In City Hall, the audience was moved by Ms. Ullmann's solemn reading of Mr. Liu's words.
Everyone is welcome to join us, even if only for a few minutes, for the solemn reading of the names of the war dead on Saturday, May 26, beginning at 8 30 a.m. at the Jones Beach needle (tower).
I'm talking about the tenth anniversary ceremonies for 9/11, and everything that goes with them: the solemn reading of the names of the dead, the tolling of bells, the honoring of first responders, the gathering of presidents, the dedication of the new memorial, the moments of silence.
A solemn (read: humorless) man took my information, gave me his email address so I could send him what I'd received from INSPAD, and said he'd do what he could.
Near the entrance of the cemetery, dozens of volunteers conducted their own solemn ritual, reading the names of about 5,000 people who have been buried at the cemetery since Memorial Day of last year.
Carrying a red book, he stepped quietly to the microphone of the machine and in a soft, solemn voice read a passage from Hamlet's advice to his mother, the one beginning, "Such an act that blurs the grace and blush of modesty".
The last time I attended the September 11 ceremonies at Ground Zero, on the fifth anniversary in 2006, as the names of the dead were read, solemn tranquility was disrupted and disrespected by those who tried to use the occasion to draw attention to themselves, crassly intruding with their conspiracy theories and raucous agendas.
Michelle Obama, Cara Delevingne, and the cast of The Expendables 3 posed for solemn pictures holding signs reading "#BringBackOurGirls".
As soon as the lecture series opened, an anonymously written open letter was published charging that Blackstone had "violated the Statutes of the University, by arbitrarily changing the Day appointed for reading his solemn Lectures".
It was possible to read these solemn women as embodiments of Ms. Hay's history.
Preceding his (presumably fictional) tale, Paul Theroux includes a photo of his old boy-scout troop and there, next to the - even then - satanically eyebrowed young Theroux, is the hangdog-faced future philanthropist and mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg ("with badges", reads the solemn caption), aged about 11.
