prismatic

Because isn’t that what beauty is, in all of its prismatic totality — hard to kill, always in bloom?

The glass panels gleam in the sun, like an outsize version of the prismatic bluish-purple gem that glitters in the light.

Like hip-hop, breaking is represented by a prismatic range of cultures, each of which has evolved the form and lends its own flavors.

Joni Mitchell, 80, has been singing her prismatic folk ballad “Both Sides Now” since she was 23, and yet every time she performs it, she seems to be interpreting its infinitely wise lyrics anew.

We know how that worked out, but James’ prismatic view of various players around the device is a revelatory, funny, richly detailed study of the ways colonialism worms its way into language, art and relationships.