Though none of us are, in all probability, the product of a secret scientific experiment, it's the rare person who does not experience in adulthood the shattering of some essential assumption, about the world, about identity, about the intentions of others.
The case for the negative obituary is strongest, it seems to me, when everything that's being written about the deceased is missing some essential point about his or her life and legacy, or when the coverage of a controversial figure is embarrassingly rose-tinted.
The team we beat comprised guys about whom I could give thumbnail sketches, quick scouting reports and some essential details about personality, and whose names I hardly knew.
But even his tortured, sleazy nature betrayed some essential seriousness about the fate of the United States.
I do wonder if, as I have got older, I have started to feel that my substandard running efforts reinforce some essential lesson about life.
Its startling achievement is that, unlike many otherwise talented writers at the moment, the writer has faced out some essential thing about his subject and presented it unsanitised.
In an interview with Gefter earlier this week, Hartshorn discussed his tenure: GEFTER: Were you left with some essential idea about photography from those early years under Cornell Capa's tutelage?
Either Australian life simply hasn't moved on, or these essays (and others) have managed to capture some essential points about our public and intellectual lives.
For the past month performers have had to focus on -- and to some extent juggle -- some essential questions about the arts and their place in a world that changed suddenly and keeps changing.
If the defining trait of a comedian is that he sees some essential truth about the world and himself, Mr. Garlin said, "A little self-loathing goes a long way".
