rocky mountain snow squall. And there's no...

Reporter: It is the spring of 2014. Even as the snow is melting from the mountains of aspen, evidence in the Nancy Pfister murder case is piling up like a rocky mountain snow squall. And there's no shortage of suspects. Just days after the killing, investigation tomorrows are focusing on Dr. Trey and Nancy styler. And her friend and assistant, Kathy carpenter. Now, also a suspect. Outside the interrogation room, the investigation breaks wide open. Mostly because of good luck. An important find just steps from the stylers motel room. A key piece of evidence. Literally. That missing key, possibly taken by the killer. The key was to the closet in which Nancy Pfister's body was found. Reporter: An easy find, maybe too easy, police suspect. Was someone trying to frame the stylers? The key really just seemed to appear out of nowhere. Was it possible that Kathy car enteeven planted that key? Reporter: And a few yards from the stylers rented room, another precious find by a zealous garbage man rooting through a trash can. By really sheer luck in the end, someone doing their job in the city of basalt and checking the city trash cans to make sure that someone wasn't dumping their personal trash. And what's in the bag? Prescription bottles from Nancy Pfister, the pearls that she had gotten from her mother. Reporter: And that's not all. There's also some of the styler's belongings. Oh, and another little item. Heavy, steel, stained with flakes of blood, a hammer. In a bag, no more than half a block or so from where thesteel stylers were staying. That hammer was sent off to the lab where they were able to determine that that was Nancy Pfister's blood on the hammer. Reporter: Detect dives confront Kathy carpenter and trey styler with that evidence. We found the murder weapon. It was a hammer. Reporter: But it'll take more than that bloody hammer to nail down an airtight case. Police begin the mind games, trying to get one suspect to turn on the other. Absolutely need to come clean now. Here is, like, an opportunity. This is a life-changing opportunity. What I want to do is give you a real opportunity to help yourself, okay? Let me finish, okay? This is an opportunity for you to help yourself. This is an opportunity that only comes along once. Now is the time to be first to the plate before anyone else because, once two other people -- and you know who I'm talking about -- know that you're here, it's going to come down to, "Holy crap, we have to save ourselves." I know you're responsible for this death. We are going to prosecute you for it. I'm just trying to make it an easy road instead of a bumpy road. We have the stylers, and they're saying some stuff. Do you think that they're saying, "Gee, yes, John. I did all this." Or do you think they might be saying something else? Reporter: Nancy styler isn't talking, because she has an attorney who is keeping her quiet. I said, they have no evidence. The only thing they're holding you for is that, they're thinking that this couldn't have been done alone. And that either you and Kathy, or Kathy and trey, have done this, or they thought all three of us conspired. Reporter: Did you all three conspire? Heck no. Reporter: But eventually prosecutors charge all three suspects. And you were charged with? First degree murder. Reporter: What did you make of that when you heard those charges? Surreal. Like, a nightmare. I've never even had a parking ticket. They're making a big mistake. I knew I had nothing to do with it. And I knew in my heart that my husband had nothing to do with it. Reporter: But the game of poker fails. The stylers and Kathy carpenter refuse to fold, insisting they are innocent. So, are you telling me that -- I will tell you right now, I have never seen the woman since she came back from Australia. That's a lie. I'll tell you eye to eye. 100%, eye to eye, I'm letting you know, that is, hands down, a lie. Reporter: Not even a suspicious polygraph test can shake trey orca think's story. I'm telling you right now, you failed the polygraf. I told you I felt in here that you were absolutely not being honest. On the polygraph, you did not do well. You failed the polygraph. With what means you know what happened. I don't. You do. And here's the deal. We will find what's going on. We will find what we need. Reporter: Is it possible that Kathy maybe knew more about this than she wanted to let on? No. No. Kathy is 100% innocent. Reporter: Greg Greer is Kathy carpenter's attorney. She didn't know anything. She wanted to help find the person who did this to her friend. Reporter: Yes, police have recovered the wandering closet key. And they now have the murder weapon in hand, that bloody hammer. But the case is far from a slam dunk. Prosecutors admit, it's largely circumstantial and much weaker than they'd like. In this day and age, juries expect to see that smoking gun, that DNA evidence. And this was a very clean crime scene. Reporter: But then, a surprise message from a jailhouse cell changes everything. The doctor says he can identify the killer. If only he can get investigators to believe him. I don't buy everything you're selling me today, okay?

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Summary: Part 4: Kathy Carpenter, Dr. William F. Styler and Nancy Styler are charged with first degree murder.


This post is in partnership with Time. The article below was originally published at Time.com.

If you want to check out one of Tesla’s TSLA newfangled electric rides before buying one, you can add Iowa to the list of states to steer clear of.

That’s because Iowa’s transportation department is telling Tesla Motors to stop offering test drives in the state because doing so is illegal,

. Iowa’s DOT apparently said the test drives–conducted by Tesla in West Des Moines earlier this month–were illegal because Tesla isn’t a licensed auto dealer in Iowa, and that

bans auto manufacturers from selling vehicles directly to consumers.

Trouble is, Tesla doesn’t sell through traditional franchise outlets, and the company has no franchises dealer relationships anywhere in the U.S. If you want to buy one of billionaire Elon Musk’s ballyhooed electric super-cars, you have to transact directly with the company. Unless you’re filthy rich and/or casually profligate, that’s going to be a tall order for most buyers, considering the base price on a Tesla Model S starts in the $70,000 range and surges by tens of thousands from there.

Note that driving Tesla cars in Iowa is perfectly legal. It’s just the test-driving or selling through a storefront part that’s the problem.

Forbidding car makers from selling directly to the public sounds odd, but in fact auto manufacturers are prohibited from selling directly to consumers in nearly every state. In Texas, for instance, Tesla has two show galleries, one in Houston and another in Austin, but as Tesla itself notes on its website:

In an effort to comply with the current laws, employees at these galleries are prevented from discussing pricing and the reservation process. This includes any discussion on financing, leasing, or purchasing options. Also, galleries cannot offer test drives. The store’s interactive kiosks are also amended to remove pricing. Lastly, we are unable to refer the customer to another store out of state. This puts Tesla at a serious disadvantage and inhibits our ability to reduce misconceptions and educate people about Electric Vehicles and the technology. Furthermore, people are forced to leave the gallery frustrated, lacking sufficient information about the car and the brand.

There may be a political element to the kerfuffle as well: the Registernotes franchise auto dealers in states around the country have worked with dealers associations to keep Tesla out, presumably threatened by Tesla’s unconventional sales model. In fact, it was Iowa’s Automobile Dealers Association that tipped the DOT off to Tesla’s test drives in West Des Moines, says the Register.

But not allowing auto manufacturers to sell directly to the public may be harming consumers, argues a 2009 competition-related advocacy report on the U.S. Department of Justice’s website. The paper advocates “eliminating state bans on direct manufacturer sales in order to provide automakers with an opportunity to reduce inventories and distribution costs by better matching production with consumer preferences,” and notes that economic arguments for states’ bans on direct auto sales that cite holdup or free-rider issues “are not persuasive because competition among auto manufacturers gives each manufacturer the incentive to refrain from opportunistic behavior and to work with its dealers to resolve any free-rider problems.”

Summary: Iowa's DOT recently put the kibosh on a three-day Tesla Motors test drive in the state capital.


now, to a bank robbery caught on tape. But who really designed this plan? Reporter: The sun's coming up over east Los Angeles and a bank heist is going down. Breaking news out of east Los Angeles -- a...

