Word: blinking
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...repeating mouse trap, snapping shut on anything that touches it. If a fish so much as brushes against either of the bird's mandibles, the beak closes in as little as nineteen-thousandths of a second. By contrast, the human eye takes forty-thousandths of a second to blink when startled. This reflex makes the wood stork the fastest fisherman on record, and certainly gives it the fastest jaws in the drawling South...
...blessed with a visage full of character to start with, and knows how to walk, gesture, shake his head, blink his eyes, and in general supplement his speech with telling effect. We are caught up by this colossus of a Lear, who has not yet learned that you can't eat your cake and have it too: he wants to give up the crown and at the same time hold...
...bandstand in monkish silence, nodding sagely to the rhythm of drums and bass. Every song is a séance for them, and they listen with every muscle. They are devout, transported, almost catatonic, and when the music stops, there is a little lost moment while their eyes blink and they heave the sigh of the far voyager come home. Then they smile approvingly and say, "Yeah...
...recipes range widely in subject matter. "Lay the Ghost" prescribes various diversionary tactics to erase that haunting memory. "Blink your eyelids twelve times; yawn enormously-like a hippopotamus; notice four objects in the room; count ten hairs on your head-pull out three." "Attend Your Funeral" is designed for pure fantasy-indulgence, requires two solitary hours during which the reader is told to dream himself a guest at his own wake, checking to see who sent flowers and who showed up in person, listening attentively to the eulogy. Those who feel themselves particularly unloved are encouraged to "Attend Your Funeral...
...shopwindow lights are turned off, illuminated billboards are darkened, neon signs stop flashing. Worst of all are the daily blackouts, which hit 48 city zones in turn for periods varying between 30 and 50 minutes beginning at twilight each evening. Elevators stop, TV sets go blank, street lights blink off. As the lights finally return in darkened bars across Rio, a cry rises from dwellers in tall apartment buildings: "Give me one for the elevator...