Word: distinctions
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first area to attract a number of researchers was the newborn baby's senses, which were once thought to represent little more than hunger to be fed. Systematic testing soon showed that babies not only perceive a good deal but have distinct preferences in everything. An Israeli neurophysiologist, Jacob Steiner, found that a baby as young as twelve hours old, which has never tasted even its mother's milk, will gurgle with satisfaction when a drop of sugar-water is placed on its tongue and grimace at a drop of lemon juice. More
Fossey learned to move among the mountain gorillas like an out-of-town cousin and got even closer when she discovered they enjoy being tickled. Such proximity yielded intimate details. Individual animals can readily be identified by their noses; no two have the same shape. Silver backs exude two distinct odors. One smells like a human locker room. The other, a pungent fear scent, is released by glands in the armpit. From the author's descriptions, family life resembles a picnic on the grass. Hulks shamble off to nibble vegetation or lie about contemplating their toes. "Naoom, naoom...
...Associates, Japan's largest and most innovative design firm, the matter is partly a philosophical one. "We Japanese," he says, "are the most avaricious people. Infinite desires but infinite time and space." To Ekuan the traditional bento-bako - the stacked lunch box packed with its careful array of distinct morsels - is the true ancestor of that emblem of modern Japan, the box full of microchips. Both represent a culture of linear flow: the processing of information, sensuous or electronic, through standardized components that can modulate content rapidly and to an infinite degree by rearrangement. The bento-bako...
...essence, Japanese food is modular food, miniaturized, and the ideal gastronomic experience is a line of small, distinct events rather than a symphony (or cacophony) of spreading transformations. As with food, so with design and technology...
...preference for modules over mixtures pervades the culture, and always has. Japanese color tends not to be harmonic or atmospheric: it is distinct, a sequence of clear notes struck on the retina. To a greater degree than in Western art, each color comes equipped with its own symbolic associations, which remain more or less constant through its use in architecture, print, neon, fabric design, packaging, food or painting. Red, for instance, pertains to magic and sorcery, vitality, fire and the conquest of evil spirits. Japanese color is grounded in nature: every indigo or cobalt dye runs, as it were, back...