Misplaced imitations

I've often heard how his mother, once a promising young artist, was so thrown by the observation, in a review of her first solo exhibition, that her paintings were thoroughly in a realist tradition (Canberra Times, 1969), that she has spent the subsequent decades in ever increasing despair and obscurity as she works on her misplaced imitations of Remedios Varo.

This system for herself

My neighbour described how from being initially scornful of the way, as she said, this young girl who lived in our street walked along -- swivelling her hips in her slender, long jeans, the pale of her wrists turned forwards and her arms moving loosely alternately with her legs -- the whole effect, as she said, of a model stepping out in casual attire -- how, from feeling annoyed by this girl who never seemed to carry any kind of bag (as if she never had any errand but her walk along the catwalk of the street), this neighbour two doors along from my house (near the park) had taken to copying the girl's way of turning the pale of her wrists forwards and swinging them loosely as she walked since she could attest it had already begun to improve her posture -- already she felt years and years younger; much taller; even slim  -- and so now she could see there was a system in the walk (no doubt a secret of the catwalk) and that she was pleased that she had begun to learn this system for herself.

Curious and interesting facts

My colleague recalled how she had once given offence to a young waitress at a café near one of the more exclusive beaches in the Sydney region when she had observed the 'curious and interesting facts', as they were called, that decorated the menu (and were researched by the owner, the waitress had said, on the internet) reminded her of the trivia that was printed on Libra sanitary pad wax paper strips, but once said, she told me, you couldn't take it back.