Word: smugly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...forgotten to wear a bra, and the barrette keeping your hair off your neck absolutely won't stay closed. And since it's a Master Class, of course, it seems as though Everyone is there-all the very good dancers and the very pretty dancers and even the very smug dancers who talk about Lindsay and Marth just as avidly as others you know talk about Kurt and Carter...
...look across and sideways at one another shyly or with some contempt. And the very good dancers check to see that their knees and toes are turned out at just the proper angle, and the very pretty dancers draw deep breaths to flatten their tummies, and the very smug dancers continue to look blase and shake their legs, like world-weary professionals...
...soon after everyone has had a chance to take a tumble and a few intrepid souls are even smiling a little at each other (the smug at the very good and the very good at the very pretty, who still, however, avert their eyes among themselves), the circles break up into pairs, and you are left standing next to a dapper and muscular fellow named Henry. Henry wears a blue, sleeveless tank top and appears to know what he is doing. He treats you as if you could use a bit of his help, but are not hopeless. Silently...
...everyone together again. Then sent all of you careening across the floor, pretending to be, as the voice desires, Greek vases. And this is quite a sight, you think, making your way across the floor, ducking, swirling and tossing back your head. All the very good, pretty, and smug dancers gallop about in the most unseemly fashion, looking at best like broncos or Isadora's scarves, but hardly to be praised by Keats...
Criminologists, law professors and judges have theories and ideas and observations about crime, but policemen know. Because they are just ordinary men, the burden of knowledge generally makes them clannish, somewhat smug and unusually prone to divorce and suicide. In the case of Joseph Wambaugh, a sergeant in the Los Angeles police department, firsthand knowledge has led to a workmanlike first novel, short on nuance, but notably convincing. It follows three L.A.P.D. rookies through five years on the force, climaxing in the terrorized disorder of the police effort to contain the 1965 Watts riot...