2012 May | Latinos In America

26 May

Home Swede Home

Author: KePlay // Category: Real Estate

By J. S. MARCUS

Åke E:son Lindman

Juniper House, designed by Stockholm architects Hans Murman and Ulla Alberts.

“If you have five homes,” says Max Hansson, sitting in his 300-year-old farmhouse on Gotland, a large island off Sweden’s Baltic coast, “everything has to work.”

Mr. Hansson, 66, is a Gotland native, but he also has homes on the Thai island of Phuket, in Cannes, in Stockholm and in the small city of Visby, Gotland’s walled medieval capital, where his pan-Scandinavian financial-services company, PayEx, has its headquarters. But when the weather starts to turn warm, he heads here, to a sprawling compound, dramatically situated on the island’s eastern coast.

Stylish Scandinavian Homes

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?Åke E:son Lindman

Fårö summerhouse, designed by Mattias Palme

Bought in the 1970s and still a work in progress, the farm now comprises several buildings spread over 25 acres and includes its own sunken tennis court, driving range and a wooden gazebo, which Mr. Hansson uses as an office. Mr. Hansson, who got his start in his father’s rural Gotland auction business, personally oversees all the renovation and refurbishment of the compound’s centuries-old buildings. “I am my own architect,” he says.

From the spectacular setting of Max Hansson’s seaside estate to secluded clearings in the middle of the forest, Gotland has become a prime destination for Sweden’s high-end second-home buyers and builders, who want to personalize their vacation settings.

Swedes—and a small group of discriminating non-Swedes—are drawn to the island’s natural beauty and its rural character. Roughly the size of Long Island, N.Y., Gotland, the Baltic Sea’s largest island, has a year-round population of around 50,000. Although agriculture is no longer a dominant source of income for residents, the island is a foodie’s paradise—and a key supplier to Noma, Copenhagen’s celebrated restaurant.

Blessed with an abundance of high-quality natural building materials and a number of expert craftsmen and artisans, the island has been discretely but unmistakably transformed in recent years. Once a remote place to spend the brief Swedish summer, Gotland, now a mere 35 minutes by commuter plane from Stockholm’s Bromma Airport, is gradually becoming a testing ground for ways to combine old and new building techniques, as part-time residents move from makeshift summer cottages to stylish second homes.

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Gotland4

Nicky Bonne for The Wall Street Journal

Max Hansson’s 300-year-old farmhouse.

In addition to local materials and talent, Gotland—along with its more austere neighbor, the much smaller island of Fårö—also offers that rarest of Scandinavian treats: the bargain.

After being long undervalued, Gotland real estate is starting to see a rise in prices, says Fredrik Lindahl, a broker at the Stockholm offices of Sweden Sotheby’s International Realty, but it is still significantly more reasonable than that of the Stockholm Archipelago, the chain of thousands of rocky islands that have become a byword for the good life in Sweden.

“You can buy a Gotland country house of about 80 square meters, with a 1,500-square-meter plot, for 2.5 million Swedish kronor (€273,000),” he says. “On Sandhamn,” he adds, referring to one of the more prestigious destinations of the archipelago, “that would cost two or three times as much.”

Transplants from the archipelago have built many of Gotland’s most interesting new homes.

When summering on the chain of islands, says Ulrika Arph, head of business development at Oscar Properties, a Stockholm-based real-estate company, “you are on the same spot.” The life there, which is often spent on tiny, naked islands or in transit on a boat, “has its charm,” she says. But she enjoys the variety on Gotland, which is covered by rich farmland, winding country roads and dense forests. “You never get bored,” she says.

A few years ago, after visiting the island’s pioneering design hotel, Fabriken Furillen, which transformed a limestone quarry into a gray-and-white, post-industrial showpiece, Ms. Arph, now 28, asked the hotel’s owner, Johan Hellström, if she could buy some nearby land. Working closely with Stockholm architect Love Arbén, she was able to build and furnish a stunning glass-and-concrete structure in less than a year. Although the single-story house has an air of neo-modernist luxury, thriftiness is actually behind many of its details. The dimensions were determined by the standard size of some of its construction materials. And although you will find vintage furniture by Danish modernist master Børge Mogensen, you will also find new IKEA kitchen components.

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Nicky Bonne for The Wall Street Journal

Ulrika Arph’s glass-and-concrete house by architect Love Arbén

Located on Furillen, a peninsula in the far northeast of Gotland, Ms. Arph’s home is part of an ambitious plan to bring luxury-level, ex-urban living to the area. The development is the brainchild of Mr. Hellström, a former fashion photographer, who came to Gotland in the late 1990s after discovering the island during fashion shoots.

Comprised of 580 hectares, with 18 kilometers of shoreline, Furillen will be limited to around 50 homes and a handful of corporate getaway facilities, all of which will use the hotel as a kind of clubhouse. One of the first residents is Swedish crime novelist Håkan Nesser, whose superbly outfitted home has both a forest setting and a sea view. Another potential star resident, ex-ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus, had planned to build a Furrillen studio complex near the water, but he abandoned the project last year, Mr. Hellström says, after negotiations broke down with the island’s zoning authorities, who were in favor of leaving the coastline intact.

The north of Gotland is one of the island’s most expensive locations, says Visby realtor Leif Bertwig, who handles high-end and historical properties on Gotland and Fårö. Other prime locations include the southern tip, which is known for attracting Sweden’s cultural elite, and an enclave on the island’s eastern edge, called Ljugarn, where a group of Stockholmers began summering in the late 19th century. A desirable Ljugarn property now on his books is a charming 127-square-meter terraced house, built by a harbor pilot in 1921, with an asking price of 4.5 million kronor.

Mr. Bertwig, a Gotland native, says sought-after properties are old farms near the sea or medieval houses in Visby, which was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1995. Currently, the most expensive property on his books is a 211-hectare farm a short drive from Visby. Comprised of a main 10-room house and several outlying buildings, the property is “near to Visby, but in the real countryside.”

While most of his prospective buyers are Swedish, Mr. Bertwig says he has begun to notice a number of buyers from Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. An exception was in 2008, when the combined properties of Ingmar Bergman, who spent four decades living in isolated comfort on Fårö, were about to be sold following the director’s death. Mr. Bertwig, who advised the Bergman estate during one stage of the sale, fielded calls from around the world. (The actual sale was handled by Christie’s Great Estates.) One of the benefits of his involvement, he says, was getting a glimpse of the Bergman interiors, which are dominated by the furniture of Swedish modernist Carl Malmsten. The properties, which include several structures and a small movie theater, were eventually bought for an undisclosed price by Norwegian entrepreneur Hans Gude Gudesen, who has allowed them to be used for an artists’ residency program. Next week, the public will get a rare look inside the movie theater, when Fårö holds its annual Bergman Week film and cultural festival, which runs this year from June 28–July 3.

Bergman’s presence on Fårö extended to Gotland, as did that of Swedish politician Olof Palme, who spent his summers on Fårö’s northern tip. Both Messrs. Lindahl and Bertwig agree that Bergman and Palme—two of the leading Swedish personalities of their time—gave the two islands a distinct cache in the 1970s and ’80s. This cache, argues Mr. Lindahl, eventually translated into property sales, as curious Swedes began to wonder about the islands’ attractions.

