Word: boringly
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...opera came to a halt. On to the stage of Philadelphia's Academy of Music, set to represent a Viennese ballroom of the bustle and muttonchop era, someone dragged a microphone. Entered a lean, intense, bug-eyed young man in white tie & tails. In his hand he bore a mouth organ. Impassively and impressively he proceeded to render a solo. The Blue Danube. Such was the operatic debut of the world's greatest harmonicist, Larry Adler...
...Keller, who in 50 years at Yale (42 as teacher) made the Sumner tradition great. With Keller it was a case of love at first sight; from the day he entered Sumner's class he began to prepare to follow in the great man's steps, meekly bore Sumner's pronouncements on his habits, studies, marriage (Sumner was against it). Keller became as great a sociologist and anthropologist as Sumner, learned ten of Sumner's 13 languages (bogging down only on Hebrew, Russian, Polish...
Whirling Cannon. Induction heating contributes to one of the most ingenious practices in modern arsenals-the centrifugal casting of gun barrels. Steel is induction-melted, then poured into a horizontally rotating mold which continues to spin until the casting hardens. Thus formed is a hollow, easy-to-bore barrel instead of the solid ingot from which cannon were formerly forged and drilled. Slag (formed by the oxidation of the molten metal) is forced to the inner surface of the casting, where it can easily be tooled away...
Funerals became strangely frequent. Always first in processions was Pierre Guichard, dignified beadle of the Cérilly church. Next, the cure, sprinkling holy water with an energy suggesting joyous abandon. Behind him came the coffin bearers, their spirits lighter than the heavy box they bore. Then the black-veiled mourners, bearing their grief with an odd furtiveness...
...years Hong Kong had stood handsomely for the Imperial Way of Life. The Happy Valley Race Course was smooth and fast. The cool gimlets and gin slings of the Hong Kong Club were as refreshing as the food of the great hotels was dull. Shops bore names that circled the rim of Empire: Kelly & Walsh sold Britons their books, Whiteaway & Laidlaw sold them practically everything else. The white monolithic skyscraper of the Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank dominated the island's waterfront as it dominated Britain's Pacific Empire, looking down upon the lesser establishments of Jardine, Matheson...