The only live wire is Shakur, with his deep wariness of life, who has a couple of sprightly scenes that prod the picture awake.

NEWYORKER: Poetic Justice

During a four-hour interview at his home, Mattis--a restless, intense live wire of a man--doesn't sit down even once (nor does he offer his visitor a chair).

FORBES: Red Eye

The roles of his fellow-elders are taken by, among others, Sigourney Weaver and Brendan Gleeson, while the younger generation is represented by Joaquin Phoenix and Bryce Dallas Howard the only live wire on the scene, and hence a considerable relief.

NEWYORKER: The Village

They ended up producing a flexible catheter tube that goes a bit of the way up the nostrils, then a guide wire is inserted into the targeted sinus. (In live patients this is done via an endoscope and fluoroscope.) A balloon catheter is advanced over the guide wire and positioned against the blocked ostium.

FORBES: Balloon Therapy

At one point, he came upon a five-strand run of barbed wire healed into the bodies of live oaks, and he slowed, took a breath, and stopped the car.

NEWYORKER: Idols

In contrast to the barbed-wire and concrete barriers behind which the Americans live in Baghdad, their Kurdish allies are strikingly lax back home.

ECONOMIST: Iraq and the Kurds

When we all live in caves for global warming or whatever reason, that wire is going to be our lifeline.

FORBES

Same bangs cut straight across like on those dolls done up in native costumes that live their whole lives in plastic cases held up by a metal wire around the waist.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Atmospheric Disturbances'

Nor can they grasp why anyone would live in a hot, sandy, bombarded enclave, surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers, much less put their children in such danger.

ECONOMIST: Israel's settlers