Famous adj.: Conspicuously miserable.

Equipped with cell phones beepers and handheld computers the 'conspicuously industrious' blur the line between home and office by working anytime anywhere.

But picketing - picketing for or against something and handing out literature - these are conspicuously formal actions. They have to be understood as indirect communication.

I don't know much about auctions. I sometimes go to previews and see art sardined into ugly rooms. I've gawked at the gaudy prices and gaped at well-clad crowds of happy white people conspicuously spending hundreds of millions of dollars.