Word: nondescript
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Rose Valland looked nondescript - an ideal trait for a spy. Gray and unglamorous, with black-rimmed glasses that gave her a perpetual frown, she was virtually invisible to the Nazis who, in 1940, were using the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris as a depot for thousands of plundered art masterpieces on their way to Germany. While working in a menial maintenance job, Valland eavesdropped on her Nazi bosses as they catalogued looted Vermeers and Rembrandts, and shipped them off to the private collections of top Nazis. Choice pieces were earmarked for the grand Führermuseum, which Adolf...
...couldn’t have at the top of her lungs. Fresh from her bout with breast cancer, Crow treats the trials of chemotherapy in the chillingly desperate, highly repetitive “Make It Go Away.” Soon after, the album ends inauspiciously with the nondescript, though certainly soothing, “Lullaby for Wyatt:” a stripped-down, decidedly gentle piece aimed at Crow’s recently adopted son, which might do well among tired babies and devotees of easy-listening radio stations. Crow has made it clear that she doesn?...
...limited to about $180 million in positions, Kerviel had forged passwords, faked control e-mails, and fabricated hedges in order to go well beyond the limit. He had learned all the necessary control tricks to pull off this feat during his time at the bank’s nondescript back office, where he had started working years ago before rising through the ranks to his more recent and prestigious office. In contrast to what the French public believes, however, his story is hardly one of personal growth and social mobility...
Whether it travels across borders or to the nearest big city, art stolen from churches takes the same route as art stolen from anywhere else. Relatively nondescript pieces - vases, silverware, small paintings - might be sold at a local antiques fair or online. A more impressive work will make its way up the criminal food chain, passed from the thief to his fence to a crooked dealer, who draws up a fake provenance, to a gallery owner, who turns a blind eye, and so on, until it lands on the legitimate market, eventually bought by a collector, who may have...
...evidence so far. If that is true, it raises questions about how closely the informant was supervised. (The U.S. Attorney's office declined to comment on the claim, citing the impending trial.) In addition, the informants' recording devices - which may have been embedded in cell phones or some other nondescript location - malfunctioned multiple times during the investigation, according to defense attorneys who have seen transcripts of the conversations. While some malfunctions are understandable, they can be a sign that the informant was censoring his conversations...