What if Vollmann had devoted equal energy to learning, to practicing, to saying how he had learned either the study of sex and gender by the people (some of them fine writers) who have studied it before, or the practical arts of makeup and costume — the kind of thing that men can learn a bit about by asking skillful women or by watching trans how-to videos on YouTube?
Perhaps most important, Monk no longer needs to be present for the execution of her music: the singers of M6, a group based in New York, have devoted themselves to learning and re-interpreting the Monk repertory.
And when it comes to Zahara's mane, there has already been plenty of debate about whether Angelina has devoted enough time to learning the art of grooming it.
About ten years ago Ms Brown discovered two of her ancestors were buried there; since then, she has devoted much time to learning about and maintaining the cemetery.
Heidmann, a meaty, middle-aged man with wild eyebrows and a beard heavily flecked with gray, has devoted his career to learning what viruses might tell us about AIDS and various forms of cancer.
In the San Juan neighborhood of Ocean Park, where some streets were flooded with smelly water for two weeks after Hurricane Maria, Jesús Herbón, the owner of a local bakery, jokes that he has become an expert on water pumps from all the time he has devoted to learning about how they failed during the storm.
Rabbi Sandler's grieving pregnant wife, Eva, told a meeting of Toulouse's Jewish community that her husband had devoted himself to teaching children with learning disabilities "so they could succeed in becoming well acquainted with the Torah".
Since insecurity near Irfan's home forced his family to move to safety, he has devoted his energy to learning and planning for the future – and to teaching, encouraging and advocating for other children.
He had learned to read hieroglyphics and had devoted himself to higher mathematics, so that he was thoroughly prepared to exploit both hunches.
Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Massachusetts General Hospitalsetts General haspital, has devoted much of his career to learning how people can counter the stress response by using a combination of approaches that elicit the relaxation response.
What's most striking about the list is that these are, in a very real sense, China's friends: men and women who have devoted years and decades to learning the language and understanding the people, who wish nothing but the best for China.
