Word: detritus
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...downing of TWA Flight 800 brought Americans monumental and collective grief, stopped the meaningless noise for a moment and reduced the isolation. On the beaches of Long Island, near where the plane plunged into the Atlantic, citizens from all backgrounds walked solemnly among the washed-up detritus of the crash--the serving trays, eyeglasses, baseball caps and sweaters--and would not swim in the sorrowful ocean...
...metabolic alchemy that allowed primordial algae to turn carbon dioxide, water and sunlight into energy - was almost perfectly balanced by oxygen-depleting processes, especially organic decay. Indeed, the vast populations of algae that smothered the Precambrian oceans generated tons of vegetative debris, and as bacteria decomposed this slimy detritus, they performed photosynthesis in reverse, consuming oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that traps heat and helps warm the planet...
Story St. itself was littered with shattered glass and detritus thrown from the building during the fire...
...BEATTIE'S NEW NOVEL, HER fifth, is enough to make one wince. Another You (Knopf; 323 pages; $24) is set in academia, a trap for many novelists--too many temptations to flaunt the detritus of years of reading, watching and listening to the culture. Beattie, with her penchant for artsy or newsy allusions, is caught right away. In the opening five pages are references to Richard Nixon, Elvis Presley, Henry Kissinger and Marianne Faithfull. Marshall Lockard, the New England college professor who is at the novel's center, meets an early challenge thus: "He did something he never...
...emotional messes that ensnare New England college professor Marshall Lockard and, before him, his father Miles. "It's enough to make one wince," says TIME's Martha Duffy. "Setting her story in academia -- a trap for many novelists -- Beattie readily succumbs to the temptation to flaunt the detritus of years of reading, watching and listening to the culture. In the opening five pages are references to Richard Nixon, Elvis Presley, Henry Kissinger and Marianne Faithfull. Though an authentic voice of the late 1970s and '80s, with a particular talent for detail and dialogue, Beattie's style unfortunately has become dreary...