Eye-candy opulence emerged from the same seemingly prosaic instructions he had come up with years before.

But much of it is a lovable exercise in optical arousal: eye-candy opulence emerging from the same seemingly prosaic instructions he came up with years ago.

He also dealt with such seemingly prosaic jobs as handling the advertising on New York City buses.

Yet without ever oversentimentalizing or patronizing his character, Mr. Hoffman uncovers a light-giving touch of the poet in this seemingly prosaic creature.

Now opulence emerges from the same seemingly prosaic instructions he came up with years ago.

The design of this seemingly prosaic structure was attacked by Robert Moses, then the most powerful planner in New York, as "horrible modernistic stuff."

But unlike most outdoor museums, which are set apart from the context of the streets, the displays of Science City will take their cues cue from what is around them, revealing the scientific principles behind the seemingly prosaic.

In front of Public School 6, a man paused, squinted at the red door and its seemingly prosaic inscription and then shook his head.

Correspondingly, seemingly prosaic objects acquire resonant weight in Mr. McDonagh's plays, much as they do in the movies of Alfred Hitchcock.

Somewhat like the French scholar of the Arab world Jacques Berque (whom he rightly admires), Mr. Hourani has a good eye for the kind of seemingly prosaic detail that indicates major social trends.