Word: abyss
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...KLEIN Nicholas Wright's off-Broadway drama apprehends the pioneering child psychologist Melanie Klein at a moment when her life perches above an abyss. It's an exacting role, and famed acting teacher Uta Hagen, at 76, executes a performance that is instructive at every step, advancing through arrogance, rage, bravado, fear...
...would have seemed sheer fantasy to think that in four months, all sides would be meeting with a real cease-fire in effect and at least the broad outlines of a settlement agreed on. But it was precisely because all concerned were forced then to peer into a terrifying abyss that they began pulling back from the brink...
...that attitude is far from universal. Biologist Greg Stone, of the New England Aquarium in Boston, compares reaching the deepest abyss with Christopher Columbus' search for the New World. "Why should we care about the deepest 3% of the oceans, and why do we need to reach it?" he asks rhetorically. "For one, we won't know what it holds until we've been there. There will certainly be new creatures. We'll be able to learn where gases from the atmosphere go in the ocean. We'll be able to get closest to where the geological action...
Hawkes' eventual goal is to give away the plans for Deep Flight I free to anyone who wants them. When Deep Flight II is finished, he hopes, trips to the deepest abyss could become almost routine. Today, the larger craft is still looking for a patron, but Hawkes is undaunted. "We'll get the funding," he says confidently. "After all, one Deep Flight costs less than what you need for an America's Cup campaign--and the payoff is 10 times as rewarding...
...despite the pressing danger, there is little doubt that humans, one way or the other, are headed back to the bottom of the sea. The rewards of exploring the coldest, darkest waters--scientific, economic and psychological--are just too great to pass up. Ultimately, people will go to the abyss for the same reason Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Everest: because it's there...