7 MWE: She bore braids because they had lead in them

The small coyote was pious. The town had a coyote problem. The coyotes would eat the small dogs and cats in the area. The people in the town reasoned that it wouldn't be long before a coyote killed a child. The coyotes did not kill alpacas. If alpacas saw a coyote, then, as a group, the alpacas would confront the coyote. The town held meetings to discuss what they should do about the coyotes. In the end, despite opposition, they voted to bring in a coyote hunter. The opposition said that if they were to put pressure on the coyotes by hunting them, then the female coyotes would give birth to larger litters.

Yes, larger litters were tied to kite strings. One cousin taught his much younger deaf cousin how to build a model rocket. They launched the rocket at the end of the day. Now is the line fatter or thinner? Is it longer or shorter? Till when will you hold your breath? Don't you know that you shouldn't allow your children to drink seawater? But my child drinks just a cup. He has a mania. He is a separatist. The child can't help but to go to the shore, get a cup of seawater, and drink it. We have to make sure that he drinks many glasses of water after that. Don't you worry he'll ingest the new disease? The new disease was perched on top of a plastic tube, which was developed by some alligators that didn't know the difference between market share value and the last donut. The injury was a charley horse. It was a mouse. The punch was a rabbit punch? How does the cow eat corn?

Would you like to run over the chauffeur? Is that grotesque? He was 6' 7" and worked as a chauffeur to famous people--often famous athletes.

In each hole, he put a kernel of corn, a lima bean, and a dead fish. This was to make succotash. That's all you need to eat: succotash. You can live off that and that alone. Each one. That was what he put in each hole. Though he planted no squash, his garden was full of squash. At first, he thought maybe his neighbor had done this. His neighbor had sneaked into his garden and planted squash. Then, though, he remembered that he had composted some squash, so maybe some seeds had survived the composting. To punish his son, he made his son lie under some squash plants. He told his son that his son couldn't move until a squash plant sent a tendril around him.

He was tall--6'7" and drove a car. He was a chauffeur. He wore a black suit, a black tie, and a black hat with a visor. You knew when he got off work, because he loosened his tie, undid his belt, and pushed his hat onto the back of his head. He had driven for famous athletes--for basketball players and football players. For boxers. He was tall. His son was tall. His son was just 17 and was already 6'7" like his dad. His son played basketball and water polo. He was a goalie on the water polo team. He played in the Olympics. He told his son that he'd give him $100 dollars when he beat him at basketball. His greatest weapon was his big ass. He used it to create space. He created space with his big ass--the ass he sat on when he drove athletes around.

In his kitchen, he confronted his death. In his attic, he confronted his fame, his success. On his staircase, he stepped on a Lego and nearly died. He nearly dired. It was that dire. It was an island. The island came out of the sea. Birds lived on it. There were tubers to eat--and fish. They made hats out of fronds. They made clothes out of hibiscus fibers. Many of them wanted to die. There was a chamber under a reef that they would swim into. All you had to do was swim in and get someone to pile rocks. They would walk on the bottom of the ocean by holding cannon balls. See how far they could go. Have you ever seen someone turn blue because he's holding his breath underwater?

After a long day, he could smell his feet. He could smell his upper lip. He could smell his groin. He wondered what his body would look like if he were to season it in water, chillies, hope, rockets, smearing salad bowls with garlic because he doesn't want anyone to know that, when he was younger, he couldn't make change with cardboard quarters, dimes, pennies. They were playing tiddly winks. They were playing UNO and waiting to find out if their mother was going to die. They played backgammon. They played backgammon by a public golf course. Their father was a terrible golfer. He told them that, to play, all they needed was a putter, a 9 iron, and some kind of driver. They needed gloves. They bought used hockey sticks and gloves. They put the marbles in their mouths. They put the agates in their mouths.

The children beg their father for agate and amethyst crystals. They are in a store full of crystals. There are large geodes and piles of jade. The store owner, a man with no leftovers on his mind and an incredible blemish on his chin, lies on the floor. The children beg their father for crystals. They want to have bags of crystals. They have been collecting crystals. They have cat eyes and lapis lazuli. The have the crystals that are supposed to represent Jesus' blood. The owner says that, if you can pin him down and burst his blemish, you can have anything in the store for free. He says that he had wrestled in highschool and college. He had been very good at wrestling. He shows them that he has the cauliflower ears to prove it. He has memories of diuretics and carbo loads and running on the track wearing trash bags because he wanted to lose some more weight. He said he smells strange. He said he smelled like spoiled blood. He said he once bled on some concrete. As the days passed, and as the sun shone on the blood, he would go and smell it, so he knew what spoiled blood smelled like, and though he never killed a bear or ate succotash, he knew how to press a knife to his forehead and put in a deep cut. The cut required stitches, but you can't always listen to the requirements of cuts, especially when they come by your own hand. Especially when you've put it in because you've said to someone else, "If you don't stop, I will put a cut in my head."

