But the novel's Mixtec characters are rigid with folkloric dignity; Serafina is wrapped in a nimbus of refined similes.
I joined a convoy of vehicles coming out of Riverton and up the hill past the Wind River Casino, which was shrouded in a nimbus of snow.
The "Toy Story" video is handed off to 6-year-old Eddie, who has emerged from the bathroom in a nimbus of Estee Lauder White Linen cologne.
("The heavily armored cavalry... commenced the attack in a chorus of 'Allahu akbar' " — "God is great" — "tearing up the hill from the Roman road in a nimbus of nostril steam from their mounts behind volleys of arrows").
It's her drifting about in a nimbus of white chiffon for the "Wuthering Heights" video, hair crimped to kingdom-come, arms tremblante, lots of backlighting, like a 1970s album cover come to life.
Nimbus and cumulus clouds – observed 300 years before they were classified by science – are tinged with the salmon-pink light of dawn as they float in a sky that's changing from night blue to morning gold.
In accompanimental passages, she achieved the feat of almost disappearing, so that the piano became a nimbus of timbre floating around the string voices.
Three mysterious duets ensue, with Gaylene Cummerfield, Céline Gittens and Jenna Roberts intently manipulated by a cohort of male partners before being simultaneously raised aloft, like divers arrested in mid-flight, into a nimbus of white light.
Now the moon was directly above them, a nimbus floating in the fog, as vague as a coin at the bottom of a well.
JESSICA LANGE slipped into a booth at Le Drugstore in Paris, face bare of makeup, hair a nimbus of soft blond curls.
