Mr. Raphael has a gift for blending colloquial gestures and bits of business with the dumb show that passes for acting in most classical ballet performances.

The taped accompaniment blends bits of orchestral and vocal music by Vivaldi with electronic scores by Evelyn Ficarra, Serge Morand, Robert Normandeau and Ake Parmerud.

Many fictional characters are drawn from a number of sources as the writer blends bits and pieces of those he has known or read about with the images in his imagination.

And vice versa: his "Fantasia Nach Johann Sebastian Bach" is a big, rambling piece, blending bits of three Bach chorale settings, though mostly it's Busoni.

When Mitchell Drain, the digital artist who is helping Mr. Emmerich blend bits and pieces of computer-generated imagery to create a single composite shot, senses there are more actors in the foreground than the director wants, he offers to make them disappear.

By blending bits of toad with a nausea-inducing chemical, the baits train the animals to stay away from the amphibians.

Social studies, meanwhile, has mutated into a catchall field, blending bits and pieces of the different social sciences, with an emphasis on "process" and practical skills rather than on knowledge.

The 1950s' best customizers were highly skilled at blending bits and pieces from various cars into a cohesive new design.

He even fashioned between 10 and 20 chapters of his own by blending bits and pieces of Wolfe's variations and fragments into new collages.