snurri: (Default)
snurri ([personal profile] snurri) wrote2008-02-20 09:07 am

NYT Out of Context

Quote the First: "The sari is the most flattering garment. . . . It disguises manly shoulders, takes attention away from a masculine neck."

Quote the Second: Ms. Brown and Mr. Friedman . . . were also determined not to let Harrison "take control of the house," Ms. Brown said. They went ahead with putting in flat-front lacquered maple cabinets in the kitchen, even though they soon had to watch a professional babyproofer drill 300 holes in them for safety latches. (Ms. Brown still cringes.) They put up silk Shantung draperies in Harrison's bedroom, knowing that they might well end up stained, as they soon did--with yogurt. And they held onto the molded-wood chairs, which were not an easy transition from the highchair. "They have a very sleek bottom," Ms. Brown explained. "He slides off it."

Quote the Third: "This is just like Pearl Harbor," one of the men said.

The other asked, "What is Pearl Harbor?"

"That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War," the first man replied.


Quote the Fourth: In a striking metaphor for Mr. Goss's powerlessness, as officers of the Directorate of Operations, or D.O., ignored his instructions and shunned his staff, he later told a colleague that "when he pulled a lever to make something happen in the D.O., it wasn't just that nothing happened," the colleague recalled. "It was that the lever came off in his hands."

Quote the Fifth: The female Beelzebufos were "lady Pac-Man frogs, on steroids," Dr. Krause said.

Postscript: I am having a lot of fun with your questions. Ask me more!

[identity profile] tanaise.livejournal.com 2008-02-20 09:15 pm (UTC)(link)
You're just not as aestetically sensitive as they are, I guess. My second favorite quote from the article was "I wanted the Corian top so there would be no repeat of the famous carving incident,” Mr. Stratton said, referring to the time when Fia, at 4, used a pen to carve her name into a cherry dining table just delivered from France. (“I thought I would die,” Ms. McLean said.)"

(Ms McLean is, I think, ENTIRELY too sensitive, seeing as she also doesn't believe in railings or soft edges or letting the children in the house. )

Other prime quotes: “As I’m taping it,” Mr. Cheng said, “I’m saying, ‘I’m taping over what makes the difference between this being a Noguchi table and a Kmart table.’ ” Mr. Jarecke was even more distraught. “It transformed this beautiful modernist piece of furniture into a piece you’d find in a ’70s rec room,” he said.

[identity profile] snurri.livejournal.com 2008-02-20 09:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Anyone who says "I thought I would die" without irony probably finds a lot of things to get distraught about.