Word: specimen
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...hero of You Look Nice Today is Robert Harbert, "Harb" to his pals. Harb is executive vice president of corporate process and procedure at the Global Fiduciary Trust Co., and he's a relatively generic specimen of the common suit: 44, nice guy, weak chin, happily married. Harb's troubles begin when he hires an attractive assistant named CaroleAnne. Over the next few years, it emerges that CaroleAnne, while quite good at her job, is in fact a nutcase. Even though Harb heaps raises and promotions on her, she becomes increasingly paranoid and hostile, and finally she quits and sues...
...assistant use to filter the paperwork needed to pump out Far Side greeting cards. Larson, whose surreal, pothead-meets-scientist take on humans' overestimation of their species made cartoons cool, prefers his nondrawing, noncelebrated existence. "Life is good," he says, sitting at a wooden conference table, holding an antique specimen jar of chattering-teeth hand puppets, momentarily optimistic before reverting to his trademark deadpan form. "I probably have cancer...
Houellebecq is that eminent specimen of literary animal, the deadpan desperado. (Think William Burroughs, but more readable.) The narrator of Platform, also named Michel, works for the French Ministry of Culture. A nobody-in-particular who has made his peace with that, Michel has a gift for loathing so nasty-funny he could be British and a faith in the groin as the fountain of all contentments. Even masturbation he surrounds with a beatific glow. "I gently emptied my testicles...
...probe comes in two parts: an orbiter that will stay aloft to conduct atmospheric studies and a lander that will descend to the surface. Dubbed Beagle 2, after Charles Darwin's famous specimen-collecting ship, the lander is only 3 ft. wide when packed for flight, but on the ground it will open like a flower and deploy an impressive array of equipment. Among the instruments are a drill capable of digging 5 ft. below the surface, 12 ovens that can heat samples to some 1,600ºF to generate carbon dioxide and a mass spectrometer to identify carbon isotopes, along...
...Wire is that rare specimen, a work about social issues that is not boring. Last season detailed a single investigation of a drug gang, which--just as rare for TV--got as much screen time and character depth as the cops. And as the police tangled with bureaucratic politics and the gang unfolded its secrets like a black Sopranos family, it became a story about the collapse of faith in institutions and the death of inner cities...