Word: pencilling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...aboard the TWA plane last week. Says he: "Explosives are made out of organic material. They won't set off a metal detector, nor do they have any distinguishing silhouette. It's a blob and can be of any shape." A bomb detonator can be as slim as a pencil, and a timer no more conspicuous than a travel alarm. Plastic explosives can be concocted from a wide variety of chemical formulas and take many forms, ranging from string on a package to sheets of paper. For all the refinements in new bombs, he believes, there is still a tried...
Perhaps the most endearing portrait is that of the eccentric Richardson. Directing Guinness in an Old Vic production of Richard II, Sir Ralph had only a few words of advice. Holding up a sharpened pencil, he said, "Play it like this pencil, old cock." Guinness admits that he was not greatly illuminated, and his Richard was a failure of which he is still ashamed...
...Toad perforce persisted. It had been years since he had formally and respectfully addressed blank paper with only pen or pencil in hand. He felt unarmed, vulnerable. He thought of final exams long years ago--the fields of rustling blue-book pages, the universal low, frantic scratching of pens, the smell of sour collegiate anguish...
Toad drove his pencil onward. Grudgingly, he thought, This is rather interesting. His handwriting, spasmodic at first, began to settle after a time into rhythmic, regular strokes, growing stronger, like an oarsman on a long haul...
...arrayed in linear file, each R like every other R. It is not an art form, God knows, in Toad script, not Japanese calligraphy. Printed (typed) words march in uniform, standardized, cloned shapes done by assembly line. But now, thought Toad, as I write this down in pencil, the words look like ragtag militia, irregulars shambling across the page, out of step, slovenly but distinctive...