Word: sphinx
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Muslim fanatics knocked its nose off, Greeks scrawled graffiti on its paws and Mamluk soldiers used its face as a rifle target. But the saddest indignity suffered over the centuries by Egypt's Great Sphinx of Giza has stemmed from erosion, seemingly caused by a single enemy-the relentless desert wind. At the present rate of decay, experts say, the 64-foot-high figure could be reduced to a mound of dust in five to ten centuries...
...however, a newly discovered threat to the 4,500-year-old monument poses fresh problems for conservationists. It has also triggered a scientific and political controversy. A chemical analysis of the Sphinx by K. Lal Gauri, 48, a stone-preservation expert at the University of Louisville, suggests that salt, not wind, is the main cause behind the statue's decay...
...into fatal righteousness; from Debbie Allen as Walker's doomed love; from Ted Ross and Moses Gunn as two eloquent veterans of injustice who try talking sense and restraint to Coalhouse; and from James Cagney, back on-screen after a 20-year lapse and cool as a leprechaun sphinx in the role of a wily New York City police commissioner. Only Elizabeth McGovern seems out of tune and time. She plays Evelyn Nesbit as the daffily dumb prototype for every bombshell from Marilyn to Bo-cheeks puffed, eyes glazed, tripping through life in a sweet stupor. She weighs...
Egypt's ancient Valley of the Kings may sound like a glamorous film location, but according to Actress Lesley-Anne Down, "It was like being in a sweatshop." Daily temperatures of 100° to 120° F, says Down, made Sphinx "my most physically exhausting movie." Things did not improve when the cast moved to breezy Budapest. There, in a cavernous studio, Down portrayed an Egyptologist who finds the lost tomb of Seti I. To evoke the proper sepulchral ambience, 130 bats were set loose on the set. "It was horrible. They rained down on me," she shudders. "Even...
...fails to vote has no justification for complaining about the result. The conclusion is plain. If one wishes to criticize the government during the next four years (and who would give up that priceless privilege?) voting is the prerequisite. But with the choice one of a sphinx, a knee-breached diplomat, or a great wind there is none who will not be eager to choose...