"We really wanted to avoid the idea that we imported U.S. solutions," he said.
Lee explained, "We tell our students that you want to avoid the idea of being a typical stoner who just gets high and throws the Frisbee.
Adding a gizmo to the wristwatch formula doesn't avoid the idea of the watch as status symbol or fashion accessory — it squares it.
As he reflects on the cup, with defeat by Kevin Blackwell's Pendle side proving fateful and Phil Brown's appearance as player-manager proving futile, it's hard to avoid the idea that Curbishley will be back soon.
"I wanted there to be a present tense to avoid the idea that this is an historical novel," McCann said when I asked him about the difficulty of writing about a living figure.
There is one more argument for Obama, and the rest of us, to avoid: the idea that running the N.S.A. differently, with real and not just mechanical respect for civil liberties and privacy, would just be too much trouble — that neither the agency nor the public could handle it.
And with Hannah Arendt we have been introduced to a further complication: the notion of the "banality of evil" (a formulation that Camus himself would probably have taken care to avoid), the idea that unspeakable crimes can be committed by very unremarkable men with clear consciences.
The backdrop of Hugo's own smudgy, Turneresque drawings give the production a filmic quality, and, before the stage becomes cluttered with picaresque whores and bits of set, entirely avoid the idea that this is really just some kind of French take on Oliver! with better-dressed lowlife.
