Word: precious
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Those precious seconds often expand to fill 12 commercials. Every big play demands a time out; each coaching strategem a countermove. Teams trailing by a significant margin throw up arching three-point attempts and play a full-court press. Leads change hands; clutch buckets take on anomalous importance...
...from the Shang dynasty. Dating from about 1750 B.C., it is the earliest decorated bronze yet found, but its elegant shape and fine detail suggest that a sophisticated craftsmanship must have already existed for several centuries. During the Shang period, which lasted until 1030 B.C., bronze was so precious that it was strictly the prerogative of royalty, and even then used largely for sacramental rites honoring gods and ancestors. In fact, the vessels known as dings, which are characteristic of the time, were symbols of the divine right of rulership. The most prevalent Shang decoration was a mysterious beast whose...
...consolidated his conquests. The work took 36 years. According to a historian writing about a hundred years after Shihuangdi's death in 210 B.C., some 700,000 conscripts worked on the burial chamber, which they "filled with [models of] palaces, towers, and the hundred officials, as well as precious utensils and marvelous rarities. Artisans were ordered to install mechanically triggered crossbows set to shoot any intruder. With quicksilver, the various waterways of the empire, the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, and even the great ocean itself were created and made to flow and circulate mechanically...
...plan was given the overall name of GEMSTONE, and although most components bore the names of a precious or semiprecious stone, some were named for minerals. I started with operation DIAMOND...
...then why cast two American Ballet theatre artistes, Leslie Browne and George de le Pena, in leading roles that demand precious little dancing, but require substantial emoting? Browne has lost much of her nasal whine of The Turning Point, and handles the dramatics fairly well. But the role swamps de la Pena; he acts like a dancer, relying on exaggerated expressions and quivering limbs to convey emotion. He performs several of Nijinsky's most famous ballets, including Afternoon of a Faun and Le Spectre de la Rose, but we see all too little of his dancing; Ross focuses the photography...