Elisabeth Toll/LUNDLUND

Dinell Johansson Hamra interior.

Mr. Palme was assassinated in 1986, but his family still spend their summers here, and one of the most compelling new houses on Fårö has been designed by his son, Stockholm architect Mattias Palme. Working closely with his brother and sister-in-law, who were the clients, Mr. Palme and his firm, LLP Arkitektkontor, created an ethereal wooden house with sliding barn-door panels that can accommodate the change in seasons.

Mr. Palme, speaking by phone from Stockholm, says that it was a struggle to get local approval for the house, because of his desire to use wood, which isn’t a traditional building material in this part of Fårö, where most homes—many of them centuries-old—are made of stone. The house’s height and relative transparency were inspired by the clients’s wish to maximize views of the sea.

Gotland is home to some of Scandinavia’s best limestone, which has been used to build everything from Visby’s medieval fortifications to a striking kitchen counter in the recently built home of Stockholm architects Hans Murman and Ulla Alberts. Located in Katthammarsvik, on Gotland’s eastern shore, not far from Mr. Hansson’s farm, the home has a tree-patterned fabric façade, which is in contrast to the nearby stone and plaster houses belonging to Ms. Roberts’s extended family.

The two architects were inspired by nearby juniper trees. With a mind to build a wooden house—unusual for new Gotland houses, the two found an ingenious way to blend the house into its natural and architectural surroundings. They photographed the juniper trees, then transferred the images onto a wrapping of sturdy perforated nylon, which serves as camouflage.

The shimmering concrete counter was made in conjunction with Stina Lindholm, a Finnish-born sculptor, now based in Slite, in the middle of Gotland, where she uses the island’s stone as a basis for masterful home fixtures. “The stone is almost like wheat,” she says, of its ability to take on different forms, while retaining its pure gray-white color.

Another Stockholm architect, Morten Johansson, used unpolished Gotland stone from a local quarry for a tabletop in the interior of his south Gotland home, finished last year.

The general minimalist style of Gotland’s noteworthy new homes is a departure, says Stefan Haase, a curator at Visby’s Gotland Museum. Mr. Haase, who has spent many years documenting the island’s historical interiors, says that, traditionally, “color showed prosperity” in the island homes. The prized pale-gray limestone and its derivatives were often disguised by tinted whitewash—a technique that still marks the homes of Mr. Hansson, who insists on using traditional methods at his farm, as well as in PayEx’s Visby offices.

At one of the island’s few true manor houses, Katthamra Gård, owned by Stockholm risk manager Jakob Gustafson, early 19th-century neoclassical paintings decorate just about every room. Although hardly a template for new houses on the island, the lavish décor is being restored by local teams of artisans and experts. During a recent visit to the house, you could see discrete excavations of the walls, revealing many layers of paint.

“There is [now] a huge demand for local artisans and carpenters,” says Bo Madestrand, who writes a column about art and design for Dagens Nyheter, the Stockholm daily newspaper.

Ten years ago, Mr. Madestrand and his wife, Swedish photographer and video artist Maria Friberg, bought an old gas station and workshop in Alskog, a village near Ljugarn. He says they have spent just over one million kronor on renovations, which have included an ongoing conversion of a building on the property into an “art motel,” as well as redoing an expansive second-story storage space into an office for Mr. Madestrand.

“The property market has really exploded,” he says. Gotland “has become more of an upmarket destination, which is both good and bad. It means there are more options when it comes to fine dining and lodging. There is a growing cultural scene and the season is prolonged. The downside is that Visby gets overcrowded—there are just too many BMWs and Audis on the road during the summer season!”

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25 May

Brotherhood Across Battle Lines

Author: KePlay // Category: Lifestyle

By KRISTIN M. JONES

The great French director Jean Renoir (1894–1979) recalled that when he directed “La Grande illusion” (“Grand Illusion,” 1937), he partly drew its style from a song that a character plays on a flute. As thrilling and heartbreaking as that piece of music, and filled with imaginative yet naturalistic performances, it depicts affection between foes, and comrades-in-arms who sacrifice themselves for each other despite differences in class and ethnic background. Unlike Renoir’s other antiwar masterwork, “La Règle du jeu” (“The Rules of the Game,” 1939), “Grand Illusion” was a critical and commercial success. Its many admirers included Franklin Roosevelt, who declared that anyone who cared about democracy should see it.

The Kobal Collection / Realisations D’Art Cinematographique

‘Grand Illusion’ juxtaposes exuberance and violence, friendship and less worthy sentiments.

Others despised its fervent sentiments about universal brotherhood, however, such as Joseph Goebbels. During the Occupation, the Nazis seized the camera negative, but it evaded destruction and later fell into Soviet hands. Renoir, believing that it had been lost, reconstructed the film from other materials. Eventually, the master negative surfaced in Toulouse, years after a Soviet archive had returned it during an exchange of films. An initial restoration was made in the late 1990s, and now—on the 75th anniversary of the original release—Rialto Pictures is presenting it in sparkling 35mm following a new digital restoration by Studiocanal and the Cinémathèque de Toulouse. Currently playing at Film Forum in New York, Laemmle’s Royal Theatre in Los Angeles and Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, Calif., it will also travel to at least 25 other cities.

The vividly sketched story draws on Renoir’s experiences as a reconnaissance pilot during World War I. He was inspired to create the character of the high-spirited Lt. Maréchal (Jean Gabin) by the tales of Armand Pinsard, a fighter pilot who saved his life during the war and later made a daring escape from Germany. Renoir also drew on the memories of other veterans and reshaped the plot after he cast the visionary silent-film director Erich von Stroheim as the German Capt. von Rauffenstein. As the film begins, Lt. Maréchal is asked to take the elegant aristocrat Capt. de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) on a reconnaissance mission. Rauffenstein shoots down their plane, and then invites them to lunch while they await the arrival of military police, in quarters resembling those of the French airmen, complete with a Victrola.

At the POW camp, the Frenchmen find that their compatriots, including the exuberant actor Cartier (Julien Carette) and Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), a Jewish couturier, have been attempting to dig their way to freedom. Maréchal and Boeldieu enthusiastically join the effort, but just as the tunnel nears completion, the prisoners are relocated. After an ellipsis during which they have attempted to escape from a breathtaking number of prisons, several of the prisoners, including Maréchal and Boeldieu, arrive at a high-security Medieval fortress, where they are reunited with Rosenthal and their jailor is Rauffenstein, who now wears a neck brace, and gloves to cover burns.

A lonely figure in his castle, the disfigured former pilot feels respect and friendship for Boeldieu—who is similarly monocled and white-gloved—but reveals a darker side when he expresses contempt for Maréchal and Rosenthal. Boeldieu firmly defends his compatriots, and in the end it is Maréchal and Rosenthal who escape from the ancient fortress and head into the future. On the way to the Swiss border, they find refuge in the home of a gentle widow, Elsa, played by the German actress Dita Parlo. Parlo was also luminous in another French masterpiece, Jean Vigo’s “L’Atalante” (1934), but here conveys depths of weary sorrow. Pointing to family photographs, Elsa tells them that her husband and brothers were killed at Verdun, Liège, Charleroi and Tannenberg. “Our biggest victories,” she adds, with bitter irony.