now, to a bank robbery caught on tape. But who really designed this plan? Reporter: The sun's coming up over east Los Angeles and a bank heist is going down. Breaking news out of east Los Angeles -- a kidnapping and robbery at a bank of America. Reporter: A longtime bank employee has been kidnapped, strapped with a bomb, and forced into robbing her own bank. 911. I have something strapped to me! Can you hurry? I'm so scared. We're coming, honey. I don't want to blow up. Reporter: Alerted, the L.A. Bomb squad rolls out of its headquarters and heads to the bank on south atlantic boulevard. This would be the highest threat level, because there's a person whose life is directly in danger. Reporter: Bomb squad veterans Joseph Acevedo and rob Harris. The entire street is shut down from one end to the other. There's helicopters, there's police cars, people were pushed way back. Reporter: Local reporter rob Hayes is covering the heist for KABC. We're shooting from far. We had the chopper up and we're just kind of waiting for this thing to play out. We have an innocent victim, that life's in danger. Our number one priority is to get to that person. Reporter: The victim is Aurora Barrera, an assistant manager for the bank and an L.A. Native. At 8:20, with the bank still closed, surveillance cameras inside and out show Barrera carefully following the kidnapper's instructions. Enlisting the help of the only other employee in the bank as she empties the vault and tosses two bags with a half million dollars out the side door. At the very moment Aurora is dropping the bags out this bank door, a getaway car is pulling up on this side street. The robbers have timed this perfectly. We know that, because one of the robbers spoke exclusively with "20/20." It was, like, one of those moments where you have no control over your body. You're just in shock. There was just, like, money everywhere. Reporter: Brian Perez has been recruited into the heist by his friend Richard menchacca, who drove the first getaway car. Perez says the money is now transferred to his car to keep police off their trail. The handoff takes place at this car wash right around the corner from the bank. So he opened my door and he pretty much threw all the money in the back of the car. You're sitting in a car wash, looking in the back seat with -- With over half a million dollars -- Yeah. And he closes it up? Yeah. And then what? He tells me to go. He slapped the car, like, "Get outta here." Reporter: Back at the bank the bomb squad begins the delicate but dangerous work of removing the bomb from Aurora Barrera's body. She was sitting in the chair at the desk saying, "Please, please, please, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die." We saw a black, cylinder object below her rib cage. And then we could see a cable. And some electrical tape. That is how it was connected to her body. Reporter: After calming Barrera, the device is gently removed from her. That's her finally walking free from the bomb and the bank. Now the device is isolated and destroyed with the help of the squad's robot. I went back down with the bomb suit and I got down and pulled all the pieces apart and saw that there was no high explosives, there was no circuitry. It was not a bomb. Reporter: Detective Harris signals code four, meaning all is safe. The device is a fake, but an effective one. The robbers have made away with over $500,000 without ever having stepped into the bank. Where did the money go? That's a great question. Reporter: FBI special agent Nicole black and Huntington park detective Joe settles are the first to interview Aurora after the heist. She was emotional during the interview. She would go into trying to describe the events, how scared she was at the time. I took a shower and -- Reporter: Slowly, the single 32 year old woman recounts her early morning abduction. She got up in the morning, got ready for work. She went out to her garage, as Normal. And when she opened the garage she was accosted by two black males. They told me that they've been following me. That they knew where I worked and that I better do everything that they tell me to do. Held at gunpoint and forced to tape a -- some sort of device on her stomach. He told me to strap it to myself. He gave me the tape, and he made me put it around my waist and it had some wires. I just saw wires and I got scared. They gave me a back pack and they told me to stuff it with the money and to throw it through the side door. If I didn't do what they told me to do, that I was gonna get hurt really bad. Reporter: As night falls, the search for Barrera's kidnappers and bank robbers goes on. Authorities are following leads attempting to track down those two suspects who apparently -- I know they were african-american, or black. All I could see was part of this right here. And the way they talk, they spoke. Reporter: But her memory is vague and police begin privately questioning whether she was the pawn in this high-stakes game, or the queen.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Summary: Part 1: Bank manager Aurora Barerra says she was kidnapped and strapped with a bomb to steal over $500,000.


Of all the things the Chicago Bears need to improve, punting is probably toward the bottom of the list.

But after the team's humiliating 55-14 loss on Sunday night to the Green Bay Packers, quarterback Jay Cutler came out and blamed punter Pat O'Donnell for the Bears' lackluster play.

Or, at least, that's what a lot of people think.

In reality, the satirical publication The Onion published a story in which Cutler blames O'Donnell for the team's struggles. The headline read, "Jay Cutler: ‘I’ll Be The First Person To Admit We Need A New Punter’."

The story, of course, was fake. But not everyone realized that, and this confusion led to some humorous tweets:

The fact that jay cutler "will be the first to admit the Bears need a new PUNTER". You must be kidding me.

— jamie dimes (@nicholsx14) November 12, 2014

Jay cutler said they need a new punter yeah that's your problem.

— Kelsey Hjalmarson (@21Kels) November 12, 2014

"I'll be the first person to admit that we need a new punter."-Jay Cutler Yep. That's the face of the franchise for the bears.

— Rob (@justwin84) November 12, 2014

Jay Cutler gets interviewed after getting killed 55-14 and first thing he said is they need a new punter... Bro get some first downs then

— Sam Foltz (@samfoltz27) November 11, 2014

Someone inform Jay Cutler that they wouldn't need to use the punter if he could perform at his own position as quarterback @ChicagoBears

— Steven Mirizzi (@SJM_Rizz) November 12, 2014

So, Jay Cutler manned up today and blamed the PUNTER for the Bears travails. What a leader. #BearsPride #chicagobears

— Jeff Buck (@JeffreyBuck70) November 12, 2014

Id love to stick Jay Cutler in the face. Bashing his own punter. Maybe you wouldn't punt 10 times a game if you could move your offense.

— Matt Klein (@kleinm13) November 12, 2014

Jay Cutler honestly blamed the punter in the loss? Is this dude serious? Cutler is AWFUL

— Ryan Gomes (@SmoothRyan23) November 12, 2014

Jay Cutler blamed his punter. I didn't expect anything less

— Tyler Serino (@TySerino) November 12, 2014

In other non related D.Rose news.. Jay Cutler said "we need a new punter" HOW ABOUT WE NEED A NEW QB!!! #AintThatAB*tch

— L-Matic (@LRashard36) November 11, 2014

I can't believe Jay Cutler seriously blamed the punter and long snapper for blocked punt in 3rd quarter! UH JAY, it was already 48-0??

— Logan Callahan (@CallahanLogan) November 12, 2014

Stephen A. Smith can relate to these fooled fans, as the polarizing ESPN commentator once got tricked by a 2012 Onion story claiming he thought his son (he doesn't have one) was finally ready for "the sex argument."

The same thing happened earlier this year to former NBA player Ron Harper:

Ron Harper tricked by an @OnionSports story? Ron Harper tricked by an Onion Sports story... pic.twitter.com/OCWIQLaod1

— SportsNation (@SportsNation) May 23, 2014

What makes the Onion story so frustrating for the Bears fans who actually believe it to be true is that Cutler himself is widely perceived to be the problem in Chicago. In his first season after signing a three-year, $54 million contract extension, Cutler is second in the league with 10 interceptions through nine games. Chicago's defense, which is giving up a league-worst 30.8 points per game, also deserves much of the blame.

And how about poor Pat O'Donnell? The rookie, who had a punt blocked on Sunday in somewhat embarrassing fashion, is averaging a respectable 45.2 yards per punt.

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If Sports Stars Did Movember Mustaches

Summary:
Of all the things the Chicago Bears need to improve, punting is probably toward the bottom of the list.
But after the team's humiliating 55-14 loss on...


01/13/2015 AT 08:15 PM EST

on Sunday, but fans will see a tougher Teigen Tuesday when she guest stars on

These days, Mindy Lahiri finds herself on the opposite side of the country completing a fellowship at Stanford University, where she runs into Alex Eakin, the man who took her virginity (and she took his), played by

. When Mindy runs into her old flame, Teigen's character Grace is hanging on Eakin's arm, leading us to believe that Grace is Eakin's latest love interest.

The encounter with her now-billionaire ex-lover leaves Mindy questioning her current

back in New York, and based on Kaling's real-life Twitter conversation with Teigen last month, it also results in a heated fight.

â@chrissyteigen: @mindykaling am I allowed to say I saw you today and touched your bewbsâ you are. You were so good in our fist fight!!

airs Tuesday nights at 9:30 p.m. ET on Fox.

Summary: Dr. Lahiri runs into the model's character with one of her former flames


British and NATO fighter jets have intercepted and escorted a Russian bomber away from British airspace, according to a reporter who shot video of the incident from on board the Russian aircraft.

Footage of the mid-air encounter was broadcast on TV Zvezda, a television channel owned by Russia defence ministry.

The vision shot from aboard the Bear aircraft shows a French Mirage and RAF Typhoons flying alongside the bomber after it was intercepted by a German Eurofighter which got as close as 20m to the Russian aircraft.

The TV station said that the Russian bomber was in a neutral zone on the border with NATO airspace when it was intercepted.

It is not clear when the incident occurred but the British Ministry of Defence said it was not the most recent interception.

The Ministry of Defence added that the footage may be an edited compilation of several different interceptions.

The RAF said it scrambled aircraft to intercept Russian jets 10 times in 2011, nine in 2012 and on eight occasions in 2013 and 2014.

The number of interceptions have risen dramatically in Baltic airspace recently, with NATO saying interceptions in the region trebled in 2014.

Do you have any news photos or videos?

Summary: British and NATO fighter jets have intercepted and escorted a Russian bomber away from British airspace in a video shot by a reporter on board the Russian aircraft.


The quest for Castaneda. Richard de Mille of Montecito, Calif., is a man with a mission. Mr. De Mille, a former university psychology teacher, is determined to discover the truth about the life and works of Carlos Castaneda, whose five books - ''The Teachings of Don Juan,'' ''A Separate Reality,'' ''Journey to Ixtlan,'' ''Tales of Power'' and ''The Second Ring of Power'' - profess to report the author's conversations during an 18-year apprenticeship with a Mexican Indian shaman named Don Juan Matus. These collections of ''anthropological fieldnotes'' have sold over 10 million copies in this country and are among the most influential testaments of the youth culture of the past dozen years.

It bothers Mr. de Mille that these books, which Joyce Carol Oates and a number of other literary critics have said ''read like fiction,'' have been taken so seriously by poets, scientists, philosophers, religious leaders and the press. It concerns him that one of them won Mr. Castaneda a Ph.D. in anthropology from U.C.L.A. and another was published as a work of serious scholarship by the University of California Press before the series was taken over by New York publishing houses, most recently Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books.

Mr. de Mille is convinced that Mr. Castaneda is ''one of the great intellectual hoaxers'' of all time. He has never succeeded in meeting the man face to face -Mr. Castaneda lives invisibly somewhere in the Los Angeles area - but during the past five years he has stalked his prey's persona in libraries. What he has discovered is presented in two books issued by well-regarded Santa Barbara publishers: ''Castaneda's Journey'' (Capra Press, $4.95) and the just-released ''The Don Juan Papers'' (Ross-Erikson, $8.95).

