They can seem stark and severe, or discreetly shrouded, almost upholstered, like presences in perpetual mourning or objects in perpetual storage.
Our subject is the modern female body, that perpetual subject -- and object -- of manipulation, contemplation, rank distaste, celebration and reinvention.
Her domestic and marital choices are subject to informal national referenda, while her demeanor is the object of perpetual critique, and her inner life an issue for endless speculation.
Most significantly, China's economic growth rate — the object of perpetual political obsession among officials and citizens alike — though off the double-digit highs of recent years, seems poised easily to reach the government's target of 8percentt for this year.
Over the years, Pinter's work has inspired a journal (The Pinter Review), added words to the English language (the Oxford English Dictionary lists "Pinteresque," "Pinterism," "Pinterian," and "Pinterishness" as acceptable terms), won dozens of awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 2005, and made him an object of perpetual public fascination in Britain.
It's far from ideal, but to make up the ground, we must become objects of perpetual motion.
A preface by Mir Ali, reproduced in the catalog, comes to mind: "As long as the patched cloak of the celestial sphere contains the sun and moon, may this album be the object of your perpetual gaze".
Executives who are bottom-line oriented may not immediately recognize the value of marketing and "object" to its perpetual struggle to show return on investment.