“Grand Illusion” repeatedly shows such examples of the potential for human feelings to bridge national boundaries. It is also a stunning example of Renoir’s skillful melding of realism and glittering artifice. In a remarkable sequence, the Frenchmen don frilly gowns to present a variety show for their captors. When the prisoners learn that the French have retaken a fortress at Verdun, they interrupt the performance, never having forgotten that a brutal war is raging, to sing “La Marseillaise,” in a moment echoed by “Casablanca” (1942). The camera glides acrobatically around the room, taking in the men’s faces as they sing. Later, as if in a dark fairy tale, a tragic death follows the playing of a flute—an act of glorious defiance.

Hinting of darker days to come, “Grand Illusion” set the stage for an even more troubling vision. Despite its magical deep-focus camerawork and effervescent dialogue, “The Rules of the Game,” in which a hunting party’s blithe brutality anticipates a thoughtless murder, was fiercely rejected by the decaying society it critiqued. Renoir understood the reasons for the greater success of “Grand Illusion,” with its adventure-movie trappings, writing that it was “warmly received by the trade and the public, who thought of it simply as an escape film. Later the real theme, which was that of human relations, was understood and accepted; but the way for this had been paved by its success, when the unorthodoxy with which I had filled it was applauded by even the most thick-headed spectators.”

The originality that underpins the bravura storytelling of “Grand Illusion” makes it easy to overlook how subtly it juxtaposes exuberance and violence, friendship and less worthy sentiments. Of Rauffenstein’s fears about the growing irrelevance of their class, Boeldieu says, “Neither you nor I can stop the march of time,” and, in the end, he sacrifices himself for values that are more truly noble. Renoir’s impassioned film remains a powerful exploration of one of the greatest themes in his work, “the bringing together of men through their callings and common interests.”

—Ms. Jones writes about film for the Journal.

A version of this article appeared May 19, 2012, on page C13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Brotherhood Across Battle Lines.

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24 May

Kia’s Hybrid Sets a Commuter Standard

Author: KePlay // Category: Lifestyle

Dan Neil/The Wall Street Journal

2012 Kia Optima Hybrid

FAITHFUL READERS KNOW I would never bury the lead, so here it is: The Kia Optima Hybrid is my pick for the best commuting sedan under $35,000.

But wait, say the faithful, the Optima Hybrid’s base price is only $26,450, including delivery. Exactly.

The Optima Hybrid is not a perfect car, to be sure. The powertrain software is strangely moody at times. The trunk is a little tight. It’s about as exhilarating as a bolus of laudanum, thus the “commuting” qualifier. It’s just that it is otherwise such a staggering amount of car for the money. Kia’s PR team thoughtfully equipped my test car with the Hybrid Premium Technology package ($5,350, for a total out-the-door price of $32,615), a hugely persuasive and Lexus-like list of upgrades including navigation with SiriusXM traffic info; rear-camera display; an excellent Infinity eight-speaker sound system with subwoofer; panoramic sunroof with blacked out B-pillars (those are the roof supports between the front and rear doors that, when blacked out, sleek-ify the car’s profile); heated and ventilated front seats; and a heated steering wheel and rear seats.

Photos: Value, Looks, Efficiency

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Kia Motors America

The Kia Optima Hybrid is my pick for the best commuting sedan under $35,000, says Mr. Neil.

I admit I am susceptible to the euphoric effects of a heated steering wheel, and I don’t even live in the Snow Belt. I further concede that all this low-cost, high-tech gear has the power to redeem a harvest-gold 1972 Mercury Montego (pause for wistful nostalgia here). My point is, if you’re ponying up for a new car of this size/performance/price, the full-kit Optima is dispositive. It will make you happy. It will make you comfortable. Your butt will thank you.

Honda and Acura trail-blazed the one-price, tech-package approach and it has served those companies well. Kia’s doubling down on discount amenities is a beautiful way to get consumers to take the car and the brand seriously, and it seems to be working. As of March, Kia is the fastest-growing car company in the U.S., in part thanks to the record 15,000 Optimas that passed through dealership doors last month.

So that’s the rational, arithmetical, bang-per-buck argument. The irrational argument consists of the fact that the Optima is the best-looking car in its class: uncommonly lithe and handsomely proportioned for a front-wheel-drive sedan. A tapering chrome bow arcs fluidly over the roofline from the A pillar to the short rear deck, which helps visually lighten and lengthen the roofline.

Later this year the Optima will get some competition in the swimsuit competition from the redesigned-for-2013 Ford Fusion, a car that, Aston Martin cues notwithstanding, looks an awful lot like the Optima. In the meantime, the Optima is the Miss Venezuela of the mid-to-full-size, C/D segment, which includes the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, Buick Verano, Subaru Legacy, Chevrolet Malibu and the furiously styled Hyundai Sonata, which is the corporate sibling and mechanical clone of the Optima.

You could get the Optima’s good looks for a mere $21,750, which is the delivered price of the nonhybrid version. The argument for buying a gas-only Optima is purely ROI. The conventionally powered Optima, with a direct-injection 2.4-liter, 200-horsepower four-cylinder, already gets pretty great fuel economy (24/35 mpg, city/highway). The Hybrid gets a very respectable 35/40 mpg. In round and nominal numbers, assuming a price-per-gallon of $4, it would take not quite five years to recoup the Optima’s hybrid premium.

“There are certainly fleeter and more-fun cars than the Optima Hybrid, but no family sedan gathers up value, looks and efficiency quite like it.”

I crunch the numbers slightly differently. Recognizing that gasoline is a problematic fuel and that the U.S.’s reliance on imported oil is bad for our currency and warps our international priorities; and recognizing that we don’t have anything close to sufficient domestic reserves to make a dent in our rates of importation; and well aware that the U.S. has constrained refining capacity; and knowing that greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles are one of many drivers of global climate change—I choose to spend a little extra on a more fuel-efficient car, regardless of whether I will financially profit. That’s just me, being patriotic. Your priorities may lie elsewhere. And yes, hybrid haters, you’re being teased.

As it does with the Sonata Hybrid, the Kia’s hybrid system consists of the 2.4-liter, Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder engine producing 166 hp; an integrated 40-hp electric motor; and a six-speed automatic transmission, with these powertrain components connected with wet clutches instead of a conventional torque converter. The lithium-polymer battery pack, situated in the trunk behind the rear seats, stores a total of 1.4 kWh of juice. Total system output is 206 hp and 195 pound-feet of torque.

Among the distinguishing aero enhancements for the hybrid are a grille shutter system that closes at highway speeds; a lower ride height; and air-channeling underbody panels. The standard package includes 16-inch wheels and low-rolling-resistance tires. The Tech package cars get 17-inch tires wrapped around the flush-faced alloy wheels. It all adds up to a coefficient of drag of 0.26, which makes the Optima one of the most aero-efficient cars on the market.