The latter, a volume as eccentrically organized as Mr. Castaneda's ''fieldnotes'' and as intellectually stimulating, contains 44 essays by Mr. de Mille and 30 other scholars, detailed notes and a bibliography. Among its findings:

- Although Carlos Castaneda said he was born in Brazil in 1935, according to immigration records, he was born Carlos Arana in a Peruvian mountain town 66 years ago. After emigrating to the United States in 1951, he held a variety of odd jobs and served a brief stint as a teacher while studying anthropology at U.C.L.A. At one time he took a course in ''creative writing.'' Pen sketches based on rare photographs illustrate Mr. de Mille's biographical essays.

- There is no real evidence that a person named Don Juan Matus ever existed.

- ''The sources'' of some 200 passages in the Don Juan books are identified in detail by Mr. de Mille. These make it clear, he says, that Mr. Castaneda has read widely and borrowed liberally from scientific and literary writers all over the world.

- Mr. Castenada may be a ''trickster-hoaxer,'' but he must be taken seriously as one of the important intellectual forces of our time. The ideas he has borrowed and popularized reflect the evolution of youth culture in recent times - first, a fascination with hallucinogenic drugs, later with Indian sorcery and mythology, then with witchcraft and metaphysics, and most recently with feminism.

While Mr. de Mille continues to stalk the man he regards as a ''great trickster-teacher,'' Mr. Castaneda continues to write. His sixth book, ''The Eagle's Gift,'' will be issued by Simon & Schuster this spring. In it, according to the publisher, ''as the inheritor of Don Juan's powers and tasks, Castaneda takes the reader into the very heart of sorcery, challenging both imagination and reason, shaking the very foundations of our belief in what is 'natural' and 'logical.''' After it has had its expected run on the hardcover best seller list, Pocket Books will bring out a softcover edition.

Last month, while Pocket Books was holding its seasonal sales conference at a hotel in San Diego, Mr. Castaneda unexpectedly drove up in a van, shared dinner and several hours of pleasant conversation with all the representatives present, then disappeared into the night without permitting a single photograph to be taken.

Fast book. Long distance runners - books that appear on best seller lists continuously for many months or even years - are familiar in the hardcover and trade paperback categories, but they're rare indeed among mass-market books. Even a multi-million copy blockbuster is lucky to keep jumping out of the racks for longer than three or four months. So publishing history of a sort is being made by Bantam's edition of ''The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet,'' which this week appears on the list above for the 53rd consecutive time and now has nearly 4 million copies in print.

Can the book's current success be attributed to the fact that one of the persons to whom the book is dedicated is on trial for the murder of one of the authors, Dr. Herman Tarnower? Only partially, according to the folks at Bantam. ''Undoubtedly the frequent references in the press to Dr. Tarnower have helped bring his book to the attention of millions. But his plan for losing up to 20 pounds in 14 days has worked very well for millions of people and its sales are helped byword-of-mouth recommendations.'' Nor does the publisher believe that there will be a falling off of sales in the near future. ''Diet books always do well in the spring, once the holiday overeating season is past and the time approaches to shape up for the warm weather.''


As if their day jobs advising companies like Facebook and PayPal weren’t big enough. Entrepreneurs Stan Chudnovsky and James Currier are behind Jiff, a wearables startup that has raised just shy of $26 million to disrupt employer benefits programs.

The plan is simple: encourage employees to adopt healthier behavior by giving them incentives to do so. An example: credits toward the health savings accounts used to pay deductibles.

Who should be rewarded? That’s determined by data generated from fitness trackers, watches and other gadgets, and analyzed against corporate goals.

“Our engagement is usually with the head of benefits. … We work with them to determine what behaviors they want to incent or what challenges they want to design into the system,” said Jiff CEO Derek Newell.

Incentives can be customized depending on the health of the employee. Someone managing diabetes, for example, might receive different rewards than someone who isn’t dealing with any sort of chronic condition.

What’s in it for employers? Potential reductions in the cost of providing employee healthcare, along with the goodwill engagement programs can engender.

Jiff is selling its approach to self-insured companies that have an interest in controlling healthcare costs—about 30% of all U.S. companies (approximately 100 million workers) are covered by plans of this nature. Jiff’s platform is already available to more than 300,000 employees of companies including interactive entertainment company Activision Blizzard, healthcare distributor Henry Schien, beverage maker Red Bull, and semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm. The workforce adoption rates at Jiff customers range from 50% to 80%, Newell said.

While employers subsidize access to the platform, Jiff’s software integrates with apps and gadgets that people already use, such as Fitbit or Jawbone. Right now, the startup has more than 55 partners with at least that many new relationships in the works. The Apple Watch will be part of the mix, and Newell believes the simple fact that people won’t have to think about activating a mobile app to start monitoring data will inspire higher levels of adoption.

Newell has plenty of insight into healthcare technology: he previously led the company behind the first FDA-approved, Internet-connected medical device. Last September, Jiff closed an $18 million Series B round led by Venrock. (The other investors in that round were Aberdare Ventures and Aeris Capital.) “All employees are different, so incentives should be, too, and Jiff is the only platform that allows employee-level personalization,” said Venrock partner Bryan Roberts.

Co-founders Chudnovsky (Facebook’s vice president of messaging) and Currier (an advisor to PayPay) are partners in Ooga Labs, founded back in 2000. Their experience with consumer technology will be instrumental for Jiff’s product design. “People see our products and think that’s how something like this should look,” Newell said.

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Summary: Jiff's co-founders are using lessons from Facebook, PayPal and Tickle to encourage healthier behavior at companies like Activision Blizzard, Red Bull and Qualcomm.


A high-tech delegation discovers that sunny Silicon Valley optimism is not the easiest concept to explain to Russians.

Ashton Kutcher was not prepared for this. When he arrived with a U.S. State Department technology delegation last week, he expected the screaming teenage girls, the journalists fighting for interviews, heck, he even expected the cold. But sitting with a group of Russian technology executives on Sunday night, the Punk’d star let loose. “When you get into a room without the Russian government controlling the room, the room becomes so vibrant!” he said. “We’ve had to fight to get people to talk openly.”

Kutcher was here, along with a handful of high profile tech execs — eBay EBAY CEO John Donahoe (who just launched a Russian version of the site), Cisco CSCO CTO Padmasree Warrior, Mozilla Foundation head Mitchell Baker, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, and venture capitalist Esther Dyson — as part of a week-long diplomatic trip to get start ups, students, NGOs and even Kremlin advisors to exchange ideas on the wider uses of social networking technology. In one week, the group set out to help their Russian counterparts figure out new uses for social media, open source browsers, and online garage sales that can help modernize an economy, build a stronger civil society, and help President Dmitry Medvedev with his plans to build a Russian Silicon Valley near Moscow.

Instead, the techies, business people (and a movie star), discovered that sunny Silicon Valley-style optimism and the belief that knowledge conquers all, is a hard brand to franchise in Russia.

The Kremlin is in the midst of a much-publicized innovation push: Its top brass traveled to MIT recently to ask scientists how to build up Russia’s innovation economy. But, as chief strategist Vladislav Surkov recently made clear in an interview with a Russian newspaper, modernization will be “authoritarian modernization.” That is, it will have a distinctly Russian flavor, and it would bring none of the political reforms that would create the kind of breathing space so crucial to Silicon Valley.

So what would it bring? Well, beer pong, which Howcast CEO Jason Liebman taught to high schoolers in Novosibirsk. And altered expectations. “My image of ‘being in Siberia’ is forever changed by this trip … this place has real potential,” tweeted eBay CEO John Donahoe, who had just been cajoled by fellow delegate and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey into starting his own Twitter account.

Such connection-building and knowledge-sharing with Russian counterparts are all part of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s hazily defined notion of 21st-century statecraft, according to Jared Cohen, a member of Clinton’s planning staff who put together this trip and others like it. (Cohen described the trip in a tweet as: “facilitating peeps-2-peeps”). And when the delegation met with Surkov and Arkady Dvorkovich, another Kremlin advisor on modernization, they talked excitedly about e-governance and transparency. “By no means are we perfect on these issues, and there was no posturing, or lecturing, or badgering of any kind,” White House CTO Aneesh Chopra told me. “Russia is not an aid project,” Cohen says. Instead, this was one more push of the reset button.

But the delegates quickly discovered that Russia’s famous technological talent often finds few outlets at home. Because of the twin heritage of the Soviet criminalization of independent commercial activity and the brazen plunder of the 1990s, businessmen are reviled to this day and entrepreneurship isn’t mythologized in Russia as it is in the United States.

So when Shervin Pishevar, CEO of Social Gaming Networks, asked a group of high schoolers in Novosibirsk how many of them wanted to start businesses, very few hands went up. “It’s as if they thought it was impossible,” he says. And because Russian society has traditionally been very atomized, the strong mentorship community of Silicon Valley is missing, too.

