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Fire Escape Partners
3465 25th Street, Suite 17
San Francisco, CA 94110 | (noun)
[sawn-FRWAW] 
1. great coolness and composure, especially under strain; calmness: "Maya approached her boss with a series of biting criticisms, and she withstood his firestorm response with a sang-froid that only upset him further."
Origin:
Approximately 1750; from French, literally 'cold blood' -- 'sang': blood (from Old French; from Latin, 'sanguis') + 'froid': cold (from Old French; from Vulgar Latin, 'frigidus'). In action:
"The most fascinating aspect of Mr. R�bsam's style is that it makes a virtue of awkwardness. Arms and legs jut into space at unself-consciously surprising angles.
The three mischievous-looking women sail on their partners' shoulders, are flipped upside down in high lifts and slither into perilous catches. Their facial expressions betray momentary terror. All deserve battle pay, particularly the lead dancer, Erika Pujic, a model of endearing sang-froid. "
Jennifer Dunning. "Dance Review: Flipping or Being Flipped, Worthy of Battle Pay," The New York Times (February 25, 2002).
"This year for my birthday I got a terrorist attack. I was hoping for an Adirondack chair. In late September it warms up out at San Francisco's Ocean Beach, and I was planning to spend long, drowsy afternoons sitting in my new chair out on the back deck reading the New York Times Magazine.
...But the attacks of Sept. 11 replaced that bright, warm general optimism with a kind of turbulent, murky dread. After the attacks, to sit in an Adirondack chair on the deck would be to relax into a state of, basically, abject terror.
That boom-era narrative of unending opportunity had been replaced by something more like historical reality. And now an entire nation stands poised to replace its cherished illusion of invulnerability with the realization that it can be gravely hurt by a determined foe within its borders. Perhaps we are finally ready to live in history like everyone else. No doubt our reentry into the world of mortal nations will be clumsy and sentimental; we are still groggy from our nap; but we will nonetheless hammer out an American version of the British stiff upper lip and the Gallic sang-froid. It will look like the clenched-teeth smile of Clint Eastwood -- half grin, half grimace -- the sign of a steely, carnivorous and classless warrior bonhomie, alloyed with pitiless efficiency under God."
Cary Tennis. "A birthday that will live in infamy," Salon.com (December 21, 2001).
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