warbled

She loved that moment when a whatnot’s eyes sprang open for the first time, and a brand-new voice box warbled the line she programmed all her whatnots to say first thing: “Want to be my friend?”

Mr. Obama made his contemplative remarks about race, and warbled his way through “Amazing Grace,” not at the site on Calhoun Street that the congregation bought in 1865, but around the corner at a college arena.

“He’s actually more like a philosopher,” said Lin Fu-guo, a 56-year-old tech worker who drove about two hours to attend Ko’s concert in Taipei in late July, at which the would-be president warbled Chinese-language classics and danced woodenly among other performers.

“Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain,” a set of uncannily warped pop gems and warbled solitary hymns, had performed much like its predecessors: critically praised, commercially stillborn.

On Thursday night, after 11 p.m., as lights warbled on the dark port water, police with masks loaded the accused onto vehicles and drove them to jail.