2012 Kia Optima Hybrid

Base price: $26,450
Price as tested: $32,615
Powertrain: Naturally aspirated 2.4-liter Atkinson-cycle in-line four-cylinder with variable valve timing; six-speed automatic transmission; 40-hp permanent magnet electric motor; 1.4 kWh lithium-polymer battery pack; front-wheel drive
Total system horsepower/torque: 206 hp/195 pound-feet
Length/weight: 190.7 inches/3,500 pounds (est.)
Wheelbase: 110 inches
0-60 mph: 9.5 seconds (est.)
EPA fuel economy: 35/40 mpg, city/highway (regular gas)
Cargo capacity: 9.8 cubic feet

As I said, this is my pick for a commuting sedan, which is a gentle way to say the Optima Hybrid is not particularly sporty. Zero to 60 mph is in the 9-second range and the powertrain’s software is intensely interested in limiting the gas engine’s workload. Even from a standing start, the Optima responds first with the e-motor and then, if necessary, the system will very reluctantly wake up the gas engine. The software’s parameters create a noticeable disconnect between throttle and acceleration, and it’s only with a fairly vigorous kick in the slats that you can get the car to full power. Most hybrids use a continuously variable transmission, a stepless CVT; the Optima’s six-speed transmission, while more familiar-feeling, tends to fret between gears and then, when one or more of the dry clutches re-engages, judder gracelessly. I’d be surprised if this behavior weren’t resolvable with better software.

Once under way, the car will revert to electric power up to 62 mph, as long as there’s juice in the battery and the load demands aren’t too high. When the batts are depleted, the gas engine fires up again—and again, and again, as you drive down the highway. This sawing back and forth of electrons and hydrocarbons takes some getting used to; the nice part is that, at around-town speeds, the car performs almost like an all-electric EV—so much so that Kia engineers created a prerecorded engine sound to alert pedestrians of the car’s otherwise-silent presence. That’s kind of cool.

It took about a week for me to adjust to the Optima Hybrid’s peculiar gas-electric metabolism. Even so, I was really pleased with the car. The driver-focused dash and instrument layout is friendly and distinctive. The front legroom (45 inches) is excellent. The trunk space, down to less than 10 cubic feet on account of the battery pack, is smallish but certainly within a standard deviation.

There are certainly fleeter and more-fun cars than the Optima Hybrid. To be sure, other cars’ hybrid systems are vastly more transparent; and some cars have more electronic conveniences on board, only nowhere near this car’s price. But no family sedan gathers up value, looks and efficiency quite like this car. Why, it warms the cockles of my hands.

Email Dan at rumbleseat@wsj.com.

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A version of this article appeared April 21, 2012, on page D11 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Kia’s Hybrid Sets a New Commuter Standard.

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24 May

The Working Man’s Voice

Author: KePlay // Category: Lifestyle

By JIM FUSILLI

On his new album, “Wrecking Ball” (Columbia), out next week, Bruce Springsteen serves up the familiar with renewed vigor and vitality. The muscled-up music bridges Mr. Springsteen past and present with a jarring, authoritative blast under and around his voice. While the early industry buzz has homed in on his lyrics, Mr. Springsteen’s rage and tempered optimism are expressed at least as well by the sound and arrangements he has whipped up with producer Ron Aniello.

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Bruce Springsteen performs onstage at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 12.

Mr. Springsteen says the E Street Band, which has supported him since 1972, will form the core group backing him on his world tour beginning March 18 in Atlanta. “Wrecking Ball,” however, doesn’t feature the E Street Band, which suffered the deaths of original members Clarence Clemons last year and Danny Federici in 2008. Singer-guitarist Patti Scialfa and drummer Max Weinberg are the only surviving E Street Band members on this disc; Mr. Weinberg appears on two cuts, including the title track, which the E Street Band performed with Mr. Springsteen beginning in 2008. Clemons’s most notable contribution is a characteristically brawny solo on “Land of Hope and Dreams.”

But this isn’t the first time Mr. Springsteen has worked with a different cast. Here Messrs. Springsteen and Aniello play most of the guitars and other stringed instruments, keyboards and percussion. Their roaring guitar chords, dense synth lines and acoustic and electronic percussion give the music an appealing thickness. A loose-limbed horn section adds to the clamor on five tracks; soaring gospel voices and chanting singers join in, and the New York Chamber Consort’s strings add a feathery touch. Violinist Soozie Tyrell, a key Springsteen contributor for more than a decade, enriches several country- and gospel-flavored cuts. Instrumental solo duties are turned over to guitarists Tom Morello and Marc Muller, whose pedal-steel work on the folk blues “You’ve Got It” lifts the track. Mr. Aniello, mixer Bob Clearmountain and various engineers help make sense of the music, surrendering none of the clarity heard on Mr. Springsteen’s recent recordings while calling to mind his rock albums with the E Street Band and linking them to his long-standing passion for an Americana mix of folk, country and gospel.

As a lyricist, Mr. Springsteen has long embraced a populist view, and on “Wrecking Ball” the financial community is the enemy elite. “The banker man grows fat / Working man grows thin / It’s all happened before and it’ll happen again,” he sings in the piano ballad “Jack of All Trades” after Curt Ramm’s boozy, baleful trumpet solo. “Gambling man rolls the dice / Working man pays the bill / It’s still fat and easy up on banker’s hill” is a verse in “Shackled and Drawn.” Though the pounding title song is told from the point of view of New Jersey’s Giants Stadium as it was about to be torn down, it can be taken as metaphor for something perfectly functional that’s cast aside when the work is done.

In the opening track, “We Take Care of Our Own,” Mr. Springsteen declares that Americans have been failed by their institutions, but the song isn’t an antigovernment screed. Rather, it is apathy that he opposes. “I been stumbling on good hearts turned to stone,” he sings, then asks, “Where’re the hearts that run over with mercy?” But Mr. Springsteen believes in his countrymen: “Wherever this flag’s flown / We take care of our own.”

It’s a theme that reverberates throughout the album. For all his despair at the state of the world, Mr. Springsteen doesn’t lose faith. In the gospel rock tune “Rocky Ground,” which features processed percussion, a church organ and a rap interlude, he sings, “Jesus said the money changers in this temple will not stand / Find your flock, get them to higher ground.” The album concludes with a rousing “We Are Alive” in which he declares: “Our souls and spirits rise to carry the fire and light the spark to fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart.”

Throughout the album, Mr. Springsteen is in a feisty mood. Anger and hope reside side by side in his words and voice, and his energy is a palpable presence. Occasionally, his criticisms aimed at institutional foes tread into well-worn territory and cliché. But for its urgency, the breadth of the music performed admirably by the ad-hoc group of musicians, and how Mr. Springsteen is determined to inspire brotherhood with what he perceives as traditional American and Christian ideals, “Wrecking Ball” is a triumph.

Mr. Fusilli is the Journal’s rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on Twitter: @wsjrock.

A version of this article appeared February 28, 2012, on page D5 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Working Man’s Voice.