Social atomization – and, consequently, a cementing of old mentalities — was something the group struggled with so frequently as to make it cliché. At the Sunday night meeting with Russian tech leaders, Cohen and Kutcher were baffled to hear that the tech companies had never sat down with Russian NGOs – most of them antediluvian operations – to explain what technological tools were available to them. The problem was lost in translation: Cohen and Kutcher were there to help Russians build a civil society, while everything in Russia was designed to break it down. The Russian techies in the room instantly protested that sitting down with NGOs would compromise the neutrality of their technologies, a banner behind which they hide from the ever-encroaching hand of the state.

And, by the end of the trip, the delegates who had not yet done business in Russia ran up against the full reality of the state of corruption in Russia — a recent study showed that one in three Russians had paid bribes, totaling as much as $318 billion annually, and Transparency International ranked the country 146th out of 180 in its corruption ranking — in their last meeting of the trip, with anti-corruption NGOs. The corruption fighters painted a grim picture of bribe-taking, wanton arrests, and intimidation. Kutcher, who had been broadcasting the panel live from his iPhone, was apparently not expecting such darkness. As he shut off the live stream, you could hear him groan, “That was the most brutal meeting…”

Esther Dyson, who has been a prolific investor in Russia for a decade, was one of the few not surprised, though she says she tried to let the more optimistic delegates form their own views. “They kept saying I was so negative. But I’m as idealistic as anyone. I’m just realistic about the challenges,” she told me. (“You have to be an optimist to keep investing here for 20 years,” she added.)

As a final illustration of Russian reality, the group went from the horror show of the anti-corruption meeting to a lavish farewell dinner sponsored by Digital Sky Technologies, an investor in Facebook and Zynga, which is widely believed to have close ties to the Kremlin. Everyone sat at different tables and, for the first time the whole trip, there was no substantive discussion.

“Well,” says Dyson, hesitating. “The fish was delicious.”

Summary: A high-tech delegation discovers that sunny Silicon Valley optimism is not the easiest concept to explain to Russians. By Julia Ioffe, contributor Ashton Kutcher was not prepared for this. When he arrived with a U.S. State Department technology delegation last week, he expected the screaming teenage girls, the journalists fighting for interviews, heck, he even…


Q: I work for a large nonprofit organization. Employees may receive cash or time-off awards based on excellent annual performance reviews. Every year, employees are left in the dark regarding the certainty of receiving an award. Typically, an eligible employee could receive this award nine to 12 months after the review has occurred. There have been employees who left the organization before the awards were issued. Are these practices legal?

A. Nonprofit organizations, like their for-profit counterparts, use awards to reinforce desired performance. A for-profit business has to make a bonus payout no later than 10 weeks after the close of the fiscal year to deduct the payout in its previous year’s taxes. Since this is a not-for-profit, taxes do not affect the timing of the presentation of the award.

I consulted Tom Wilson, president of the Wilson Group, a Concord firm that specializes in compensation. He said your employer’s practices are legal, but seem to miss the primary purpose of rewarding people: providing an incentive to keep them motivated and maximize their performances. He described the components of an effective reward programs:

■ People know the measures, standards, or goals on which the awards are based.

■ The process for assessing performance is trusted and transparent.

■ The process does not set up counter-productive competitiveness, but bases the awards on achievements aligned with the organization’s mission, goals, and values.

■ The rewards are meaningful to the individual, and reflect the level of performance achieved.

■ The rewards are given in a timely manner, so individuals associate what was awarded with what was accomplished.

Many plans require individual to be employed by the organization to receive the award. You mentioned that human resources won’t respond to inquiries, but you can let them know that while the benefit appears substantial, it’s not having as positive of an impact as it potentially could.

Summary: Nonprofit organizations use performance based awards to reinforce desired performance, but don’t face the same deadlines as for-profits.


04/28/2015 AT 09:25 PM EDT

Jack Ely, the man who sang the famously unintelligible lyrics to the 1963 hit "Louie Louie," died Tuesday at his home in Redmond, Oregon. He was 71.

Ely died after battling a long-term illness, according to

. However, his son Sean said that, "because of his religious beliefs, we're not even sure what [the illness] was."

"Louie Louie" was written in 1955 by Richard Berry, and while it had been covered by other artists, it was the 1963 version by the Kingsmen that made it famous. Ely, the band's frontman, quit the band mere months afterwards.

Following up on a complaint that the "Louie Louie" lyrics were obscene, the FBI investigated the song in 1964 but ultimately found the lyrics to be "unintelligible at any speed." The AP story states that Ely credited a sub-par microphone with the fact that the song's lyrics were so hard to understand.

Ely later trained horses, and his son told the AP his status as a one-hit wonder didn't bother him. "He wanted to try on different occasions to pursue other endeavors in the music industry, but I think when it was all done and said he was pretty happy that he did 'Louie Louie,' " Sean Ely said.

Summary: Ely, who was proud of his status as a one-hit wonder, died on Tuesday at his Oregon home


For Apple Watch sales, bigger is better.

The bigger, 42mm version of Apple’s new smartwatch is selling way better than the smaller, 38mm version, according to a new research note by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities. The Apple-watcher blog Appleinsider reported the note earlier Wednesday.

Kuo, who has a reputation for accurate Apple predictions, said big Apple Watches could make up 80% of all watch orders. Kuo speculated that men tended to order the bigger watches—suggesting that men are buying most of the Apple Watches.

The bad news for Apple is that “market demand for Apple Watch may be slowing down” since Apple started taking watch orders in late April, Kuo wrote. Kuo slashed KGI’s forecast for watch orders through September by 20% to 30%, meaning Apple could ship less than 15 million units during that time, according to the blog 9to5Mac. That’s a good bit less than some industry forecasts that Apple could ship 20 to 30 million watches in that stretch, according to 9to5Mac.

Kuo compared the Apple Watch to the iPhone, saying it had “potential” but could take a little while to catch on, according to Appleinsider.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has already said it won’t reveal sales numbers for the Apple Watch. Apple’s share price wasn’t responding—it was flat in early afternoon trading on Wednesday.

Summary: And one troubling sign one analyst sees


We're all aware of the transformative power of a good face of make-up, but before-and-afters rarely attract as much attention as this YouTube video posted by a South Korean woman.

In the footage, which at last count had been watched 2,668,546 times since it was uploaded on May 2, the young woman uses a cotton pad to wipe the right side of her face clean.

The end result reveals a stark difference. Half of her face is heavily made up with doll-like, rounded eyes, porcelain skin and perfectly lined lips, while the other side, reveals her usual self.

South Korea has become a cosmetics mecca in recent years. The Washington Post reported make-up incorporates everything from snail mucus to animal placenta.

Locals spend $1.5bn annually on beauty products - 10 percent of which is spent by men.

Do you have any news photos or videos?

Summary: It is usually the make-up application videos which command the biggest internet audiences, but this woman pictured performing a make-under has taken YouTube by storm.


By a vote of 7 to 2, the Supreme Court last week gave a hard scratch to a persistent Washington itch and at the same time upheld a Government claim of inherent power.

The case was that of Philip Agee, the former Central Intelligence Agency officer who has spent the last several years exposing intelligence agents and operations.

He had suggested (from West Germany, where he lives) in December 1979 that the United States exchange C.I.A. files on Iran for the American hostages. Citing a 1966 regulation authorizing such action when a citizen's activities abroad ''are causing or are likely to cause serious damage'' to national security or foreign policy, the State Department revoked his passport.

Two lower Federal courts ruled in his favor, holding that Congress had not empowered the State Department to revoke passports on these grounds. The High Court disagreed. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger said that, although Congress had not explicitly authorized passport revocation, it has allowed the executive branch broad discretion in regulating Americans' foreign travel. Courts must yield to ''a consistent administrative construction'' of the 1926 Passport Act, he said, especially in matters of national security ''where Congressional silence is not to be equated with Congressional disapproval.'' Since Mr. Agee had admitted that his actions were a threat, the Court did not define the conduct that would constitute such a threat.

Several constitutional scholars suggested the Court had granted the Government potential license to restrict speech and travel of political dissidents, journalists and others. Laurence H. Tribe, professor of constitutional law at Harvard, said the ruling went beyond the ''clear and present danger'' restrictions on the First Amendment previously allowed. ''The mere fact that the intent of the speaker is to jeopardize American policy...is substituted.''


Although he has promised to make improved municipal services the hallmark of his second term, Mayor Koch has shied away from giving details about how he intends to achieve his goal if he is re-elected.

That does not mean he necessarily has no thoughts about how to go about getting what he says he wants. Nevertheless, several times in interviews over the last few weeks, the Mayor has resisted attempts to elicit from him a clear sense of future direction on specific issues.

In a typical exchange earlier this week, he was asked, ''What would be on your education agenda for the second term?'' ''I don't set the educational priorities in any detail,'' Mr. Koch replied, ''other than to demand and exhort people to reach levels of excellence.''

More than once, the Mayor also raised the possibility that, yet again, the city might find itself too financially strapped to guarantee that the labor force will continue to expand, as it has this election year.

With the state's failing to assume the city's Medicaid burden and with lingering uncertainty about Federal aid, he suggested - as have others - that the financial well-being that permitted the current hirings could prove to be a temporary respite from municipal penury. He Dwells on His Triumphs

These were some of the themes emerging from a series of interviews on campaign issues with New York Times reporters, which to date have covered the areas of transportation, sanitation and education.

