Word: arid
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...reached this state of supercharged development through a process as astonishing as a Cecil B. DeMille production. Los Angeles began life in 1781 as the Spanish pueblo of Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciúncula -a comatose village of 44 souls, surrounded by arid plains and arid mountains. It dozed for a century, hardly opening an eye when four square Spanish leagues of its dusty ground was incorporated into a U.S. city...
...become a manufacturer of beach wear, and Ricardo Montalban, a South American polo player. Their love story produces only one good piece of entertainment: a lively little song called Baby, It's Cold Outside, which is already well established as a jukebox hit. Between the long, arid stretches of talk, Betty Garrett and Red Skelton supply some shorter sketches of acceptable slapstick. The rest of the show, including a razzle-dazzle water ballet at the end, lumbers along like an overdressed float in a Mardi Gras parade...
...anachronistic obstacle in democracy's advance. But they are only one aspect of land reform. Two years ago the late idealistic Prince Gioacchino Ruffo of Naples sold plots from his estate, at nominal prices, to former tenants. Today, like Scafarella's peasants, they too break arid, gullied soil with picks. They have no cash for better tools, insecticides and fertilizers. Without these necessities they can reap only four bushels of wheat per hectare. The only hunger that has been satisfied has been their hunger for land...
...enough to reach the earth's surface before they evaporate. Once in a great while, a really big meteor smacks the earth with a vast concussion, digging an "explosion crater" like the one near Canyon Diablo, Ariz. Such craters are rare. Unless the meteor hits in an arid region, its dent is smoothed down quickly (in terms of geological time) by erosion and other natural forces...
...Jean Antoine Houdon's 18th Century masterpiece, The Bather. A 20th Century example was the lie de France, a nude female torso by the late great Frenchman Aristide Maillol, who had gone so far as to imitate even the damages to classical sculpture by leaving off head, arms arid feet...