MY LATE SON

Paul Theroux has written many essays, short stories, and novels. I have read The Mosquito Coast twice. I know he has written books about Hawaii.

He published a story in the July issue of Harper's. He titled the story "Incident in the Oriente." This is the story's first sentence:

"We were sitting, heads bowed in prayer, waiting for the local Indians, Secoyas, to come barefoot into the mess container with platters of food."

"We" is the subject of the sentence.

"were sitting" is the main verb. It is in the past progressive form. He could have written "we sat," but he chose, instead, to write "we were sitting."

"heads bowed in prayer" is an absolute phrase since it starts with a noun and is followed with a participle--a past participle. "bowed" is modified by a prepositional phrase, "in prayer," which functions as an adverb.

"waiting for the local Indians" is a participial phrase. "waiting" is the participle, and "for the local Indians" is a prepositional phrase that functions as an adverb since it modifies the participle.

"Secoyas" is an appositive that renames "the local Indians."

"to come barefoot" is an infinitive phrase. I'm not sure what do with it. Infinitive phrases act as nouns, adverbs, and adjectives. I have a sense that this one works as an adverb since it's definitely not a noun, and I don't see how it's an adjective. But, if it works as a noun, then what does it modify? It doesn't modify "waiting" because the "We" are the ones who are waiting, and the "to come barefoot" has to do with the Secoyas. Maybe it does work as an adjective and should modify "Secoyas." I don't know. This is my late son.

"into the mess container" is a prepositional phrase that modifies "to come."

"with platters" is another prep phrase that modifies "to come."

"of food" is a prep phrase that modifies "platters."

But how does that infinitive phrase work? If I were to write, "I am waiting for my friend to laugh at me," then what do I do with "to laugh"? Maybe it's some kind of complement since you're not really waiting for your friend, but you're waiting for your friend to laugh.

This is Theroux's second sentence:

"When Max Moses said grace, as he was doing tonight, his terrifying vitality shone in his bulging eyes."

"When Max Moses said grace" is a dependent clause that works as an adverb. "When" is the subordinating conjunction. "Max Moses" is the subject of the clause. "said" is the main verb, and "grace" is the direct object of the verb.

"as he was doing tonight" is another dependent clause. "as" in the conjunction, "he" is the subject of the dependent clause, "was doing" is the main verb (which is in the past progressive," and "tonight" is an adverb. Theroux uses "as" where many people would incorrectly use "like."

So Theroux opens with two dependent clauses. He makes us wait for his main clause. This is especially interesting since, with his first sentence, he gave us the subject and main verb right away, and then made us wait for his sentence to end by using so many modifiers--things like an absolute, a participial phrase, and all those prepositions.

"his terrifying vitality" is the subject of the independent clause. "his" is a determiner. "terrifying" is an adjective. "vitality" is a noun.

"shone" is the main verb of the indep clause. It is an intransitive verb since it doesn't require a direct object. When "to shine" is transitive--when it requires a direct object (as in "He shined a light")--then it goes "shine, shined, shined." I shine shoes. I shined shoes. I had shined shoes.

When "to shine" is intransitive, though, as it is in the above sentence, the verb goes "shine, shone, shone." I shine with joy. I shone with joy. I had shone with joy.

When I first say Theroux's use of "shone," I thought he had screwed up. Then, however, I looked up "shine" in Garner's Modern American Usage (GMAU) and learned all about it.

"Yet rumbling on in his old smoker's vibrato, he did not raise his voice" is the third sentence in this story.

"Yet" must be some kind of adverb.

"rumbling on" is a participle.

"in his old smoker's vibrato" is a prepositional phrase that acts as an adverb since it modifies "rumbling on."

"he" is the subject of the indep clause.

"did raise" is the main verb. "did" carries the tense, which is past tense.

"not" is an adverb.

"his voice" is the direct object of the main verb.

In just three sentences, Theroux has much variation. When I write sentences, I use simple clauses. I have a one-cylinder style, so I am stuck with verbs and the word "and." Theroux, though, with great economy, uses all sorts of things--prep phrases, absolutes, dependent clauses, infinitives.

