Word: bric-a-brac
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...after Easter at a commune near Orléans, France. Inside a warehouse, an altar has been set up on a kitchen table. Surrounding it are a coat rack jammed with secondhand clothing, rows of used appliances and abandoned furniture, and assorted bric-a-brac. All in all, an appropriate setting for the annual get-together of the "Emmaus movement," which has shown thousands of people in 23 countries around the world how to rebuild their self-esteem by recycling the junk of the consumer society...
When Shakespeare called England "this royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle," he was merely stating the facts. For more than 900 years British monarchs have bought, begged, borrowed and stolen enough treasure to sink the island: castles, palaces, crowns and jewels, fabulous bric-a-brac, artistic masterpieces beyond prodigality...
...support this bold brief, Douglas, who teaches at Columbia University, has rummaged through the cultural bric-a-brac of American Victoriana-ministerial bombast, dreadful 19th century novels, and fatuous, hypocritical ladies' magazines. She has made the proper linkages to British Victorianism and German romantic philosophy. She has analyzed the lives and works of 30 women and 30 liberal clergymen (there was a high percentage of literary Unitarians). There is an excellent chapter on the life of Margaret Fuller, the American Transcendentalist who challenged the sentimental female stereotype by participating in the activity and danger of Italy's struggle...
...neighbors have even phoned in complaints about the Concorde when the offending craft has actually been a distinctly subsonic DC-9. In contrast to the high-pitched whine of a Boeing 707 or 747, the Concorde produces a throaty low-frequency rumble that rattles dishes and bric-a-brac. One FAA report notes that irritating though this is to airport neighbors, these vibrations have less impact on the structure of a house or apartment building than "non-aircraft events, such as doors closing...
...formal connections and the frame intrinsic to that subject. "Niagara Falls", for example, is seen through a glass window and balcony that enclose the foreground. A row of skyscrapers provide the backdrop. Looking closer, one perceives the interconnections between the forms in front of the falls--the in bric-a-brac on the window sill--and those behind, the buildings on the sill of the river...