Charred, gnawed human bones from this late period suggest desperate times.
What sticks in the mind, though, is her two-word description of the new album, a description that suggests desperate enthusiasm: "It's fun!" She's right, although her description requires all the usual qualifications: more or less, much of the time, in a way.
The macabre notion sprang to my mind last week when, a century after the start of that savage conflict, officials suggested that desperate migrants were deliberately risking a "Blighty" as they tried to enter Europe illegally.
This is one of many points on which the Snowden papers suggest a desperate need for the Supreme Court to weigh in on privacy and new practices in surveillance.
The attenuated letters suggest a desperate infantile squeak that contrasts well with the robust tantrum of Mr. Nauman's video clown.
Her early videos suggest people desperate to escape boredom: juggling, rolling a bowling ball toward old television sets, reading poetry out loud.
The lyrics to Picasso Baby suggest someone desperate for the art world's approval as he namechecks artists including Jeff Koons and the painter George Condo, rapping out a cultural cringe, a plea for intellectual recognition.
While this suggests a desperate chasing after another borough's trends, at least the prime beef is classic steakhouse meat, ranched in the Midwest, gorged on corn in its final weeks and dry-aged almost a month.
German politicians have been mocked for suggesting that desperate refugees arriving in Munich could disrupt Oktoberfest celebrations, and may find drunk people "odd", as 6million festivalgoers descend on the city.
