("We must be ready for an influx of foreign visitors," Stalin had fretted. "What will happen if they walk around Moscow and find no skyscrapers?") Left Bank Astana was beautiful at night, each building, it seemed, with its own nighttime color scheme, and the street lamps all going full blast.
When I panted, "Are you OK?" (which I knew he wasn't) he emphatically yelped "No!" The opening was a success, it seemed, with its Chinese, Chilean and everything-else mix, and then Alfredo made his late appearance, dirtier than ever, and his incredibly accurate "Type 54/Dshk" machine gun simulation was installed just as that phase of the night came to a close.
The Broadway musical The Color Purple regularly made headlines when its original Tony-winning lead, LaChanze, was out of the show, it seemed, with undue regularity (including, by the way, the night I caught it in the immediate run-up to that year's Tony awards).
His aides waited with me, none of them busy, it seemed, with anything but drinking coffee.
He was content, or so it seemed, with being the people's No. 1.
Remember there were problems, it seemed, with the retributivist picture, and problems, it seems, with the consequentialist picture.
