For one thing, the action isn't incoherent but seems to flow naturally; for another, there's enough personality -- mostly in the
byplay between Banning and his presidential charge -- to make it feel like there's something at stake.
It's all the other kinds of exposure and interaction and
byplay that goes on between attendees.
It's not that nothing's happening: There are rounds of infighting among the multiple criminals, the cases that Murdock and Nelson take on and the young lawyers' romantic
byplay with a client who becomes their secretary, and a nurse who learns the masked hero's identity (Deborah Ann Woll and Rosario Dawson, both excellent).
For a subtler example, in the middle stanzas, I'm struck with the
byplay of "vibration," "ancient," "gelatin" and "fever in," a string of near-rhymes.
Hackett--butt of much
byplay like the old time court jester, a role he loved--in self-defence replied,
(27) Despite Joyless's fear that 'she'll fall in love with an actor and undo me' (47), Diana's expressed sexual interest in
Byplay has consequences only for Joyless's jealousy; at no point does Diana have any actual interest in
Byplay except as a performer in 'The Antipodes'.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Khan has denied the allegations and said: "While our client does accept that he and some friends were in a Jacuzzi in Marbella and that there were women there and some light-hearted
byplay, our client did not have sex with any woman on that trip."
All this
byplay with the peacock, including his nearly fatal misadventure, occupies a considerable portion of the short narrative.
Scheiber portrays the Obama team as more cliquish than a middle school, fraught with seating-chart slights and tennis-camp snubs, where policy is frequently determined by meaningless personal
byplay. When the stimulus package is being put together, Rahm Emanuel's brother, Ezekiel, who worked as a White House health care adviser, sees an early list of spending options and expresses dismay that it lacks a wow factor; he laments that there's nothing as exciting as, say, a bullet train between New York and Washington, D.C.
Readers who did not enjoy access to the
byplay in the New York metropolitan area between straight man White and the artless "Scooter" Rizzuto are bound to roar at these stories.
But this is merely
byplay in a narrative with just three essential elements: a fixed level of human adaptiveness, the retention of helpful adaptations, and the opportunities afforded by land, air, and water.
It also brings into even greater focus the
byplay Howard uses between magical villains, stifling civilization and the free barbarian.
A minimal text puts the focus on the art, which is full of
byplay and humor.
The real point of the movie is the bantering
byplay between Holmes and Watson (Jude Law) punctuated by punches, explosions and action sequences as bloated and pretentious as a 10-minute drum solo on a live album by a second-rate art-rock band from the '70s.
Even so, from season two on, the talismanic 1960s setting has been no more vital to keeping us interested than, say, the layout of the Starship Enterprise was to viewers' investment in Kirk and Spock's
byplay. To whatever extent Mad Men has evolved into the time-capsule version of Star Trek--with the space between Don Draper's ears now the show's final frontier--it's been an improvement.