Word: medusa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Which is what it was. And so is The Medusa and the Snail (Viking; 175 pages; $8.95), a collection of 29 more Thomas essays to be published this month. If anything, the new book is better than its predecessor. Thomas' prose seems firmer, his conclusions surer, his voice more resonant. He ranges farther and farther away from the laboratory, and devotes his attention to larger chunks of society as well as to bacteria and viruses. Taken together, his two books form an extended paean to this, the best of all possible worlds...
Take, Thomas suggests, the case of the nudibranch (a sea slug) and the medusa (a jellyfish) that live in the Bay of Naples. The slug lives with a tiny fragment of the medusa permanently and parasitically attached near its mouth. The vestigial jellyfish apparently is still able to reproduce; its offspring swim off and become normal adult jellyfish. The slug also produces larvae, but these are rather quickly trapped and subsumed by the new jellyfish. Aha, one would think, the jellyfish are getting back at the slugs for prior mutilations. No such thing. "Soon the snails," Thomas writes, "undigested...
...mean H.R. "Bob" Nazi crew-cut Medusa-eyed s.o.b. Berlin Wall Lord High Executioner Haldeman...
...romantic fascination with the image of woman as sphinx, Medusa, castrator or remote, implacable goddess -the belle dame sans merci in her numerous fictive avatars-also figures in symbolist painting, especially in the world of Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921), another member of Péladan's circle. Art or The Caresses conjoins a mysteriously smiling sphinx (looking not unlike a satisfied Rossetti redhead in a leopard coat that has grown onto her skin) with a puzzled-looking boy who has presumably come to answer her riddle. It is painted with a high, pale elegance that altogether removes it from...
Braided Initials. Some stylists specialize in bizarre-sounding cornrowing variations such as the Ashia from Kenya, the Nzinga from Nigeria, and the Umoja from Egypt. The majority, however, adhere to cornrowing basics −stick-up or tied-down short braids, or Medusa-like strands sliding down the head. Customers often make specific requests for patterns that include their own braided initials. The price rises with the complexity of styling and ranges from $3.50 to $150. Because braids can remain neat and clean for several weeks, however, cornrowing reduces annual coiffure costs for those accustomed to weekly stylings...