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24 May

Grandma Was Right

Author: KePlay // Category: Careers

In a competitive job market and workplace, we often think we have to do something extraordinary to stand out, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Sometimes, it’s the little things that encourage people to remember and appreciate us — the foundation for a career boost later on.

Alexandra Levit

When popular business author Tom Peters gives a speech, hundreds of people wait in line for just a few minutes of his time. At a seminar, Mr. Peters was in a foul mood. Everything was going wrong and the talk seemed doomed. But just before showtime, Mr. Peters encountered an enthusiastic audio/visual staffer who was determined to cheer Mr. Peters up. “He saved my speech and he saved my neck,” writes Mr. Peters in his book “The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence.”

If two people contacted Mr. Peters after the speech, say this A/V guy and an attendee who had insightfully analyzed the contents of Mr. Peters’ books, who do you think Mr. Peters would recall meeting? Well, he’s still talking about this A/V guy years later. The A/V guy did something little — he was cheerful — and that had a big impact.

Recall traditional values: Life in the business world is difficult. Change is everywhere and many of us are still reeling from the work-force bloodletting that began two years ago. And one way that workers are responding is to emphasize traditional workplace and social values like courtesy and fairness.

“I think we’re realizing that life is not this great intellectual construct,” says Mr. Peters. “It’s about remembering the simple things your grandmother taught you, getting through the day, and helping others get through the day.”

Be thoughtful and appreciative: “Keeping track of details like your mentor’s children’s names requires discipline, and making an effort to learn these things is often the first thing to slip away when you’re busy,” he says. “But being able to bring them out in conversation will make other people pay attention.”

Vocal appreciation is another simple way to generate goodwill. We are all bombarded with requests on a daily basis. If that high-profile someone took the time to respond to yours, you should thank her, but also consider sending her a card or giving her some public ink on an industry or personal blog or Web site. And if a person has impressed you, acknowledge his contributions and be generous with your compliments, making them meaningful by focusing on specific actions rather than vague generalities.

Meet in person: Given the emphasis on e-communication, going out of your way to meet people in person is another way to stand out. “You have to purposefully expand your circle and engage people with different perspectives,” says Mr. Peters. “Find excuses to get together, and never waste a lunch.” This includes developing relationships with junior-level employees or administrative assistants, who may have the top person’s ear.

Finally, instead of always looking ahead, take pride in your work today. “Just go the extra half inch. Following up on a minor lead that you’re curious about or volunteering for that unsexy project could make the difference for your career in the end,” says Mr. Peters.

Write to Alexandra Levit at reinvent@wsj.com

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24 May

Eurohypo Unloads U.S. Loan Portfolio

Author: KePlay // Category: Real Estate

By ELIOT BROWN

In a move to unload some of its U.S. real-estate assets, German lender Eurohypo AG has reached an agreement to sell a commercial-property loan portfolio with a face value of about $560 million to a team of Wells Fargo

& Co. and Blackstone Group LP, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Wells and Blackstone team has agreed to pay an amount that is between 5% and 10% off the face value, the people said. The portfolio, tied to about a dozen assets including a Frank Gehry-designed apartment tower, is made up of performing loans and letters of credit, and fetched a relatively low discount.

The bank also has sold a loan with a face value of about $180 million to U.S. Bancorp,

a spokeswoman for the Minneapolis lender confirmed Tuesday. That loan is tied to a portfolio of malls owned by General Growth Properties Inc.

Its sales price couldn’t be determined.

The deals mark the latest example how European banks are gradually cutting their exposure to U.S. commercial property half a decade after they poured billions into the sector. Given that the commercial real-estate sector in the U.S. has seen a stronger recovery than in many parts of Europe, some lenders have looked to sell their U.S. holdings as a way of raising capital.

Meanwhile, some well-capitalized U.S. lenders have been looking to expand their commercial real-estate assets, as have private-equity firms like Blackstone.

Anglo Irish Bank Corp., Allied Irish Banks

PLC and Bank of Ireland

PLC together sold more than $11 billion in U.S. real-estate assets in 2011 to an array of banks and investors, including Wells Fargo, Blackstone and Lone Star Funds.

Outside of the Irish banks, however, the pace of sales has been relatively slow and piecemeal, and some in the industry say a deluge of sales is unlikely.

“It’s never a flood,” said David Tobin, principal at loan-sale advisory firm Mission Capital Advisors, which is marketing several real-estate portfolios for North American banks. “Europe is definitely more undercapitalized than their U.S. counterparts and more likely to do extensions and other maneuvers to preserve capital.”

Eurohypo, a unit of Commerzbank AG, was an aggressive real-estate lender during the boom. Now, after an agreement reached last month with the European Union, it largely is halting any new business and is in the process of winding down its existing assets, selling many of them.

The bank put the U.S. loans up for sale last month, tapping real-estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.

to market them to potential buyers.

—Ulrike Dauer contributed to this article.

A version of this article appeared April 25, 2012, on page C10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Eurohypo Unloads U.S. Loan Portfolio.

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22 May

Myth or Reality? ‘Near Luxury’ Car Buyer

Author: KePlay // Category: Lifestyle

Honda Motor Co.’s newest sedan has an efficient four-cylinder engine and its marketing plays up features like Internet radio, not power or speed.

This isn’t the new Honda Civic. It’s the Acura ILX, a car built on a similar foundation as its parent company’s Civic that Acura hopes will give it a head start in the market for diminished luxury.

The Acura ILX, and rivals such as the Buick Verano and Lexus CT 200h represent a bet by some auto makers that demand is pent up for cars that are small and frugal like economy models, but come equipped with some of the comfort features, flourishes and badges of a luxury brand.

Joe White on Lunch Break looks at the release of the new Acura ILX and the “diminished luxury” class of cars that auto makers are now promoting. Photo: Acura.

Acura executives say they believe the “near premium” segment in which the compact ILX will compete could grow by as much as 16% a year, on average, through 2017—faster than any other luxury-market segment.

And Honda isn’t the only company taking aim at consumers looking for status on a budget. German luxury brands have said they plan to bring to the U.S. more economical compacts and subcompacts they sell in Europe.

General Motors Co. recently launched its entry in the near-premium segment, the Verano. Based on the Chevrolet Cruze, the Verano is the first compact model offered under the Buick brand in the U.S. since the slow-selling Skylark was dropped more than a decade ago. GM also has a new, smaller Cadillac model due out in the fall, the ATS, that it is positioning as a rival to BMW’s 3-series.

Honda’s vice president for national marketing, Mike Accavitti, says the ILX is a response to a change in the mind-set of many affluent consumers.

“Since the Lehman shock, we have seen a fundamental shift in luxury buyers’ philosophy,” he says. “We are seeing more rational behavior in purchases.”

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EYESROAD

General Motors

The 2012 Buick Verano represents a wager by some auto companies that there is demand for small, fuel-efficient cars that come with some of the comfortable features and flourishes found in more expensive models offered by German luxury brands and other auto makers.

