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Still Life with Tornado: List 1

Sixteen-year old Sarah is thrown into an existential crisis as she struggles to regain her artistic abilities while struggling with her parents' toxic relationship in the urban ruins of Philadelphia.

This list covers "The Tornado"–"Horizon Line."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3
35 words 129 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. churning
    (of a liquid) agitated vigorously; in a state of turbulence
    Carmen said that the sketch was not of a tornado, but everything it contained. All I saw was flying, churning dust.
  2. still life
    a painting of inanimate objects such as fruit or flowers
    Our next assignment was to sketch a still life. Miss Smith put out three bowls of fruit and told us we could arrange the fruit in any way we wanted.
  3. spontaneous
    happening or arising without apparent external cause
    I tried to spontaneously combust like a defective firework.
  4. elope
    run away secretly with one's beloved
    I catch my distorted reflection in the windows of the passing cars, and I think about how people elope to City Hall and get married without telling anyone. I’m doing that, but I’m doing it by myself. I will elope with the new me.
  5. hallucination
    illusory perception
    I don’t usually have hallucinations.
    I say, “Are you a hallucination?”
  6. existential
    relating to or dealing with the state of being
    Maybe this is some sort of existential crisis. I couldn’t tell you right now whether my life has meaning or value. I don’t even know if I’m really living.
  7. palette
    a board on which an artist mixes paints
    Every year on my birthday, Dad gave me something a real artist should have—a wooden artist’s model, a set of oil paints, a palette, an easel, a pottery wheel.
  8. truant
    one who is absent from school without permission
    I am a sixteen-year-old truant.
  9. condescending
    characteristic of those who treat others with arrogance
    But now, there’s something condescending in her smile. Unsympathetic. It says I am silly and dramatic.
  10. relevant
    having a bearing on or connection with the subject at issue
    Two parents discuss their truant daughter and within five sentences, one of them is blaming the other for something that isn’t even relevant.
  11. novelty
    originality by virtue of being refreshingly new
    And yet, this conversation is a novelty. They are rarely awake or at home at the same time.
  12. facade
    the front of a building
    He’s a fanatic about maintaining façade and building-envelope integrity.
  13. abound
    exist in large quantities
    I open my umbrella. Superstition abounds. Students act as if I’ve brought a curse upon the building, but that’s only because they don’t know that there is already a curse upon the building.
  14. comply
    act in accordance with someone's rules, commands, or wishes
    In first-period English, the teacher asks me to close my umbrella and I comply.
  15. inclusive
    encompassing much or everything
    For Mom, it was easy to be in a good mood while all- inclusive in Mexico.
  16. bona fide
    not counterfeit or copied
    She was a night nurse. Twelve-hour shifts in the emergency room from seven to seven. The only thing that bothered her was the sun because she considered herself a bona fide vampire.
  17. thatch
    cover with roofing material made of plant stalks
    Every four chairs had a thatched umbrella hut, some had a round table nailed to the tree stump that held up the umbrella part; some didn’t.
  18. anomaly
    deviation from the normal or common order, form, or rule
    Almost all of the resort-goers stayed on their beach loungers. Very few went into the water. So Dad wasn’t an anomaly or anything.
  19. sterile
    deficient in originality or creativity
    He was just a player in the sterile, geometric beach scene he called Our Family Mexico Getaway.
  20. delusional
    suffering from or characterized by erroneous beliefs
    Bruce said, “Fish don’t like humans, Sarah. Not even you.”
    “I think they like me,” I said.
    “You’re delusional,” he said.
  21. contemporary
    a person of nearly the same age as another
    As we wander around the area, there are similar paintings. Braque, Gris, all of Picasso’s contemporaries.
  22. cubist
    an artist who renders objects as abstract, geometric planes
    I see the style in those, too. It was a movement. Picasso wasn’t the only cubist.
  23. aloof
    distant, cold, or detached in manner
    She keeps her arms crossed like she’s fed up with me. She’s a little like twenty-three-year-old Sarah. Aloof—like she’s better.
  24. furrow
    make or become wrinkled or creased
    I look at her furrowed brow while she sleeps and I feel pain inside of her sleep.
  25. joust
    a combat between mounted knights tilting against each other
    Life is a joust. Recently, I’ve been unhorsed. And yet I don’t feel a thing.
  26. mantel
    a shelf that projects from the wall above a fireplace
    On the mantel there’s a ceramic owl. I made it in the first grade and it’s my favorite thing I ever made even though I’ve made far better things. Dad wouldn’t stop praising me for the owl when I brought it home. It was when it all started—this talk about my talent and my prospects and my dad’s fascination with taking us to the art museum a few times a year.
  27. prospect
    the possibility of future success
    On the mantel there’s a ceramic owl. I made it in the first grade and it’s my favorite thing I ever made even though I’ve made far better things. Dad wouldn’t stop praising me for the owl when I brought it home. It was when it all started—this talk about my talent and my prospects and my dad’s fascination with taking us to the art museum a few times a year.
  28. depreciation
    a decrease in price or value
    He said he liked art, but really he’d just researched it the same way he researches depreciation and deterioration of building structures.
  29. alcove
    a small recess opening off a large room or garden
    This man—the one who sleeps in the alcove of the boarded-up building four blocks from our house—is white, has a scruffy beard, and is probably crazy.
  30. fiasco
    a complete failure or collapse
    I’ve been trying not to think about headpieces since the art club fiasco.
  31. abstract
    a concept or idea not associated with any specific instance
    He rarely paints forms that people would recognize. Just abstracts.
  32. subtext
    a meaning that is not expressly stated but can be inferred
    Vivian and her subtext: You know who you are, you plebeian...
  33. plebeian
    of or associated with the great masses of people
    Vivian and her subtext: You know who you are, you plebeian...
  34. dupe
    fool or hoax
    Even back then, I knew I was sitting too still to be an artist and I doubted the whole trick. That’s what I saw. A trick. Every time I logged on I felt duped into having to be a snowflake.
  35. foreground
    the part of a scene that is near the viewer
    I look out to the street and the cars that go by and the people walking with their groceries or their kids and I see the world’s horizon line separating foreground from background.
Created on Thu Sep 15 09:56:43 EDT 2022 (updated Tue Oct 18 11:13:03 EDT 2022)

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