Like any polished politician, Mr. Koch preferred to dwell on his triumphs rather than on shortcomings. But unlike some other politicians who enjoy the advantages of an apparently popular incumbency, he has chosen not to run just on his record. He has, in effect, invited more questions about where he intends to go than about where he has been because he himself signaled that he was looking for new directions.

In his first term, he said when he announced his candidacy in June, he had to concentrate on bringing the lopsided city budget into balance, regardless of the effect that may have had on the quality of some municipal services.

Next time around, he said, the focus will be on getting what most New Yorkers are assumed to want - better policing, better street cleaning, better schools.

But in discussing several of these matters, Mr. Koch repeatedly declined to talk about methods. For example, he said this week that one of his priorities in the schools was to urge that students learn ''to speak basic English.'' That is essential, he said, ''if you want to get a first-class job.''

''What does that mean in practical terms?'' he was asked. ''Well, it means the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain,'' he replied. In some instances, the Mayor insisted there was nothing he could do, for responsibility rested elsewhere. He said, for example, that the fate of the subways was in the hands of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

''Do you feel that there is nothing you can do?'' he was asked. ''There's nothing,'' Mr. Koch replied, adding that he lacked ''the power to hire and fire.'' Yet seconds later he took credit for the recent construction of a fence around an M.T.A. subway yard to keep out vandals. ''The only way I got it built is by embarrassing them,'' he said referring to M.T.A. officials. ''Speaking out -there's no other way.'' Then he added: ''All I'm simply saying is I don't have the right to impose my will.''

On other matters, Mr. Koch flatly insisted that things would get better, such as productivity in the Sanitation Department, where he already claims success with innovations such as the two-man trucks. But he would not elaborate.

On yet other issues, the Mayor just as flatly cautioned against great expectations. When it comes to street and sidewalk cleanliness, he said, ''I'm not going to make any promises that it's going to be satifactory within a certain period of time.''

The reluctance to look too far ahead was consonant with Mr. Koch's general mien. Questions about where he sees New York heading through the 1980's visibly make him uncomfortable. He tends to answer in generalities, and then only after some hesitation.

At the same time, however, the resistance to providing specifics was not consistent with the Mayor's customary attention to details. He has a great capacity to marshal arcane figures and facts quickly, a point demonstrated often in The Times's interviews, even though Mr. Koch turned to aides now and then for information.

Sometimes he made light of the very notion of specific goals. Law enforcement and education were his top two priorities, he said, but then he added jokingly, ''There are 10 priorities.''

Essentially, the Mayor did not want to do what he did in 1977 when he was elected. At that time, he did set goals. He said then, for instance, that if pupil reading scores did not go up he would not deserve a second term.

They have gone up, and Mr. Koch was asked this week if he would make the same sort of pledge again. ''No,'' he said. ''I mean, listen, isn't it remarkable that I was able to come out of that one alive?'' ''You can't think of anything?'' he was asked. ''I've got plenty of things,'' Mr. Koch replied. ''But I'm not going to - let me put it this way: I'm not going to tempt fate.''

Illustrations: Photo of Mayor Koch


AFTER I moved to East Hampton, I didn't see Melanie very often, only when I went into New York City. She hated leaving the city for any reason. I went there less and less as time went by, but always around Christmas, to see the stores and the tree at Rockefeller Center, and to see old friends like Melanie.

She was too young to be a really old friend, but I'd known her since she was 19. By the time she was in her late 20's, she'd become a beautiful, amusing waste ...a big drinker, spending a small family inheritance very fast.

It was her custom to go out every night, leaving her East 57th Street apartment around 11:30. She didn't date anymore. Too often her dates had coped with the problem of holding her up, at the end of an evening, while trying to get a cab at the same time. Too many times they'd sat out that ''one last drink, please,'' watching her good mind turn to mush, hearing the slurred words, and getting their elbows out of the path of spilled Scotch.

But Melanie found a crowd. They were always waiting for her in various watering holes around Manhattan's Upper East side. They called out her name when she came through the door, rushed up with hugs and smiles, helping her out of her coat. The bartenders didn't even have to ask; they automatically poured the double Dewars neat.

Sometimes at the end of an evening, she'd get the whole check, but she insisted there were evenings when the crowd bought her drinks, too. ''Anyway,'' she always added angrily, ''that's not the point, who pays for what!''

I'd talk to her about writing. She wanted desperately to write screenplays, and she'd taken a course at the New School. I'd talk to her about moving out of the city, and away from the crowd. She'd say she needed people, she loved strange people and the atmosphere in bars, and moving to someplace like the Hamptons would only mean driving to bars, and getting a DWI one night. At least in New York, she'd say, I can always get home O.K.

And she managed somehow. People were kind. She was helped into cabs. Her doorman walked her to the self-service elevator, got her inside and pushed the button for her floor. She got home evey night safely, somehow.

She defended her crowd vigorously. Maybe they didn't hold down regular jobs and maybe they weren't models of success, but they were ''up '' and warm, and her best times were drinking somewhere with them in the dark, listening to music, laughing and telling stories. She said you don't give them a chance, and you're too judgemental to appreciate them. They're the kind of people I'll write about someday, she said.

She'd tell me stories they'd told her. One woman remembered as a kid her father, divorced from her mother, calling her from her yard one Christmas afternoon, to his car. ''Tell your mother I'm dropping by tonight with a present for her!'' That night he shot her mother dead, in front of her. ''And that's not the end!'' Melanie exclaimed. She went on to say that after 40 years ''inside'' he was let out, old and sick. ''They live together now in her apartment, and she takes care of him!''

That was one story, and the others weren't much happier. There was the son of a famous impersonator. When he was a child, his father never talked to him in his own voice. It was Jimmy Cagney who said ''I love you,'' or Jimmy Stewart who said, ''I'm not pleased with your report card.''

Melanie's apartment was always a luxurious mess, and I'd stopped staying with her when I went into New York because of that, and because I'd always wait up for her like an anxious parent. Sometimes she'd come in at 9 or 10 in the morning from some after-hours club, stoned, a hole in the knee of her pants from falling somewhere, ready to have a Bloody Mary before she turned in.

One year she called to say she was doing something different on Christmas Eve. Would I please come? I could go back to East Hampton on an early jitney Christmas morning, but would I please come? She'd been thinking about the Christmases of her childhood. She was going to have an old-fashioned party, in her apartment, for her crowd. She doubted any of them had been invited to anyone's home on Christmas Eve for years. They all went out to the same old bars. She wanted to do that for them, and for herself. She wanted me to help her make it nice.

We put up a large tree and decorated it. We cleaned up the apartment. She bought a new long red dress and had her hair done. A few other old friends were invited besides the crowd. She bought some new records, some Christmas music, classical and popular, but Christmas songs. She hung mistletoe and made eggnog. She set up a small table with a red cloth and green and red napkins. She ordered in turkey and ham and salad, and put out china plates and silverware. And she bought a dozen small poinsettia plants with white ribbons, a present for each person to take.

The invitation was for 9 ...10, 11, no one came but the few old friends. We sat there. The music played. Melanie paced, but didn't drink a lot. She was waiting for the crowd.

At 1 o'clock we were helping ourselves to the food and telling her to enjoy the evening, anyway. The eggnog was great; we were remembering old times. Who needed the crowd?

Melanie did, and when the downstairs doorbell rang insistently, her face lit up. ''You see? They're not the types to come on time! But they're here!''

And they were, all of them together, while she greeted them as they poured out of the small self-service elevator. She took their coats and kissed their smiling faces, red from the cold winter wind. Their arms were filled with gift-wrapped packages in all sizes and shapes.

''Merry Christmas, Melanie!'' they chorused. They were high and grinning and one of them went immediately to the hi-fi to change the music, to put on a George Benson record. They weren't hungry; they wanted their usual instead of eggnog. I helped Melanie crack ice in the kitchen while some of them kicked the rug back in the living room and began dancing. ''I told you they'd come,'' Melanie said to me, ''and they brought presents!''

After a while, through the noise and smoke, someone shouted out it was time for Melanie to open her gifts. She called back, ''And before you leave, each one take a plant. They're for you! Merry Christmas!''

She was all smiles as she arranged herself on the couch and they piled the gifts at her feet. ''Come on, Melanie. Open them. Merry Christmas!'' One by one she began opening the boxes, stopping finally after the third. There was nothing in any of them. The crowd had taken them from under the Christmas tree in the lobby of her building, where they'd been placed just for display.

Everyone just howled, everyone in the crowd, anyway, and Melanie did, too, finally. When it was all over, and the crowd had left, the 12 red plants were still there. No one had bothered to take one. Melanie was passed out in her clothes.

A few months after that, Melanie called to say she was entering Smithers. For about a year she was missing from our lives. Smithers was followed by a long stretch in another rehabilitation center for alcoholics, in the Mid-west.

Now Melanie lives on the Coast and writes screenplays. She tells me the one story she tries to write over and over is the story of that Christmas Eve. ''I don't know why I can't,'' she says, ''but I can't.'' --------------------------------------------------------------------- Marijane Meaker of East Hampton is the author M.E. Kerr, who writes books for young people. Her latest book is ''Little, Little.''

