"The party's over, but I've landed on my feet," he sings at one juncture on Popular Problems, neatly summarising this ongoing state of affairs, and as on its 2012 predecessor, Old Ideas, you can hear everywhere on his 13th album the rejuvenating effect of what should have spelt disaster.
In my memory, Smith didn't utter a sound for two hours but, checking the recording, that's not the case: at one juncture, he yawned and muttered something about drum machines.
He talks about Beethoven, Goya and El Greco, and at one juncture uses the word "epigone", which I subsequently have to look up in a dictionary.
Fearless and spry at barely 6 feet tall, Williams went through the heart of the Knicks' defense at one juncture in the third quarter and dunked hard.
At one juncture in Game 2, Posada and Hernandez labored to agree on a sign, and Posada raised his hands and motioned for Hernandez to step off the rubber and start over, the sort of gesture that might stir Hernandez's stubbornness in a regular-season game and lead to a minor conflict.
It takes in both gruff homespun wisdom ("I don't wanna be a star because stars fall from the sky, and when they hit the ground they turn into a rock and a rock ain't no good unless you bust someone in the head with it") and, at one juncture, the impossibly winning phrase "your mama only got one titty and that's full of wine".
In its first version, "La Fin de la Baleine" included a dance on point for a woman who holds a tuba and, at one juncture, spouts water from her mouth.
While stripping costume after costume and wig after wig (at one juncture a grid of wigs on headstands descends), Harris also does the psychological stripping Mitchell's script calls for.
The tunnel forked, and at one juncture the marines were momentarily flummoxed, unable to tell which path he had taken.
You keep expecting Stuart Maconie to pop up and call it a tie: racing pigeons are mentioned at one juncture, which is perhaps laying on the aye-up a bit thick, but the song is utterly enchanting regardless.
