Word: junking
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...attrition." Commanding the operation is U.S. Rear Admiral Brian McCauley, 52, who directed the American minesweeping of Haiphong harbor. He explained that helicopters will sweep for magnetic, acoustic and pressure mines and also "fashion a map of the canal's bed to show us where all the junk is. During the second stage, called 'Nimbus Moon,' the map will guide the Egyptian and British divers who will defuse or explode all that stuff." No Americans will take part in the actual defusing of explosives...
...market. At that point people burst out laughing. I said, "Hah! So you're showing off to us a lot of stuff which you haven't even introduced in your own country! You thought you'd get us to ooh and ahh over all this junk you've brought here...
...result, the set-up of the museum is insane. The most often-heard comment there is "Where did she get all this junk?" Japanese screens crowd the back staircases. Roman sarcophagi mix with Buddhist shrines, are surmounted by Venetian balconies and bordered by Egyptian owls. That portrait of her husband confronts a Botticelli--when Mrs. Gardner bought that painting, the Prince who smuggled it out of Italy almost landed in jail. Her Manets are grouped in one tiny, overcrowded room where they compete with William James's portrait of his literary brother, while an entire long hall is given over...
...mind she arranged them haphazardly all over the building. Mrs. Jack's pleasure palace, as it's sometimes called, is a tangible recreation of her erratic personality--walk through the building with that in mind and you come to know her. It is crazy and absurd, partly full of junk yet partly one of the greatest art collections in the United States. But if you stop and think that a Venetian palace has no business in Boston, you've missed the point...
Most of Auntie Fannie's legatees, of course, came in with items that were what an auction house employee delicately called "more decorative than collective"-meaning junk. One elderly couple thrust a collection of cups and dishes at Porcelain Expert Armin Allen and proclaimed, "These, young man, are very, very old." After examining the china, Allen observed diplomatically that "it says 'Made in Germany,' and it was not until the beginning of the 20th century that such a marking appeared." Another Parke Bernet diplomat, after examining a ring that its owner believed to be antique amber, said...