Illustrations: drawing of woman sleeping on a couch


The new production of ''La Boheme'' at the Metropolitan Opera Monday night was a gift for the old guard - for Met conservatives disgruntled by the carefully modernist line taken by the new Met in its repertory and production style. This Franco Zeffirelli ''Boheme'' - he both directed and designed it - is a production for people who come wanting to applaud the scenery. And applaud it they did, throwing in bravos to boot.

One calls the production new, and in a technical sense it is. But if the Met ever went out to get guaranteed goods with a minimal chance of risk, it was doing so here. Mr. Zeffirelli has been staging ''his'' ''Boheme'' for some 20 years now. It has graced most of the world's major opera stages and it has been filmed. He was reportedly persuaded to essay the opera once again because he had come up with some new twists.

The second act is still a split-level stage connected by wide steps, with passers-by above and the Cafe Momus down below. But now the actual interior of the cafe is revealed when pushcarts are rolled away. The crowds - 280 people are on stage at the climax - continue to pursue their assigned tasks throughout, occasionally freezing when Renata Scotto has a big moment, and the bustle is distracting.

The first- and fourth-act set is a cut-away garret, complete with lower-lying roofs on which the bohemians stage their mock battle in the fourth act. Act III is softened by a scrim with the inn below the road and a snowy incline separating them. All of this is accomplished in Mr. Zeffirelli's familiar super-realistic manner, and the sheer lavishness of detail - and demonstrable expense required to realize it -brought appreciative, nostalgic comments from the opening-night audience.

To this taste, however, the decor lacked an enlivening sense of style. The idea of a realistic ''Boheme'' is hardly out of date; indeed, it is probably the only intelligent way to do the opera. But Mr. Zeffirelli's imagery seemed grandiose and even pretentious. And it did not appear to have been executed or lit with a real sensualist's feeling for visual elegance.

The stage direction was conventional. This again is not a complaint; ''La Boheme'' is such a familiar opera that eccentric new bits of business only stand out. But occasionally Mr. Zeffirelli or his singers indulged in isolated, vulgar exaggerations of their essentially realistic portrayals. Musetta is a flamboyant character, but did Miss Scotto really need to pull her dress up above her head, repeatedly, when a flash of ankle would have done the trick?

Teresa Stratas, who created far and away the most interesting portrayal, was similarly given to obtrusive, meldramatic moments: her stagy faint in the first act, for example, or her health-club trick on her deathbed -stretching out her arms and half-levitating her torso toward Rodolfo. For the most part, however, she played Mimi as a nervous wraith out of Edward Gorey, and compelling it was, with Peter J. Hall's costume design contributing to the effect.

The other singers relied on the standard ''Boheme'' characters and gimmicks. These worked functionally, but it takes a greater flair from both director and actors to make the bohemians' cavortings look fresher than mere superannuated horseplay.

The slack, larger-than-life qualities of the decor and direction were mirrored in James Levine's conducting. This was not one of Mr. Levine's better nights. The playing was loud, crudely colored and slow. It lacked the pulse and tension necessary in the love music - although the third act was better than the first, and the all-1ound best, musically, of the night. The boisterous scenes needed more snap and wit.

This kind of production used to be peopled by the best singers the Met could muster, and maybe it still was. But none of the four principals matched memories of even the near past. The best was Miss Stratas, occasionally a bit edgy but a full and appealing lyric soprano, and a nice change of pace from her Jenny and Lulu.

The most disappointing was Jose Carreras, the Rodolfo. Mr. Carreras's tenor has grown so dark and baritonal that it even alters perception of pitch: he took ''Che gelida manina'' down a half tone, which is not uncommon, but it sounded lower than that. Worse, his voice has lost its brightness and alacrity; what should have been youthful ardor emerged as beefy effort. When he could pour forth unstintingly, without concern for intimacies, however, as in the third act, he was more convincing.

Miss Scotto's Musetta further chronicled what seems to be her vocal decline. She was moving in the fourth act, but in her second-act pyrotechnics she barely compensated for her frayed and strident top with extra dollops of personality. Richard Stilwell and James Morris, the Marcello and Colline, were straightforward and adequate; nothing more or less. The best baritone on stage, as he usually is, was Allan Monk as Schaunard: why he doesn't get bigger parts only he, his manager and the Met know for sure. Italo Tajo, the veteran Italian comprimario, doubled wittily as Benoit and Alcindoro.

Singers will come and go for years in this production, and Mr. Zeffirelli's direction will soon erode. But the decor will remain and it should prove durable: the Met wanted a ''Boheme'' that would last, transcending fashion, and it got one.

Perhaps ''La Boheme,'' Puccini's finest and most innocent opera, works best in a far more intimate house than the Met. Perhaps it is best encountered on a journey, with young, unknown singers playing out its tale of passion and despair in a way that can really be believed. Mr. Zeffirelli's ''Boheme'' is grand and traditional, but it lost its innocence long ago.


DETROIT, Nov. 29— Taking budget cuts ''out of the hide of the cities'' is contrary to President Reagan's desire to reduce the Federal Government's role, the president of the National League of Cities said today in protesting planned cuts in revenue-sharing funds.

''Revenue sharing is the perfect way of expressing the new federalism,'' Mayor William Hudnut of Indianapolis said at a news conference. ''But we state and local governments should not be mandated to do things without being given the money to do them.''

More than 3,000 local officials from the league's 15,000 member cities are here attending the organization's annual congress, which is to end Wednesday.

At a seminar Saturday, city officials said that the nation's cities should brace for difficult bargaining with municipal employees next year and prepare for strikes. Cities Could Get Some Leverage

However, the officials said, declining revenues, public resistance to tax increases and support for President Reagan's dismissal of the striking air traffic controllers could give cities some leverage with growing and increasingly aggressive unions.

''Taxpayers will be paying closer attention to the contracts,'' said Tom Payne, labor relations manager for Dayton, Ohio. ''In essence, they'll be saying, 'We want a better deal for the taxpayers, not the unions.' ''

Private business has already begun to develop a ''survival strategy'' of more labor-management cooperation, which could set an example for cities, said Eugene Berrodin, a personnel specialist for the Michigan Municipal League.

According to a study presented in the seminar, last year there were 593 strikes by government workers around the nation and a 75 percent increase over the previous year in workdays lost because of walkouts. The average such strike lasted nearly 12 days.

Robert Ranieri, the chief labor negotiator for Hoboken, N.J., suggested increased use of part-time and auxiliary police officers nd firefighters, as one of the longterm answers to increasing union demands and dwindling city revenues.


WARSAW, Jan. 21— Following is the text of a petition sent today to Poland's Parliament and Archbishop Jozef Glemp. The petition, signed by a group of leading Polish intellectuals and artists, was translated by The New York Times from the Polish.

All nations have the right to self-determination. By virtue of this right they freely determine their political status and freely guide their economic, social and cultural development.

The above principle, expressed in the international pacts of human rights ratified by the Council of State of the Polish People's Republic, constitutes a basic principle of international law, often repeated in the documents of the United Natio ns and also stated in the Final Act of the European Conference on S ecurity and Cooperation in Helsinki, signed by a representative of Po land in 1975.

We declare that this principle lay at the basis of the renewal movement in our country after August 1980. Polish society hoped for the lasting character and inviolability of the democratic changes and for respect for it by outside forces and the authorities of the Polish People's Republic.

That is why we declare that the decision to introduce the state of war in Poland on Dec. 13, 1981, has broken the basic principle of international law for self-determination. It has also broken another principle of international law: abstaining from the use of force in solving conflicts.

The methods used to intimidate and enslave society cause our indignation and protest. Indignation is caused by attempts at splitting the nation: setting workers against soldiers and the police, worse treatment for interned workers and peasants and rankand-file members of Solidarity than for interned representatives of the intell igentsia, the blockade of communications in the whole country. We p rotest against the brutal breaking of workers' strikes by the police and army, the shooting of people, beatings, internment of many thous ands of people in prisons and camps. We protest against the breaking up of families, the separating of children from their parents, impr isonment of the sick and of minors.

The highest concern is caused by the paralysis of cultural life, of science and education, and immobilization of the information media. We deem disgraceful and illegal the practice of breaking human dignity by forcing people to sign so-called declarations of loyalty, using various kinds of pressure and blackmail and dismissing from work those who refuse to sign.

We demand of the authorities an end to the confrontation with their own nation, revocation of the state of war, freeing of the interned, a halt of repressions against Solidarity members. We demand that a dialogue be started with the legally elected authorities of Solidarity and the church.

We appeal to all the Deputies of Parliament of the Polish People's Republic, to the United Nations and its Human Rights Commission to take the steps necessary to bring about the lifting of the state of war in our country.

We are convinced that we express the will of all of Polish society - workers and peasants, the intelligentsia and also the soldiers and police who are being forced to stand with weapons ready to shoot in towns and villages.

Aside from the periods of Nazi occupation and Stalinism, there were never so many overcrowded prisons and camps on our soil as there are in January 1982. Whoever until now has tried to enslave our nation has met with resistance and anger. We remind those who introduced the state of war of this.


Updated JUN 04, 2015 8:08p ET

PHOENIX -- The Arizona Diamondbacks have placed right-hander Archie Bradley on the 15-day disabled list with shoulder tendinitis and recalled left-hander Robbie Ray from Triple-A Reno.

