In his new show, which plays at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel through Feb. 17, one sign of his refinement is the inclusion of George Schneider's withering parody, "An Andrew Lloyd Webber Song," which lays to waste that British composer's artistic reputation.
Yet the poet is guilty less of punning than wordplay, which Elizabethan taste considered more a sign of literary refinement than humor; hence "puns" in seemingly inappropriate places, like a dying Mercutio's "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man".
That the packing list, which first appeared in her book The White Album, is offered as a symptom of her descent into mental illness seems to be forgotten: the orderliness is taken as a sign of her refinement rather than her obsessive-compulsiveness; the bourbon listed above the shampoo as a stroke of glamour rather than an omen.
American soldiers may have called the underground hiding place a rat's nest and a spider hole, but in the small house up above were countless, if chaotically arrayed, signs of civilization, even refinement.
It showed me a world where alcohol was no big deal; drinking it often was a sign of maturity and refinement.
Jostling shapes, geometric and biomorphic, lyrical and hard-edged, refuse to resolve neatly, a bold strategy to keep viewers unsettled and curious, the reward for which are profuse and luscious details: varied incidents of refinement, suggestive signs, most in a private code, not merely ornamental but integral to the overall message.
In later rounds of refinement, the model was refined with amplitude based twin refinement.
The second part is the "unimportant part," it consists of sign bits and refinement bits.
