Italian Singer
He recognized the familiar, individual, beautiful intake of her flat young abdomen, its wonderful “play,” the frank and eager expression of the oblique muscles and the “smile” of her navel—to borrow from the vocabulary of the belly dancer’s art.
Vladimir Nabokov • Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (Vintage International)
A stylized, toreador-Elvis look, full of bruised machismo and oversensitivity, bewildered surrender.
Bruce Benderson • The Romanian: Story of an Obsession
These songs were clearly intended not only to entertain but also to inform. The anonymous author of a poem about the battle of Ravenna in 1512 told his audience that his principal intention in composing the work was ‘not because you would take pleasure from it, but so that you might have some indication of this event’. Events moved fast in this con
... See moreAndrew Pettegree • The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself
The sensual man often laughs when there is nothing to laugh at. Whatever it is that moves him, he shows that he is pleased with himself.