Bradley has struggled since returning from a sinus fracture caused by a line drive that hit him in the face on April 28.

"After he pitched Monday night, he came in Tuesday, his shoulder was just sore, more than normal," said Arizona manager Chip Hale. "They did a bunch of tests, everything was good, MRI, everything was great. We just felt like, at this point, after the tough outings, getting hit on the face, and then some soreness in his shoulder, we wanted to DL him and get him a break."

The soreness began in Bradley's Mary 26 start at St. Louis and carried over, Bradley said.

"It's just a different feeling than I had before," he added.

The 22-year-old failed to pitch past the fifth inning in four starts since coming back, going 0-3 with a 7.42 ERA. He allowed five runs on eight hits in five innings in a loss to Atlanta on Monday.

"I said something (about the soreness) and I think they were just taking the cautious route, letting it calm down and go from there," Bradley said. "Now we can just on it early, use this time to work out some of the issues I was going through as well."

Ray made one appearance with the Diamondbacks earlier this season, allowing one run in five innings before being sent down to Reno. He is expected to start Thursday night against the New York Mets.

Ray is 2-3 with a 3.67 ERA for Reno with 57 strikeouts in 41-2/3 innings. He's allowed a total of four earned runs in his last three starts while striking out 19 in 16 innings pitched.

Bradley, meanwhile, is expected to take a rehab stint after his disabled list assignment -- he didn't after being hit in the face -- and won't return with any guarantees, Hale said.

"He's a young kid. We talked about it today, 'You're young, this is all part of your career,'" the skipper added. "We need to stay positive with him, but he needs to understand he can't continue to pitch the way he was pitching and pitch here."

Summary: Arizona's Bradley heads to DL with shoulder tendinitis


Boko Haram fighters yesterday captured at least 60 people in a new attack in northern Cameroon. (AAP)

Boko Haram fighters from Nigeria yesterday kidnapped at least 60 people in a new attack in northern Cameroon in which some people were killed, police said.

The Islamist militants "burst into two villages in the Tourou area... They torched houses and left with around 60 people. Most of them were women and children," a police officer told AFP.

He said the cross-border attack had "left some people dead" without giving an exact toll, adding that the Cameroon army had "launched an operation" in the wake of the assault.

The kidnapping was the biggest in Cameroon by the Islamists who have staged a series of attacks in the country in recent months and escalated their bloody insurgency in their stronghold in northeastern Nigeria.

The assault was launched after neighbouring Chad deployed troops to combat Boko Haram both in Cameroon and Nigeria.

In Nigeria the Chadian troops are seeking to recapture the strategic city of Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad, which straddles the borders of Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon and which fell to the Islamists early this month.

Many say the assault on Baga could be Boko Haram's deadliest. Satellite pictures released by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch showed widespread destruction with around 3,700 buildings in Baga and nearby Doron Baga damaged or destroyed.

Amnesty says as many as 2,000 civilians may have been massacred, but Nigeria's army objected to the "sensational" claims and said that the death toll in Baga was about 150.

Some 400 Chadian army vehicles arrived in the Cameroonian border town of Kousseri on Saturday, and Chadian President Idriss Deby said they were "operational" as of Sunday.

Boko Haram last Monday launched an offensive against a Cameroonian military base in Kolofata, also in the far north of the country, in which 143 "terrorists" and one Cameroonian soldier were killed, according to Cameroon.

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Summary: Boko Haram fighters from Nigeria on Sunday kidnapped at least 60 people in a new attack in northern Cameroon in which some people were killed, police said.


Boston Children’s Hospital officially opened its new renovated food court, Chef’s Playground, an $11 million reimagining of the drab hospital cafeteria.

The redesign includes local restaurants, such as Regina’s Pizza, along with national chains such as Starbucks and Subway. The 12,000-square-foot cafeteria was completely remodeled, including whitewashed walls and brightly colored lights in the ceiling. In addition, there is a Kid’s Play Area, which includes coloring stations and screens on the walls that have images that can be manipulated by the children.

The Kid’s Play area in the hospital’s newly renovated food court.

The food court is attached to the main lobby. When patrons enter, they are confronted with a touch screen iMac bar to the right, and a Starbucks to the left. Ahead is the seating area and the Kid’s Play Area. Beyond that opens up into a larger room, featuring most of the restaurants and the Chef’s Playground station.

A view of the dining area.

“Our marquee station is truly Chef’s Playground,” said project manager Paul O’Connor. The station will feature a rotating bevy of celebrity and local chefs, who will cook unique meals for hospital patrons that would be otherwise unavailable in their respective restaurants. Two chefs that will be cooking at the station in upcoming months are Rachel Klein of Liquid Art House and Tiffani Faison, head chef of Sweet Cheeks Q. The hospital will host one celebrity chef and one local chef each month, and in the times when no guest chef is available, the hospital employs two certified executive chefs.

Healthy samples from the “Guilt-Free Grill” were on offer during the Chef's Playground unveiling.

In addition, Chef’s Playground will offer a Parent’s Night Out, which will bring together 12 to 24 local families who have children in the hospital for a private five-course meal cooked by the guest chefs.

Monday’s unveiling featured several events: a fashion show, to demonstrate the new cafeteria uniforms, a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and a “Chopped” competition, modeled on the popular Food Network television program. Several local chefs competed in a set time limit to produce meals, which were judged by seven children from the hospital and Maneet Chauhan, judge of Chopped.

“What you’re seeing today is a transformation,” said Shawn Goldrick, Patient Support Services director at Children’s Hospital, “that will go beyond the walls of Boston Pediatric to change the paradigm of food services.”

Summary: The hospital now hosts a food court including local restaurants such as Regina’s Pizza, as well as national chains like Starbucks.


Roslan Rahman | AFP | Getty Images

A model displays the Nokia 6151, at the Nokia exhibition in Singapore, June 19, 2006.

It's clear that Apple is the most dominant company in the technology industry.

The iPhone maker is the world's largest company by market value and has more than $200 billion in annual revenue.

It controls almost a fifth of the global market for consumer electronics by revenue, according to Nomura.

But technology history is littered with examples of companies that held complete dominance at one time, only to be displaced by a new competitor. See IBM, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft and Cisco for examples of tech juggernauts that seemed indomitable during their heydays, but later faltered.

But the company that probably most closely resembles Apple's standing is Nokia.

Will the Apple story end like its Finnish competitor?

Nomura raised that issue in a report to clients Friday.

Summary: An analyst Friday addressed the concern that Apple will lose its dominance of the tech industry like Nokia did a decade ago.


Wells Fargo's shares, which had risen about 8 percent since the start of the year to Thursday's close, were up 1 percent at $48.25 in trading before the bell.

Wells Fargo's mortgage business, which provides nearly one in five U.S. home loans, continued to suffer from a drop in refinancing. Income from mortgage banking fell to $1.5 billion from $2.8 billion in the first quarter of 2013.

For the week ending April 4, applications for refinancing fell to their lowest share of total mortgage applications since July 2009, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Read MoreSluggish loans behind JPMorgan's letdown: Analyst

Wells Fargo's new home loans fell to $36 billion in the quarter from $109 billion a year earlier and $50 billion in the fourth quarter.

February was the worst month for new home loans since at least 2000, according to Black Knight Financial Services.

Wells Fargo had $27 billion of mortgage applications in the pipeline at the end of the quarter, down from $65 billion at the end of the fourth quarter.

JPMorgan Chase, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, reported earlier on Friday that income from its mortgage business fell to $114 million in the quarter, a drop of $559 million from the year-earlier period.

Wells Fargo's net income got a lift from a drop in the amount it set aside to cover bad loans as the housing market and the overall economy stabilized.

Summary: Wells Fargo reported quarterly earnings that beat analysts' expectations on Friday.


Is big data behind scoring drought in professional sports? And your business?

As spring training brings the familiar sounds of baseball, and the annual renewal of foolish optimism that this might be the Cubs' year, Major League Baseball is hoping for something even more dramatic -- more runs. From anyone.

Baseball is in a crisis not seen since the 1960s. Pitchers ran circles around hitters last year, with runs per game and batting averages at decades-long lows. There was an epidemic of defensive 2-1 ball games last year -- this at a time when baseball is struggling to remain popular with younger, supposedly attention-span-challenged fans.

But it's not just baseball. The National Hockey League has an offense problem, too. The game's biggest star, Sidney Crosby, has only 20 goals three-quarters of the way through the season. Goals per game have shrunk since the 2005-2006 season. And in the NBA, hot-shot scoring has also declined. In the2007-2008 season, there were 27 players who averaged more than 20 points pergame. Today there are 15.

What in the wide-wide-world of sports is going on here? If you own spreadsheet software, you know that advanced analytics are the biggest change to hit professional sports in the past decade. As Michael Lewis explained in his book "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" that popularized the revolution, sports franchises will do almost anything to get a leg up.

Read MoreMichael Lewis: 'Flash Boys' market still 'rigged'

Geeks with video cameras track everything now. Baseball has its spray charts. Defensive shifts based on those charts are so effective that some critics have suggested banning them. Hockey has its Corsi and Fenwick, which measure shot attempts during ice time. The National Basketball Association uses PPP, or points per possession now.

