Mr. Ving played the aging punk troublemaker and iconoclast to the hilt as he powered through a string of Fear songs, including "I Love Living in the City" and "I Don't Care About You".
He cannot loosen the purse strings for fear of prompting inflation.
Sometimes, it's as if he's deliberately posing himself problems of musical congruency, such as the assembly of ukulele, oboe, piano, guitar and sleigh bells in "There's Nothing Underwater", or the way the stalking bass and tiptoeing pizzicato strings of "Faculty of Fears" are relieved by chummy country-pop chording.
Whatever cult status he's been living off since Brazil (1985) has dwindled drastically in the last 10 years, partly due to misfortune (his cherished Don Quixote film collapsed in bad weather and money trouble) and partly due to a string of duds (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Brothers Grimm, Tideland) whose only surprise was that somebody was willing to finance them in the first place.
He was pretty strung out, full of fear and anger, and holding it inside.
She curled a string of pearls around one finger, saying that, because of fear of arrest, she doesn't even go outside alone.
Demonstrators here in the capital and elsewhere have been demanding that Mr. Saleh step down immediately and have rejected a string of concessions for fear that the president, a canny political survivor, would find a way to undo any democratic changes once the streets quieted.
The past several months have brought a string of terror attacks and violent incidents, which not only claim lives but cause worldwide feelings of fear and vulnerability.
He received a string of letters and feared a black mark on his credit record after being chased by Orange for payment, despite giving a month's notice to end his contract.
