Word: explainer
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These eminences (all left-handed; explain) are among the legion of Will Shortz's subjects. Shortz, the Times's crossword editor, is a genial gent who since 1978 has run an annual tournament for the sort of people who can finish a Sunday puzzle in 10 min.--in ink. Their number include Ellen Ripstein, a self-described "little nerd girl," and Tyler Hinman, who at 20 could become the tournament's youngest-ever winner...
...That may explain why a self-effacing comic like Ellen DeGeneres became a hit and an un-shut-uppable genius like Roseanne bombed. "So many producers have wasted millions of dollars on people who are great talk-show guests but not great talk-show hosts," says Live with Regis and Kelly executive producer Michael Gelman. A host must subordinate his or her identity in service of the larger work--what the poet John Keats referred to as "negative capability," although he was talking about verse, not wearing pinstripes and doing product placements for Coke...
...bars, is situated on a stretch of the Mississippi that was once a thriving industrial waterfront. Old mills and factories still survive nearby, and Nouvel looked to them for his first inspiration. "It was important to me to create a link with the history of the city," he explains. "I said to myself, 'Theater is an industry too.'" But theater manufactures intangibles - spectacles, sensations, memories. So while the Guthrie bears a resemblance to the mills and granaries of the past, it also announces that it's a 21st century dream factory. Two vertical posts that rise from the roof...
Which helps explain why infectious-disease specialists in the U.S. are so alarmed by the new killer bug. "We're out here waving our arms, trying to get everyone's attention," says Dr. Robert Daum, director of the University of Chicago's pediatric infectious-disease program, who was one of the first to call attention to the rapid spread of MRSA, back in 1998. "People talk about bird flu, but this is here...
What epidemiologists still can't explain, however, is how that particular bug manages to get around to so many cities and towns yet has left others relatively unscathed--at least so far. Cases of the new MRSA strain have only just started cropping up in New York City, for example. "We've been waiting for this to happen," says Dr. Betsy Herold of Mt. Sinai. "Now, we're in a unique position to watch it unfold and to find out why it's happening...