But a funny thing is happening on the way to refining these sports -- big data had chosen sides. Moneyball tactics seem to help the defense more than the offense. The tiny tweaks and refinements suggested by nerds are simply better at stopping players than enabling them.

It's a lot harder to find and exploit defensive weakness than offensive weakness. There's a lot more available data on what offenses are trying to accomplish than on what defenses are trying to suppress. To play a little loose with an aphorism, it's a lot easier to criticize than create.

Read MoreWho are NFL's top 10 free agents?

You might have noticed that glaringly omitted from this sports discussion is the National Football League, and you probably know why. Scoringis up in the NFL. And by any measure, it's never been more popular. That's because the NFL has constantly invoked rule changes that favor offensive creativity. No hitting quarterbacks, no clutching and grabbing wide receivers. They are ensured plenty of space to create highlight-reel moments. Who would you rather be -- the NFL or Major League Baseball?

Summary: Big data is better at defense than offense, which means companies are spending money on technology that makes them penny-wise and pound-foolish.


The Fed had been projecting full-year gross domestic product growth as high as 3 percent, but lowered that estimate last week to a top level of 2.7 percent and as low as 2.3 percent—in other words, pretty much the same lackluster pace since the Great Recession ended in mid-2009.

Read MoreFed's Bullard: Markets could have another 'tantrum'

In the most likely scenario, Hatzius sees the Fed employing its first rate increase in September "with a risk that the first hike could be pushed even later."

That jibes with recent market sentiment.

Nick Colas, chief market strategist at Convergex, advised investors to "take (the) lead from the fed funds futures market rather than the Fed's dot plots," a reference to the quarterly chart the FOMC releases that depicts members' rate expectations. "The former has been uncannily accurate; the latter has not."

Fed fund futures contracts are now indicating just a 9 percent chance of a rate hike in June and a 46 percent chance in September. The FOMC does meet in July, but current market expectations are that a rate increase will happen at a meeting when a news conference is scheduled afterward. The June, September and December meetings are followed by Chair Janet Yellen taking media questions. Yellen did caution at least week's session that if a hike came at a meeting without a scheduled conference, one could be done impromptu.

Read More'SOB' bankers should be punished: Wall St watchers

In the interim, the market again is playing a Fed guessing game. Should the central bank decide to follow the one-eighth move that Hatzius described—a 0.125 percentage point hike from the current 0.13 percentage point level in place since late 2008—it would be the first time the Fed has hiked less than a quarter-point since 1989.

Jeffrey Saut, chief market strategist at Raymond James, cautioned against expecting the committee to follow historical precedent.

"I do not think (Yellen) is going to" hike rates in line with the last tightening cycle, Saut said in a note to clients. "Recall, in 2004 (the FOMC) began raising the fed funds rate by roughly 25 basis points a month. (It) increased said rate from ~1 percent to 5.25 percent into 2007. I don't believe Janet Yellen will do that. I think she will raise rates by 25 (basis points) in November and then wait a few months to see how the economy, and various markets react, before she raises rates again."

Summary: A market that just a week ago worried that the Fed would begin raising rates too soon is now entertaining a very different set of possibilities.


Samsung has decided to tackle yet another area of innovative technology, the virtual reality realm. They teamed up with Oculus, a company that revolutionizes gaming to create the Samsung Gear VR.

Inside the box is the headset, a 16 GB Micro SD Card and an SD adapter. It is exclusively paired with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (sold separately), due to its Snapdragon processor and 5.7-inch OLED display that allows users to experience graphics vividly.

With the Samsung Gear VR, users are given the ability to view exclusive movies, games and travel the virtual world.

Read MoreHow Samsung stacks up against Apple, HTC

"Imagine sports, theater, being on Mars or under the ocean. It's not clear how or when live immersive feeds could start happening, but these headsets are the start of making you feel like you're somewhere else." said CNET Senior Editor Scott Stein.

One downside to the headset is its bulkiness. It retails at $199.

Summary: Samsung teamed up with Oculus to release the Samsung Gear VR.


One of the hottest themes out there right now is the concept of the Internet of things. This is the idea that as more devices, appliances and systems become connected in your life, the various hardware and software companies that support the connected systems will have a huge spike in demand.

"The Internet-of-things concept is one of the major reasons why the semiconductor cohort and the cloud computing stocks have been roaring," Cramer added.

So, in order for all of these connected gadgets and items to work, an infrastructure software company like Informatica makes it possible for smart devices to communicate with one another.

As the enterprise infrastructure space has gotten hotter and hotter over time, Cramer has also noticed that the players in this group are getting scooped up by private equity firms. They have strong and stable cash flows, which make them an idea candidate for a leveraged buyout.

That is exactly what happened with Informatica, when Elliot Management took an 8 percent stake in the company and then lobbied for an LBO. It's just the beginning of what Cramer thinks is a huge trend.

Given that interest rates are at historic lows, Cramer thinks this is the perfect time for an LBO to occur. Once the Fed tightens up, the window for cheap borrowing could close.

That means there could be boatloads of LBOs coming soon.

---------------------------------------------------------- Read more from Mad Money with Jim Cramer Cramer Remix: I fear this financial Cramer: Don't dare invest without these Cramer game plan: Getting in on Buffett's top bank ----------------------------------------------------------

Cramer also thinks that Blackbaud is ripe for the picking. It provides enterprise software for nonprofits and has rallied more than 60 percent in the past year.

So, last week's LBO for Informatica was just the beginning of what Cramer anticipates will be a long string of infrastructure deals headed our way. If you want to play the takeover space, he is blessing Blackbaud. Otherwise, he recommended owning the best players in that might be too big for a takeover such as Red Hat or Cisco.

"The companies that so many aspire to be when they grow up, that is if they can grow at all."

Summary: Jim Cramer saw one deal last week that is just getting the pot stirred on Wall Street. Could more LBOs be headed our way?


BofA's downgrade comes just days after the National Retail Federation issued a disappointing forecast for back-to-school spending. Parents of K-12 students are expected to spend 7 percent less on the category, while spending on electronics for college students is forecast to drop 15 percent.

Read MoreCaution lights flashing for back-to-school sales

Prosper Insights' Stacie Severs Nelson, whose firm conducts the annual survey on NRF's behalf, said that because many people upgraded their technology as the recession wound down, they have no need to buy another computer this year. What's more, whereas students used to need a watch, camera, phone and calculator, now they can purchase one single device that has all these capabilities.

The declining cost of new technology is also expected to weigh on the category, Severs Nelson said.

"That's going to impact spending in the electronics category as well," she said.

Bank of America's Chai listed "intensified competition" from Amazon as risk to Best Buy's margins. The online retailer on Wednesday held an anniversary sale that, along with cutting prices on electronics, bested its biggest Black Friday ever.

Read MorePrime Day: Win for AMZN, but what about shoppers?

Summary: Bank of America analyst Denise Chai on Friday downgraded Best Buy's shares to "underperform" from "buy," setting a price target of $32.


Matt Damon in the new Bourne film

09/08/2015 AT 08:00 PM EDT

On Tuesday, photos from the latest

film, set to be released next summer, were released and luckily, they feature

flaunting a buff physique going topless on set.

the photo, captioning it, "first day of principal photography complete and happy to report, BOURNE is back! #Bourne2016."

Damon, 44, starred in three of the Bourne installments before taking a hiatus as

made his Bourne debut in 2012's

. But, for next year's release, Damon – and his rock hard body – are

First day of principal photography complete and happy to report, BOURNE is back! #Bourne2016 pic.twitter.com/ncIILnGKWr

The upcoming Bourne installment isn't the only feature Damon's been working on. In August, the actor

to PEOPLE about his role in

"When I first met with the screenwriter, Drew Goddard, he said he wanted this to be a love letter to science so hopefully that's what we've made and hopefully it will be a piece of inspiration to a lot of young people out there," Damon said on PEOPLE's Instagram.

The film features Damon as Mark Watney, a botanist who is left stranded on Mars after a horrific space storm leaves NASA thinking he's dead. Watney is left to fight for survival against insurmountable odds.

is set to hit theaters Oct. 2.

Summary: Damon's body is a sight for sore eyes as he films the new Bourne installment


As the euro falls against the dollar, investors that have piled into short bets against the euro could soon be in for trouble, according to one trader.

"Almost everyone on Wall Street hates the euro right now and everybody is convinced that it's going to parity," Boris Schlossberg of BK Asset Management said Tuesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation." "And it very well may. But not before I think it hurts quite a lot of complacent shorts."

The euro has fallen almost 10 percent for the year, recently landing at about 1.09 against the dollar. Schlossberg said he believes the euro will likely rise to 1.11 before drawing closer to the dollar value, which could deal a blow to some short positions.

"Everybody is sort of piling into the short side. If we go five pennies against them, they're going to feel some pain," Schlossberg said.

Schlossberg said there are several reasons why the euro won't be falling as fast as some think. First, a resolution with Greece's debt deal has calmed concerns for the region and global markets.

Read MoreECB confirms it has been repaid by Greece

Schlossberg also said low oil prices and easy credit from the European Central bank will continue to stimulate the economy.

Lastly, there's a possibility the Federal Reserve will wait until December to raise interest rates, in which case "the euro simply rallies on dollar disappointment," he said.

Summary: One trader says shorting the euro could lead to 'the mother of all short-covering moves.'