Word: arcs
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...century and borrows stories when he runs out of his own. Henry IV, he announces, "was something of an in somniac, and his struggles to get to sleep weren't much assisted by his habit of wearing his crown in bed." He claims to have seen Joan of Arc disguised as a deer. He talks of a blustering poet, "all red and arrogant and full of spondees." He spins a long unlikelihood to illustrate a proverb made up on the spot: "The Devil is most likely to strike when you have your trousers down." Oops! Bad taste? Upon...
...southern Alaska as if on a frantic rescue mission-which, in a way, they were. The choppers were carrying crews to finish a critical half-mile link in the pipeline before the long Alaska winter sets in. Working through the rapidly shortening arctic autumn days and, under portable arc lamps, far into the lengthening night, the men slogged through ankle-deep mud to set the last 40-ft. lengths of pipe in place. It was slow, hazardous work, hampered by howling winds, rock slides and blowing snow. Drawled one grizzled pipeliner, "This here Thompson Pass, she's a frozen...
During the bad years, if you took the "D" Train up to the Bronx and the Stadium, you could look forward to ducking firecrackers and waiting to see if Steve Hamilton would throw his famous Folly Floater (a high arc-lob which one day sent a bad-tempered Cleveland Indian literally crawling on his belly back to the dugout after he had whiffed three times on it; this the same day Bobby Murcer hit four consecutive home runs in the Next Mickey contest and Ray Fosse got hit by a cherry bomb which came flying from the second deck after...
Aldo would have had a terrible time capturing the mouth, I am sure. Within an arc of less than, say, 30 degrees, that mouth can convey every important feeling in the politician's guidebook. At the top of the arc, there is a smile that fairly breathes a grandfatherly benevolence. A shade below that, there's an omni-purpose politician's grin. At the middle of the arc, Al's smile turns into a squarely set, unrehearsed-looking deadpan, suitable for framing and hanging in a standup comics' Hall of Fame. And at the bottom of the arc, there...
...rate at which this mouth can run through its tiny arc is remarkable in itself. At a recent meeting of the council, over which Al gleefully presides, a group of taxi drivers was gathered to press a certain point. When the hackmen were respectfully applauding the grandstand overtures of some of the councilors ("I've supported the cabbies for 30 years"), it was Grandfather Al beaming down from the dais. When the drivers were testifying, Deadpan Al nodded gravely at their protests, seemingly recording it all into his store of wisdom. But when catcalls and boos started to swell...