But it's a sign of the times that the imposing face of the global capital-hyped metropolis is now starting to strut its stuff in widescreen.
A photo of the Albion River in Mendocino, California, becomes a milky pool snaking through rainbowed mountains of Froot Loops; the imposing face of Cathedral Rock, at Yosemite, is reconstructed as a heaping pile of white bread.
Chernow dwells on Washington's manliness, describing him, every few pages or so, as "a superb physical specimen, with a magnificent physique," "an exceptionally muscular and vigorous young man," with an "imposing face and virile form," "powerfully rough-hewn and endowed with matchless strength," not excepting his "wide, flaring hips with muscular thighs".
Among them is Upsala Glacier, a large valley glacier with an imposing blue face nearly six miles across, accessible on a day boat cruise.
At the time, there were reports of internal rows over imposing BBC1 faces on the round-the-clock service.
Directed by Alfred E. Green in 1933, a year before the production code was strictly imposed, "Baby Face," with its brazenly sexual lead, was too racy to make it into theaters uncensored.
Would-be guests apply through a closed Facebook group in which they impose a "face control" policy favoured by the city's bouncers: if you don't have the right style or attitude you don't get an invite to dinner.
This disclaimer is probably necessary because the late pontiff is revealed to have made some eccentric decisions but, as Harris's "late Holy Father" shares most of the biography of Pope Francis and has also made identical speeches, it is in practice impossible not to impose his face on the character.
While Mamoon isn't literally Naipaul, it is, in practice, almost impossible for the reader not to impose the face of the author of A Bend in the River on Kureishi's descriptions of the terrifying writer's "hooded eyes" and his nostalgic obsession with the great West Indies cricket teams.
Then the leader of the group, Ibrahim, appeared, tall and imposing, his large face covered with dark freckles and flesh-colored moles.
Her physical appearance may be her most celebrated asset: a little bit Pam Anderson (scarecrow hair, trout lips), a little bit Barbarella (flared pants and corset tops cut as tight as bondage gear), with a face imposing enough to belong on Mt. Rushmore, regardless of whether its features were chiselled by nature or man.
