Word: skies
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Under a blazing sun and cloudless sky, Vincent Olebogeng strolls past an ore bucket spray-painted MERRY XMAS 86. Though the temperature is 87 degreesF, Olebogeng considers the weather cool relief. Thirty minutes earlier, he was two miles underground, moving tons of dusty gray ore in the almost unbearable heat of Durban Deep, a gold mine at Roodeport, ten miles west of Johannesburg. He has worked nearly 300 days in the past year, but he will not work tomorrow. After the paymaster hands him a brown envelope containing his monthly wages of 270 rand ($122), Olebogeng is ready to travel...
...various, in spite of airport roads that look identical everywhere and stores that unite the country in a fast-food mythology. The electric glass of Dallas could not be mistaken for Boston's pedagogical tweed or San Diego's white sail. In New York City this season, the sky dims by 4 in the afternoon, and the shop lights pop on like gold-and-white lanterns...
...Brooklyn Museum's entrance hall is a period room of the recently lost future, haunted by a peculiar American dream from the days when model-airplane kits were still mostly balsa. A 1929 high-wing monoplane, bravely lacquered in sky blue and wasp yellow, hangs from the ceiling, almost low enough for the grown visitor to touch its spats. Nearby sits the Chrysler Airflow -- not, alas, the classic 1934 model with the "waterfall" radiator, but still modernity on wheels, squinty windshield, fairings and all. Between them are such icons as the 1936 Sears-Roebuck Waterwitch outboard, offering its owner some...
...MUST APPROACH these life decisions boldly, soldier," says the Other, pulling a soup ladle from his shoulderbag and waving it grandly to the sky. "Remember, legal practice is more than just desserts. Yes, much more. Why come suppertime at the bench, you'll be stewing justice for the starving masses. Think of it: the hot broth of due process...
That is what Morris' short fiction consistently delivers. For every sad event there is a countervailing and arresting image: of swallows on a Spanish mountaintop ("Their flight on the sky was like fine scratches on film"); of a vista in Boise, Idaho ("My aunt's couch faced the door, which stood open, the view given a sepia tone by the rusted screen"). The author offers glimpses of strange lives and then, with wisdom and art, makes them clear and permanent...