("Burn it, son," one of Crews's writing teachers told him about an early manuscript. "Fire's a great refiner").
The key to Test batting, he will have been told (and few better to tell him than Flower), is to recognise that having an array of options is something given to all great players, but that they become great by refining their game, playing the percentages.
The tar sand reserves have the potential to turn Canada into a global energy player on a par with Saudi Arabia, but at what great cost:Refining tar sands requires two to three times as much energy as refining crude oil.
Excerpts I've spotted online lead me to believe he's not great at refining his prose, which may explain the length of the novel more than any narrative complexity.
His work and music was always of great taste: refined and edgy.
Rustioni, meanwhile, is fast emerging as a bel canto conductor of great distinction, refined yet rhythmically precise in his approach and allowing Bellini's melodies, both vocal and orchestral, to unfold and breathe with marvellous eloquence.
Mr. Threadgill's new band plays pieces shorter than his works in recent years, and an oud changes the texture; otherwise, Zooid is a refinement of the sweet-and-sour, jazz-tango-Balkan-funk matrix (always with a tuba) that Mr. Threadgill, one of our great composers, refined through the 90's.
