Word: enigma
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...NEED NOT turn beyond the first photograph in this book to understand that cameraman James Klosty could not possibly express more about choreographer Merce Cunningham than that he's an enigma. That first photograph silhouettes Cunningham--turned from the waist, arms stretched overhead, legs rooted apart--like a Klee stick figure, or a Giacometti spider-thin nude, or maybe a twentieth-century version of the Renaissance icon: man as the measure of all things...
...people are ambivalent and even apathetic in their attitudes toward the Soviet union or toward international politics, perceptions about the United States are in an entirely different realm. America appears to be a complete enigma for people in the Soviet Bloc. Among some there was a consciousness similar to that of early 20th century immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island believing the streets were paved with gold. People like this constantly interrogate the American visitor about salaries, apartment size, leisure time, and so on, not because they are faring particularly badly, but because the image of unlimited wealth and opportunity...
That is quite a change for a Baathist leader. Since taking power in Baghdad, the secretive, bellicose rulers of Iraq had turned the country into something of a frightening enigma, even to other Arab nations. In the early years of Baath rule, spies and "enemies of the regime," including members of Iraq's persecuted and dwindling Jewish population, were executed and their bodies hung in Baghdad's Tahrir Square. Revolts within the party were put down in the same uncompromising style...
Paradoxical? "Misha" is more than that. He is an enigma compounded of moody shyness, bold theatricality, post-adolescent intellectual pretense and a sweetness that makes him melt at the sight of an appealing house pet. But that is how it should be for the newest, brightest star in an art that is itself a series of paradoxes. What other discipline demands of its practitioners that they train like athletes and sweat like stevedores in order to achieve romantic effects of the most ethereal nature? What other art places such emphasis on tradition, yet depends on such unreliable resources-the kinesthetic...
...bird bath, and the ground around her is strewn with dead leaves. This image is superimposed on a broken pane of glass whose pieces form a jagged jigsaw puzzle. The glass is at once a mirror and a window; whether we see an illusion or reality is left as enigma, as is the identity of the woman and the meaning of the scene...