Acura also wants the ILX to lure members of Generation Y, the buyers between 18 and 34 years old who have landed decent jobs, want a luxury-brand car with a distinctive design, but don’t really care how fast it goes—or so Acura executives believe. This target customer lives in or near a big city such as New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, where much of the time cars can barely get past 40 miles per hour in rush hour traffic.

The ILX starts at $26,795 (including freight charges), and ranges up to $35,295 for a loaded hybrid. That looks like a reasonable price if the competition is defined as German luxury cars like a BMW 3-series, which starts at about $35,000.

But the success of the ILX and similar cars will depend on buyers who may not fit the molds imagined by marketing departments.

“There’s kind of a move for people to go to these smaller cars and still get the bells and whistles,” says Rob Troxel, a longtime Honda fan who’s looking for a replacement for the loaded 2009 Civic EX his wife drives. “Miles per hour is not as important as miles per gallon,” he says.

Enlarge Image

EYESROAD

Acura

The 2013 Acura ILX 2.0L is another model that represents a “near premium” segment.

Mr. Troxel might sound like a member of a focus group that gave Acura’s marketing department the template for its target customer profile. But he’s 65 years old—a baby boomer, just like most of the people who buy new cars in the U.S. And while he likes the concept of an economical luxury car, he is on the lookout for telltale shortcuts that betray a car’s cheaper origins.

He tried a Verano, he says, but rejected it because the seat recliner was a manually operated, Chevy-style handle, not a smooth power device.

As for the Acura ILX, he says if the price is much over $30,000 he’d consider Acura’s more-powerful—and expensive—TSX. Mr. Troxel also questions why the Acura only offers a five-speed automatic, not the six-speed its rivals typically feature.

Edmunds.com says 16% of people who used the car-shopping site to research the ILX in March also looked at the TSX. The next most cross-shopped cars against the ILX were the Acura TL and the Honda Accord. Among models offered by Honda rivals, ILX customers looked most at the Lexus CT 200h, a compact hatchback that Toyota Motor Corp.’s luxury brand is aiming at the same younger buyers Acura wants.

On the road, the 2.0 liter, four-cylinder, 150-horsepower ILX is quiet and the steering is precise. But even standing on the gas pedal doesn’t produce much excitement. The 201-horsepower, 2.4 liter model is more responsive, but it only comes with a six-speed manual transmission, a deal-killer for most buyers.

Me & My Car: Good Cars for a Dog Owner

The Buick Verano, like the ILX, is aimed at drawing a younger customer to the Buick brand. It comes with a four-cylinder engine, with greater horsepower than the ILX, 180. The Buick offers a six-speed automatic to the Acura’s five-speed.

The real challenge makers pushing econo-luxury autos is that many cars without luxury badges on the hood offer many of the “luxury” features, and often more power, for less money. And power still matters.

Danial Hyder, 32, works in corporate finance at the Detroit area offices of Robert Bosch GmbH, a big German auto-parts supplier. Mr. Hyder says he owns an Acura MDX and a 2006 BMW 5-series. He looked at the ILX but concluded that the car didn’t measure up to rivals in the same price range.

The car he ordered: a 2013 Taurus SHO, the 365-horsepower muscle car version of Ford’s sedate, large sedan.

Write to Joseph B. White at joseph.white@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared April 25, 2012, on page D3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The ‘Near Luxury’ Car Buyer, Myth or Reality?.

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21 May

Insider’s Guide to Philadelphia

Author: KePlay // Category: Lifestyle

Jason Varney for The Wall Street Journal

Please Touch Museum

EVEN IN THE most historically significant of cities, the past can get a little…well, old. Despite being the home of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, Philadelphia is managing to avoid that fusty, dusty state. Over the past several years, in fact, an influx of creative energy has transformed this town into an art-centric, food-focused metropolis. Even that antique bell has a glossy new home that infuses Philly’s colonial past with some 21st-century cool.

The triumphant arrival of the Barnes Foundation, a private collection of post-Impressionist and early modern art, is emblematic of the new Philadelphia. Relocated from the suburbs after complex negotiations and a lot of legal wrangling, the Barnes will open on May 19, in a long, lean building by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, adding extra cachet to a district that was already home to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Rodin Museum.

Photos: The New Philadelphia

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Jason Varney for The Wall Street Journal

Mural Arts Program

Meanwhile, the area around Broad Street in this former banking hub has rebounded into the Avenue of the Arts, where new mixes gracefully with old. The glittering Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, built in 2001, acts as an anchor, and classic buildings have been repurposed into restaurants, retail stores and hotels. A Ritz-Carlton incorporates the McKim, Mead and White-designed Girard Bank Rotunda. The art deco Market Street National Bank is now the Marriott Residence Inn Philadelphia Center City.

On the Delaware River waterfront, industrial buildings and mills have been turned into lofts. Eco-friendly Philly boasts some 220 miles of bike lanes, good public transportation and the crown jewel of urban parks, 9,200-acre Fairmount Park.

All this art wouldn’t do much good if it couldn’t be accompanied by an excellent meal. Fortunately, Philadelphia is awash with tasty picks, from Mark Vetri’s fine-Italian Vetri to the quirky Talula’s Garden, which opened just last year and has already earned national acclaim. But don’t worry—the cheesesteaks will always be dripping with juice. Some things never quite get old.

—Kathy Baruffi

Masaharu Morimoto

The Chef

Masaharu Morimoto: Iron Chef and international restaurateur whose first Morimoto is in Philadelphia

Food World // Reading Terminal Market. You can find various types of cheeses and interesting olive oils at Salumeria and Downtown Cheese. You should also try Pennsylvania Dutch-influenced food, such as German meats at Smucker’s Quality Meats. 12th and Arch Streets, readingterminalmarket.org

Innovative Eateries // Vetri, Amis, Tinto. I have noticed an increased appreciation for food since I opened my restaurant here 10 years ago. I especially recommend Vetri and Amis; Marc Vetri’s pasta dishes are amazing. I also love Jose Garces’s Tinto. Try the tapas dishes, such as sea bass and octopus. Their citrusy flavor is like ceviche, perfect for seafood. Vetri: 1312 Spruce St., vetriristorante.com; Amis: 412 S. 13th St., amisphilly.com; Tinto: 114 S. 20th St., tintorestaurant.com

Book Boutique // AIA Bookstore + Design Center. They have not only books, but interesting things that can be good souvenirs. Last time I was there, I found cute, colorful kitchen tools. 1218 Arch St., aiabookstore.com

Sports Center // Citizens Bank Park. I like Philly as a city of sports. We have the Phillies, Eagles, 76ers, etc. I used to play baseball, so I simply love watching baseball games. This park offers something else besides the game, though—spectacular views toward the city. One Citizens Bank Way, citizensbank.com/ballpark

Lisa Scottoline

The Novelist

Lisa Scottoline: Philadelphia-born author of 20 books, including the thrillers “Save Me” and “Look Again”

Masterpiece in Glass // Tiffany mosaic. See Louis Comfort Tiffany’s “The Dream Garden,” designed by artist Maxfield Parrish. It’s in the Curtis Center near lovely Washington Square. 601 Walnut St.

