Word: thinning
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Krakauer clicked the traditional victory snapshots and started back down the mountain. But Into Thin Air, his fascinating and troubling account of the climb (Villard; 293 pages; $24.95), is no chronicle of triumph. He was in ragged physical shape. A wracking cough had torn loose chest cartilage; his body had burned away 20 lbs. of muscle mass; he was running out of bottled oxygen. But the deadliest element of his situation was one he barely noticed: innocent-looking clouds rising from valleys to the south. They were the tops of thunderheads, carrying a violent spring storm that would kill...
...Beckett, Eugene Ionescu or other Absurd playwrights. "The same joke is repeated relentlessly," writes Muchmore. "It then turns out that the whole conflict has also ocurred mulitple times...[the characters in the play] inhabit their own world, one that lacks meaningful contact with the real world...it walks a thin line between reality and oddball fantasy...[and] asks a few more questions than it ends up answering...The characters succesfully end up seeming crazy without being enlightening...[and the play] never gives us sufficient oppurtunity to do anything but distance ourselves from the characters. If this is the rationale behind...
Bezos scoffs at the B&N challenge, assuring the world--before descending into his required pre-IPO cone of silence--that Amazon's paper-thin overhead and laser-like Web focus will make it difficult for anyone to match it on price. Amazon doesn't carry the hefty cost of those comfy B&N superstores; for the most part, it just orders titles from warehousers and publishers on your behalf...
...water only two weeks or so before the ice breaks up. This year, says Kooyman, the ice near Franklin Island broke up in mid-December, two weeks before the fledglings were ready to embark, probably dooming the juveniles to an early death. The story is a reminder of the thin margins that sustain life, even for creatures as durable as the emperor penguin, which has thrived for millions of years in the harshest climate on earth...
This might be more acceptable if the play had some more lasting, concrete substance or universal applicability, but in this respect it is noticeably lacking. Overall, it walks a thin line between reality and oddball fantasy, particularly since no one can tell when Beep and Kitty are lying or being serious. But then how do Beep and Kitty's obscure epiphanies about dying ("you go to a garden full of flowers") and other intangibles fit in with anything? For a comedy which ultimately revolves around one, oft-repated joke, the play asks a few more questions than it ends...