Word: instrumentality
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...personal level, too, Schechner said that viewing the astronomical occurrence through Winthrop’s own instrument was a thrill...
Obeysekere fancies himself a Holmesian observer in his own right and an instrument of English justice, but he can't see the treacherousness--as a Ceylonese prosecuting a case involving white men--of the territory he's treading. De Kretser's prose is stunning and subtle in depicting his downfall, evoking the glittering excesses of colonial life--after a party "you could have strolled across the lagoon on the champagne corks"--and the tropical fecundity of Ceylon with equally irresistible power. Who could stop reading a chapter that begins, "Her father, a bony, vivid man with a taste for women...
There are smoldering riffs on Uh Huh Her, but Harvey--who played almost every instrument on the album--wisely lets her voice dominate. The album's most hypnotic track, The Desperate Kingdom of Love, is just a slow acoustic guitar and Harvey begging her man to "Put on your spurs, swagger around/In the desperate kingdom of love." In the space of 2 min. 40 sec., she re-creates the whole ecstatic misery of obsession. It's the kind of thing Johnny Cash could have pulled off. Maybe. And wasn't he a genius...
Zhang Shuang, a cheerful twenty-something from Liaoning, China, isn't typical pop-star material. She doesn't sing or dance or suffer wardrobe malfunctions. Her principal talent, to which she has devoted her life, is playing the pipa, a lutelike Chinese instrument more at home in Peking opera than Top-40 countdowns. Growing up, Zhang was realistic about how far that specialty might take her. "I thought that if I was lucky," she says, "I could join a traditional ensemble and do some teaching on the side...
...deafening shrill that can be heard almost a mile away is the mating cry of the male cicada. His instrument is called a tymbal, which produces a popping sound in his hollow abdomen. Males from each of the three Brook X species have their own song. One sounds like pha-roah, another makes a sizzling noise, and the last--and rarest--makes a rhythmic call that sounds like a lawn sprinkler...