Gourmet Fairway // 9th Street Italian Market. This open-air market has been in Philadelphia forever. It is still strongly ethnic, not just Italian. There are Koreans, Indians and Pakistanis. My favorite restaurant is DeLuca’s Villa de Roma, a no-frills, down-home place. I could live on the linguine with clams (white sauce, of course), and the eggplant parm is almost as good as my mother’s. DeLuca’s Villa de Roma, 932-936 S. 9th St., 215-592-1295

Art Institution // Brandywine River Museum. Right outside the city, this museum is our temple to the Wyeth family. You see the work in the settings where they were painted. Bring lunch and eat it by the Brandywine River. 1 Hoffman’s Mill Rd., Chadds Ford, www.brandywinemuseum.org

Bake Shops // Isgro Pasticceria and Termini Brothers. You need to visit a bakery that smells like one and sends you home with your pastries in a cardboard box tied with cotton string. My favorites are Isgro’s for its delicious sfogliatella (if you don’t know what that is, you need to go and find out) and Termini Brothers for chocolate-chip cannoli and pignoli-nut cookies. Isgro Pasticceria: 1009 Christian St., 215-923-3092; Termini Brothers flagship: 1523 South 8th St., 215-334-1816

Denise Scott Brown

The Architect

Denise Scott Brown: Founding principal at Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates

Green Retreat // Fairmount Park. A wonderful, 9,200-acre park with sweeping English-style landscapes and river drives with shattering views. It has the kind of scale that reminds me of Africa, where I grew up. There is a feeling that you are part of a whole in Philadelphia, whereas in London, in New York or Shanghai you are only part of a section. fairmountpark.org

Local Icon // Wanamaker eagle statue. Don’t miss the Great Court at the center of the former Wanamaker’s department store (now Macy’s), where the whole city once shopped. The famous organ is still there in all its glory and families who flock to hear its Christmas music still find each other at the eagle—a public meeting place in a private building. 1300 Market St., visitmacysphiladelphia.com

Victorian Vision // Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. This is a beautiful example of 19th-century architect Frank Furness’s work. His buildings are among my favorites. They fit together with the same articulation as machines. 118-128 N. Broad St., pafa.org

Neighborhood Stroll // Manayunk. This area is like a small town within the city. Walk the towpath along the canal, where Philadelphia’s industry started, to see romantic ruins and chic renovations of mill buildings. Sample Main Street’s many stores and restaurants. There’s no mall here—just a big open sky. manayunk.com

Marjorie Rendell

The Culturist

Marjorie Rendell: Federal judge, founder of the non-profit Avenue of the Arts and former Pennsylvania first lady

Decadent Dessert // Barbuzzo. This little restaurant has a budino dessert that people told me is fabulous. I checked it out myself, and it is. 110 S. 13th St., barbuzzo.com

Kid-Friendly Collection // Please Touch Museum. A beautiful, state-of-the-art museum for children, located in historic Memorial Hall. 4231 Avenue of the Republic (in Fairmount Park), pleasetouchmuseum.org

Retail Route // Walnut Street. There is great shopping on this street, as well as in the area around Rittenhouse Square. I especially like the Joan Shepp and Plage Tahiti boutiques for their collections of designer clothing. Ruka is great for a mix of international items. Joan Shepp: 1616 Walnut St., joanshepp.com; Plage Tahiti: 128 S. 17th St., knitwitonline.com; Ruka: 114 S. 19th St., ruka.com

Best Bike Path // Schuylkill River Trail. This is a finished path along the river that leads out to Kelly Drive. I can ride my bike home from my judicial chambers. Along the way, I see runners, pedestrians and the city skyline. schuylkillrivertrail.org

Culture Trip // Mural Arts Tour. Dubbed “The World’s Largest Outdoor Art Gallery,” the city’s Mural Arts Program includes more than 600 murals. The tour, whether on foot or by trolley, is a must. muralarts.org

Plus Don’t Miss:

“The Life Line” Winslow Homer’s iconic rescue painting, housed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. philamuseum.org // Philadelphia on Foot Custom history and architecture walking tours with Ed Mauger, author of “Philadelphia Then & Now.” ushistory.org/more/mauger // The Rittenhouse Hotel Posh accommodations across from the park on prime Rittenhouse Square. rittenhousehotel.com // Eastern State Penitentiary The former jail, complete with Gothic towers, turrets and Al Capone’s cushy cell, is scary in a good way. easternstate.org

A version of this article appeared May 19, 2012, on page D9 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: No Headline Available.

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21 May

Grains Well Spent

Author: KePlay // Category: Lifestyle

By LUCY BURNINGHAM

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal

More chefs and bakers around the country are cooking with spent grains, the aromatic byproduct of beer brewing.

FOLLOWING THE nose-to-tail, no-waste ethos, more chefs and bakers around the country are cooking with spent grains, the aromatic byproduct of beer brewing. Most commonly comprised of malted barley, spent grains can also include rye, oats or wheat. Incorporating the softened grains into foods is more than a way to be economical and sustainable: It can add textures and flavors that range from earthy to nutty to chocolaty, depending on the beer of origin.

Because the grains go bad within about 36 hours of being strained from the wort (the liquid that becomes beer), chefs tend to cook with the whole wet grains right away—folding them into bread and pizza doughs, adding them to soup stocks or mixing them into raw meatballs.

In other cases, chefs freeze freshly used packets of spent grains. Another option, said Erica Shea, co-founder and owner of the Brooklyn Brew Shop, a store specializing in home-brewing kits, is to spread them on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake in a low oven for 8 to 10 hours. “Then you can keep them practically forever,” Ms. Shea said. She suggests sprinkling the whole grains into banana bread dough or milling them into a flavor-packed flour that lends itself to everything from graham crackers to cheddar scones.

While the grains don’t impart beery flavors, they do express certain elements of the beer from which they came. “Sometimes we pair dishes that use spent grains with the beer they came from, which gives you some similar flavors,” said Adam Dulye, chef at the Monk’s Kettle in San Francisco.

Good news for the home cook: Spent grains are plentiful. The average gallon batch of beer produces 2 to 3 pounds of spent grain, and a little goes a long way. They typically go to local farms for animal feed, but ask your local brewery if they’re willing to share some leftovers. Or befriend home brewers, who will certainly have some on hand. Then you, too, can experiment with adding spent grains to scones and pizza crusts, and discover one of beer’s more virtuous sides.

Rowina Amick/Concentrics Restaurants

Hoecake at Tap

Hoecakes and Cookies

Tap, Atlanta

Chef Adrian Villarreal makes a spent-grain Southern-style hoecake topped with short ribs braised in beer and served with glazed root vegetables. This spring he’ll debut an ice cream sandwich composed of spent-grain cookies and stout ice cream.

For Veggie Burgers

The Monk’s Kettle, San Francisco

Thanks to a regular supply of spent grains from the local brewers who keep the restaurant stocked with beer, chef Adam Dulye regularly includes spent grains in the chickpea veggie burger. Some cuts of beef, lamb and game are crusted in spent grains before being grilled.

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal

Eataly sells a bread using spent grains from the three beers brewed upstairs at the Birreria.

