I wondered if the introduction of a new schedule was, for Mr. Brett, like an opening night on Broadway.
That may be a bit optimistic, if the introduction of high-definition television (HDTV) is any guide.
By summer, Cablevision plans to have it in 500,000 households, and, if the introduction goes smoothly, to extend it to all 3.1 million of its cable subscribers.
If the introduction of Wi-Fi is anything to go by, white-space will change the way people live, work and play more than anyone can currently imagine.
But if the introduction in 1973 of Pirelli's steel-belted Cinturato radial tyre is any guide, devices that make cars safer will be adopted rapidly.
As if the introduction of a new engine specification, greater harvesting of electrical power and radical aerodynamic revision is not injection enough of the potential for chaos.
I also remind students that if the introduction of war represented a failure of government, the war itself offered an opportunity to reshape the nation in a way that more clearly embodied our founding ideals.
But at least director Zack Snyder has seen fit to use the devastation of the great city as a springboard for the events of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, even if the introduction of a hearing featuring Holly Hunter's supercilious senator feels a little too close to similar scenes in Iron Man 2 for comfort.
If the introduction of new vaccines is greeted with anger that some children have missed the boat, rather than gladness that science brings new advantages with each year that passes, then the further lump sum spent on protecting children who are at much less risk will simply become part of an even tougher cost-benefit analysis.
If the introduction had the ring of an Alcoholics Anonymous declaration, before too long Mr. Lehrer was surrendering to the higher power of scientific research, cutting back and forth between his own story and the kind of scientific terms — "confirmation bias," "anchoring" — he helped popularize.
Instead of writing a continuous narrative, in 1984's "Mysteries of Harris Burdick," he presented a series of enigmatically titled and captioned monochrome drawings, which, if the introduction is to be believed, were the work of a shadowy artist who had abandoned them at a publisher's office, never to return — or to deliver the stories they professedly illustrated.
