Word: cyclicality
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...what of the work? Varnedoe's catalog essay bears the title "Comet: Jackson Pollock's Life and Work," which fits the eclat and brevity of Pollock's appearance. But comets eventually swing back on their orbit and return, whereas Pollock was a singular and not a cyclic event, more like a meteor that plows into the earth and wreaks havoc on its climate, filling art's air with fallout. Artists have been defining themselves and their work against Pollock ever since. Yet most of his influence was indirect. Pollock's mature style--based on dripping and flinging skeins of paint...
...effect brought to Pfizer's attention when the test subjects were reluctant to return their leftover pills. The medication works by suppressing the effect of the naturally occurring enzyme phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5), which causes an erection to subside after orgasm by breaking down the body chemical known as cyclic GMP. It is cyclic GMP that initiates the muscular and vascular changes that lead to an erection in the first place. While PDE5 is always present in the penis, cyclic GMP is produced only during arousal. The catch in impotent men is that they may not produce enough cyclic...
...more nugget of possibly boring but crucial biochemistry: the erectile tissue in the penis has a finite number of receptors for cyclic GMP. This means that a normally functioning man with adequate levels of the chemical shouldn't get any more bang for his buck by gobbling Viagra; the variations anyone feels in his or her sexual response are due to factors outside the drug's purview. At the same time, Pfizer hasn't done any testing of the drug on nonimpotent men to prove the point, but it's hard to imagine that biochemical nitpicking is going to stop...
Viagra's effects on the hydraulics of male sexuality are pretty straightforward. Originally developed as a heart medication, the drug works directly on the blood vessels, blocking an enzyme called phosphodiesterase. This enzyme prevents the release of certain neurotransmitters--most notably one called cyclic GMP--that cause the smooth muscles surrounding arteries to relax, allowing the arteries to expand. When this occurs in penile arteries, it leads to engorgement, which leads to erection...
...Egyptian grave robber, a disciple of the Apostle Paul in the early church, etc. One can only assume that these departures are supposed to orient Turnbull's life and ever-present death in the greater span of history--to connect his existence with others' in some all-encompassing cyclic understanding. In comparison with the use of imagination in such classic Updike as The Centaur, however, these elderly wet dreams seem positively puerile...