Word: featly
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Cabrera's pessimism and deadpan ironic tone cement these vignettes into a book. Whether he is describing some feat of unbelievable bravery, such as peasants armed only with machetes attacking a Spanish cavalry unit, or some remarkable complacency or quite ordinary cowardice, he always deflates heroic claims that men control their destinies. Battles are planned with elaborate strategy and won by blind chance. So many of these images are both horrible and accidentally funny that they finally detach the reader from any feeling but irony...
Furious Clip. That was no small feat, given the diversity of action as the Olympics wound up. Ski races were going off moments after speed-skating contests ended, and hockey games followed each other at a furious clip. Traffic jams congealed around the competition sites, and some fans retreated to their hotels to watch the Games on TV. At night, hotel bars became the scene of pick-up Olympics. "This is mad," said one American girl at the Holiday Inn. "I might as well have stayed at a singles bar in New York...
...even more astonishing feat was accomplished by Cambridge Mathematician Alan Turing. Turing was a pure eccentric, a runner who "would on occasion arrive at conferences at the Foreign Office in London having run the 40 miles from Bletchley in old flannels and a vest with an alarm clock tied with binder twine around his waist." Turing was "wild as to hair, clothes and conventions" and given to "long, disturbing silences punctuated by a cackle." But by 1939, confounding all predictions, he had designed an "Ultra" machine that could decode Enigma's messages...
Scott has gained special attention because of his flamboyant personality and the stirring account of that last, doomed expedition. Amundsen, a more methodical man, accomplished his feat earlier, with less notoriety and no loss of life...
...this: Harvard had to win the first game, play from strength--which in this case was their starting pitcher Roswell Brayton. Brayton had been first team All-East for two years running. He'd barely lost a game in that time, and in 1972 had performed the astonishing feat of pitching 40 straight innings without giving up a run (when he finally did, it was unearned)--he finished the year with an ERA of .027. This year it had hovered around .100. If Harvard was to have any luck at Omaha, the first game was key. Trouble was, Harvard drew...