preposterousness

One NB column began: “The Preposterousness of Maya Angelou: An inexhaustible series.”

Colum McCann, Benjamin Kunkel, Prince Charles and Jean-Michel Basquiat were also hazed for moments of preposterousness.

Granting the preposterousness of the whole idea, he is genuinely nonetheless curious about what it would be like to have this kind of experience.

But the very preposterousness of the Italian satellite conspiracy theory raises the question of how the president, his chief of staff and Giuliani could fall for something so outlandish, other than because of a desire to do anything they could to disrupt the orderly counting of the electoral votes and prevent an orderly transition — even after having been told that Trump had lost the election.

At first Jordan’s lies were the byproducts of bureaucratic infighting, but eventually — fearful that a murder or suicide judgment would jeopardize Jane Stanford’s bequest to the university — he orchestrated a cover-up of her murder that even by today’s jaded standards was jaw-dropping in its preposterousness.