Word: curl
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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West Indian and South American animal life tends toward the quaint rather than the dangerous. The comical-looking tree porcupine, annoyed to find that he is standing on his tail, gravely tips himself over by pulling it out from underneath. Miniature anteaters cry when caught, curl up pathetically with face in paws, uncurl suddenly and nab your arm. Pea-size frogs croak like bullfrogs. One beetle is equipped with amber landing light. A bird sings sophisticated Gershwin melodies. Quanks, opossums, howler monkeys, capybara, sloths, tamarins, uropygi come in all sizes and shapes, display remarkably varied habits...
...outspoken army camoufleurs turn thumbs down on dazzle. Their problem, they feel, is harder than outsmarting a periscope running ten to twelve feet above heaving wave-levels. They have to conceal parked tanks, trucks, grounded planes, big guns from modern aerial camera-eyes which can even pick out the curl of withered camouflage leaves from 3,000 feet...
...wearing white shirts. It's summer! Vag eaunters across the Yard admiring the seasonal phenomenon, the gregness, the aims,--even Sever Hall. He walks slowly. There's no rush, no appointments, no assignments, not for three and a half months. He lights a cigarette, lets the smoke curl out of his mouth and hang in mid air motionless. No sir, no one could get him to walk fast now! He'd walk as slowly as he darned well wanted to. He'd even take the long way back to the house, just to show...
...hours, no sign from the conclave. Then, at noon, the first sfumata-a curl of smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney -was seen. By the black smoke the watchers knew that no Pope had been elected during the two morning ballots...
DAYS OF OUR YEARS-Pierre van Paassen-Hillman-Curl...