Word: peculiarity
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...might see anywhere in cubicle land. But in a warren of basement rooms under Princeton University's engineering quad, the meaning is more, well, meaningful. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory, after all, explores how the human mind affects machines. Anomalies is the key word: something different, abnormal, peculiar or not easily classified. In this case, they are the elusive powers of consciousness. Can the emanations of the brain really make the copier malfunction? Or maybe turn on the lights or even cause airplanes to fall from the sky? And if the mind is capable of affecting sensitive machinery...
...there is only one again of that trio that faced a life so peculiar that only they could understand one another. "They rarely made a decision without checking with the other," said a board member of Harvard's Kennedy School. Jackie sheltered them from the garish glare. "I don't want my children to live here anymore," she said in anguish after Bobby's assassination, fearing America's violence. She was also wary of the immense pull of the hyperactive clan and the demons that came with it. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin told Jackie at Caroline's wedding how striking...
Marilyn wasn't quite an actress, in any repertory manner, and she was reportedly an increasing nightmare to work with, recklessly spoiled and unsure, barely able to complete even the briefest scene between breakdowns. Only in the movies can such impossible behavior, and such peculiar, erratic gifts, create eternal magic--only the camera has the mechanical patience to capture the maddening glory of a celluloid savant like Monroe. At her best, playing warmhearted floozies in Some Like It Hot and Bus Stop, she's like a slightly bruised moonbeam, something fragile and funny and imperiled. I don't think audiences...
...with which I have been involved. My mom received the crash course tour of Harvard's dining system as we ran to pick up food from Adams and the central kitchens, pushing carts of bagels and juice for the conference through the streets of Harvard Square. I noticed the peculiar role reversal as I gave my mom instructions for setting up rooms, food and materials for the conference, in the way that I had so often heard her organize others, including my siblings and myself. She accepted this arrangement seamlessly; throughout the morning, she was eager to help yet remarkably...
...contact their relatives. In some camps, makeshift convenience stores have sprung up, selling soda, meat pies and other homelike conveniences at affordable Balkan prices. But as international aid workers fight traditional camp scourges such as cholera and dysentery, they are also starting to gripe about another epidemic, one peculiar to the age of the televised war: celebrities...