Nutty Bread

Birreria at Eataly, New York

Eataly head baker Paul Mack makes an earthy, nutty bread using spent grains from the three beers brewed upstairs at the Birreria. The bread, which is baked seven days a week, is served in the restaurant and is also for sale by the loaf. Additional spent grains from the brewery are taken to Arcadian Pastures in upstate New York to feed Gloucester spot pigs that are butchered at Eataly.

In Pizza Dough

Deschutes Brewery, Portland and Bend, Ore.

Executive chef Jeff Usinowicz mainly uses spent grains for baking—it’s in the dough for the brewpub’s thin-crust pizzas and special sandwich breads—but he has also added the grains to beer batter for fish and chips and to a graham cracker crust for cheesecake. Additional spent grains go to nearby Coleman Ranch; the grain-fed cows return to the brewpub as meat for burgers.

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A version of this article appeared May 5, 2012, on page D6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Grains Well Spent.

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21 May

Walls Come Tumbling Down

Author: KePlay // Category: Lifestyle

By RICHARD B. WOODWARD

Collection of Robert Verdi, Courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery/Andrew Moore

‘Palace Theater, Gary, Indiana’ (2008) by Andrew Moore.

St. Louis

‘An Orchestrated Vision: The Theater of Contemporary Photography,” at the St. Louis Art Museum, might be more accurately called “Some Outstanding Photographs, Recently Acquired, That We Were Eager to Show Off and So Invented a Reason to Build an Exhibition Around.”

An Orchestrated Vision:

The Theater

Of Contemporary Photography

Saint Louis Art Museum

Through May 13

That is not meant to disparage the high quality of the 43 works by 38 artists from a dozen countries in these five galleries. Eric Lutz, associate curator of prints, drawings and photographs, deserves thanks (and sympathies) for trying to summarize recent trends in art photography, a fractious enterprise less bound by old prohibitions than ever before.

Censorious attitudes about proper uses of the medium, which once split adherents into opposing camps, no longer seem relevant. Walls between digital and nondigital photography have crumbled, with artists shooting analog negatives that are scanned into computerized printers. Ink-jet prints, sneered at by collectors a decade ago, have become coin of the realm.

Documentary photography was never as sharply demarcated as some purists believed, and is even less so now that Tina Barney and Hellen van Meene blur the line between posed and spontaneously realized pictures. Only in journalism, law and science is Photoshop still viewed with suspicion. Image-enhancing apps are indispensable for sewing together the altered landscapes of Andreas Gursky and Beate Gütschow.

“Theatrical” may be as good a term as any to describe the effect of wall-size photographs made with large-format cameras. Only one print in “An Orchestrated Vision” is as small as 12 inches by 12 inches, while the vast majority are several times that size. To make a splash in today’s market, art photographers must command a gallery space. Before the 1980s their best (and often only) hope of capturing attention was in spreads of magazines or books. Audiences are now more readily beguiled by supersize pictures with an implied storyline, preferably with a noirish or uncanny tinge.

Or, as Mr. Lutz writes in his catalog essay, whereas photographers once hoped to participate directly in actual events, many are now “more interested in the twilight world of the playhouse where magical slippages of reality occur.”

The imprecision in his taxonomy may be a reflection of the same shiftiness. The four genres into which he has divided his selections—”Public Stage,” “Elusive Narrative,” “Portraiture and Performance” and “Constructed Space”—prove to be less exclusive than interchangeable.

View Slideshow

For instance, the Korean artist Yeondoo Jung’s “Location #4″ (2006), which greets visitors as they walk in, could rightfully hang in any of the four main rooms. The 4-by-6-foot color photograph of a wintry outdoor scene portrays a woman in a fur coat staring up at an apartment building where a water leak has cascaded down the cement facade and hardened into a frozen waterfall.

The image bears a remarkable likeness to Gregory Crewdsen’s “Untitled (Snowy Valley),” also from 2006, wherein another young woman in a winter coat stands entranced before a snowbound house. Both photographs are staged and move between harsh realities and cinematic dream time. But only Mr. Crewden’s, for some reason, is categorized as an “Elusive Narrative.”

There are more similarities than differences between Andrew Moore’s view of an abandoned movie palace in Gary, Ind., and Edward Burtynsky’s of shipbreaking at low tide in Bangladesh. Both monumental photographs portray ruins in a rose-tinted light. And yet Mr. Moore’s is located in “Public Stage,” whereas Mr. Burtynsky’s is consigned to “Portraiture and Performance.”

Carrie Mae Weems does nothing to hide the operatic stage machinery behind “When and Where I Enter-Ancient Rome,” her 2008 black-and-white photograph of a woman in a long gown silhouetted at a picture window. Gazing toward a hazy bank of clouds, her back turned to us in the manner of a Casper David Friedrich daydreamer, this anonymous diva stands surrounded by truncated plaster columns and lights on stands, as well as a view camera on a tripod. That Ms. Weems succeeds in evoking an era while revealing her props and directorial cues testifies to her skills as a magician who can tip her hand and nonetheless fool us into sharing a mood of tremulous expectancy.

The German artist Barbara Probst is after another kind of drama. “Exposure #9: N.Y.C., Grand Central Station, 12.18.01, 1:21 p.m.” (2001)—a wall-size grid of six inkjet prints borrowed from the Nelson-Atkins Museum—consists of six distinct but simultaneous scenes taken by six cameras stationed around the darkened main hall of the train station.

Artists since the 1960s have systematically questioned (or undermined) the principles that were once defining traits of photography, especially its veracity. Despite the easy allure of digital finagling and the belittling prevalence of surveillance cameras, some younger photographers, including Ms. Probst, seem intent on restoring the original humanist strength of still photography as evidence of something real. Ms. Probst’s anonymous commuters, separate and unaware of one another, are united briefly in her piece. She uses no blandishment other than large scale to emphasize the potent fact that all of us, knowingly or not, are continuously moving through time.

I would not have guessed that An-My Lê’s portraits taken aboard U.S. Navy vessels would illustrate Mr. Lutz’s thesis. But the five sailors in “Target Practice, USS Peleliu,” honing their marksmanship on the deck of an assault ship, could be actors on stage in a macabre play. For more than a decade Ms. Lê has been documenting American war exercises. In this 2005 photograph she frames the men against an ominous blank sky and their paper targets, the posture of their bodies suggesting they could be the next things to be shot at.

The principles governing “An Orchestrated Vision” may be neither airtight nor novel. Anne H. Hoy identified most of these trends 25 years ago in her book “Fabrications: Staged, Altered, and Appropriated Photographs.” Artists around the world have clearly not exhausted these approaches. Mr. Lutz has made a smart and representative survey from the past 15 or so years, before and after the digital revolution, and as the supersizing of photography has become the norm. When the Saint Louis Art Museum completes its expansion in mid-2013, some of these well-chosen pieces will have earned prominent spots alongside the best their contemporary galleries have to offer.

Mr. Woodward is an arts critic in New York.

A version of this article appeared April 17, 2012, on page D5 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Walls Come Tumbling Down.

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