Despite his fondness for making jokes about his girth ("I'm gaining weight for a role — 'The Zach Galifianakis Story' "), Galifianakis, 39 years old and 5-foot-8, makes a curiously delicate impression in person: small, precise hands, clear blue eyes and a face that can radiate wholesomeness, perversity or demonic glee in equal measure.
It looks as though someone's taken a precise blade and carved delicate snowflake impressions into the material, removing the flakes, leaving empty space in lacey finger-lines.
"It's delicate -- the impression is not great when it is on behalf of a company that has created the worst profile in the history of capitalism".
His only possible defect was that his face, a bit too slender and delicate, could give the impression that he was lacking in personality or was wishy-washy.
"The overall impression is that of a delicate, triumphant glance, an acknowledgment of Woolf that takes her into Cunningham's own territory, a place of late-century danger but also of treasurable hours," Michael Wood wrote in these pages in 1998.
"We always had the impression that foreign musicians are very delicate people," said Natalya Voinova, assistant concertmaster of the Moscow Symphony.
Specializing in prints -- the basis of each collection -- Haynes gives the delicate chiffons of her fall collection the subtle impression of smudged paint, but more ethereal and less accidental-looking.
And the German decision to go it alone reinforced the negative impression of a divided Europe at a delicate juncture.
Anyone coming to this show under the impression that Sampha's voice is a delicate instrument is quickly set right.
Jean Martinon's delicate, occasionally dainty conducting of the Lamoureux Orchestra only furthers the impression that this is music to be savored rather than endured.
