Word: vivid
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...hate thought ("I hate Jews/ blacks/ gay people/ Catholics/ old people/ Walloons/ Bosnian Muslims/ Italians/ Latinos/ Other") flashed for an instant in the perpetrator's brain, like summer lightning, but no deed was done, then would the mere thought - tagging along as, so to speak, cheerleader in the vivid, if Orwellian, phrase "hate crime" - be worthy, in itself, of 10 to 15 years in jail? If not, then why, under hate crimes law, is this matter of the perpetrator's state of mind taken into consideration...
...returning veterans have the vivid memories of last year's frustrations, and are motivated by those memories to produce a more cohesive product this season," read the 2000 season outlook. "All signs point to a renewed enthusiasm and a confidence that this team will return to its winning ways...
...hard to exaggerate the effect music can have on the human brain. A mere snippet of song from the past can trigger memories as vivid as anything Proust experienced from the aroma of his petite madeleine. A tune can induce emotions ranging from unabashed joy to deep sorrow and can drive listeners into states of patriotic fervor or religious frenzy--to say nothing of its legendary ability to soothe the savage breast...
Specific brain disorders can affect the perception of music in very specific ways. Experiments done on epileptics decades ago showed that stimulating certain areas of the temporal lobe on both sides of the brain awakened "musical memories"--vivid re-creations of melodies that the patients had heard years earlier. Lesions in the temporal lobe can result in so-called musicogenic epilepsy, an extremely rare form of the disorder in which seizures are triggered by the sound of music. Autism offers an even greater puzzle. People with this condition are mentally deficient, yet most are proficient musicians; some are "musical savants...
...Check it out: In telling you that story, I made up the detail about the mechanic "not looking up from the engine"; Burns had merely suggested it, by a sort of body English, but I wanted to make my story vivid...