Mr. Birney adroitly uses schoolboy silliness in the way Ms. Emond uses debutante vampiness - as self-protecting insulation against a cold world.

And he adroitly uses many types of characterizations.

The next House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, adroitly used C-Span in his rise to power.

"Poema" was sung by Adriana Zabala, who has a strong, light, clear mezzo-soprano that she uses adroitly, and who therefore got to sing a number of the evening's highlights.

Mr. Harding adroitly used the Liberal Party ballot line to elect mayors, governors and members of the State Legislature.

Hippogryph used a harpoon more adroitly than brother Orson, and was giving the monsters the old what-fer at a frightening rate.

Idly, Mary wondered what had become of the Chevalier, who had so adroitly used her.

Another composition, "NFL," adroitly uses technology to suggest two jazz bands crossing paths as they march in opposite directions on an imaginary football field.

It is a style Mr. Levi uses adroitly.

It's Virginia Woolf, who pioneered the lambent, stream-of-consciousness narrative that Mr. McEwan uses so adroitly in these pages.