7 MWE: The drifter caught a butterfly and paid a passerby $20 to rip off its wings

He drank some cola. He mixed his cola with grapefruit juice and drank. He was not supposed to drink grapefruit juice because of the medication he was on. His father's hobby was collecting rocks to make a rock wall. His mother had a comforter she spent most of the day under. The cola dribbled out of the corner of his father's mouth. His father is in a care facility. His father has a tattoo on his forearm. This was not a tattoo his father wanted. Four of his partners held him down and forced him to get the tattoo. The tattoo is of a window. It is of a squash blossom. It is of a humming bird and a bee. The tattoo has a hummingbird at its center. Someone played the organ at the funeral. They did not have much money, so they had to do the funeral on the cheap. They could not afford a coffin, so they wrapped their father in his favorite sleepingbag. They filled his mouth with worms--red wigglers--to speed along the decomposition process. They filled his mouth with worms. They also put the seed of a chestnut tree in his mouth. They covered him with dirt. They covered him with a dirt nap. A dirt coverlet. He asked that his family grow vegetables on his grave. A row of carrots, a row of beets, a row of chard. Grow some tomatoes and marigolds and dill. Grow some purple cabbage. The cabbage is especially big this year. They took a large cabbage off their father's grave. They also took some new potatoes and white beans. First, they browned the potatoes with oil. Then, they put in the onions. Then, the white beans. Finally, they put in some chopped cabbage, and that was their dinner off their father's grave. Thanks, Dad.

The children went to the music room with their recorders. The recorders were plastic. They were kept in plastic sleeves. They came with a plastic wand with which they were supposed to clean their recorders. They learned to play Hot Cross Buns. The children got bells and learned to play songs with bells. The children sat on carpet. They were told that if they didn't behave they would have to tend the bees without the beekeeping outfits. A mania. An inspiration. An infliction that leads one to kill bees, even though one has never kissed a donkey. A rare disease spread by kissing. A bauble that is covered with chocolate. The children had chocolate all over their fingers. The children wore hoods they had made out of pillow cases. The activity for the children was to make hoods out of pillowcases. First, they put the pillowcases on their heads, and they'd have a partner mark off--with a marker--where their eyes, nose, and mouth are. Then the children use scissors to make eye holes. They can also make nose or mouthholes, but they do not have to make such holes if they don't want to. Then, with pens, puffy paints, pieces of felt, they decorate their hoods. Finally, they are asked to go into town and rob local businesses with knives and zipguns they made in shop class. In shop class, first they learned to make knives out of obsidian. They learned how to break obsidian chunks into shards. Then, once they had knife-looking shards, they learned how to make even smaller chips to make serrated blades. With pieces of wood and string of gut, they learned to make handles for their knives. They learned to make zipguns out of firecrackers and pieces of pipe. They had their masks, their knives, and their zipguns. They went into town to do a bit of fundraising for the carnival. They wanted to put on a fantastic carnival, but they didn't have the funds, so they had to go into town to take the funds. The liquor store was closed because it was 8:00AM.

The children started by learning how to make shadow puppets. They performed short scenes dealing with death and loneliness for their parents. The children learned how to make hand puppets. They performed scenes of sorrow and loss for their parents. They learned sock puppets and tennis-ball puppets. They performed scenes of killing and destruction. They worked their way to marionettes and foam-construction puppets. They filmed a TV show about pop culture and got picked up by one of the major networks that broadcast from the bottom of the Marianas Trench. You would think a billionaire would be the one to build a dwelling in the Marianas Trench, but it wasn't a billionaire who did that. It was a rat breeder. A woman who bread thoroughbred rats. These were rats people would pay $5 for. These were rats that knew language and grammar. These were rats that were obsessed with usage. Unlike college grads, they knew the difference between its and it's, your and you're, there and their. These were rats that charged rates if you went to visit them. One child had a rat. Somehow it came out that the rat was a prophet, so other children would beg the one child to have some face time, some real one on one, with the rat prophet. The child who owned the rat prophet. The child who owned the rat prophet was pigeontoed. This child had a shaved head, but she kept her bangs extremely long. Her bangs, when she flipped them over her face, could reach down to her toes. In fact, that's how she knew when it was time to trim her bangs--when they touched her toes too much. She had a shaved head. She had long bangs. She wore leather sandals with heavy rubber soles, and her feet stank. Her feet did not stink. They stank. She sits in her livingroom, sitting over the body of her mother. Her rat prophet is in the other room and is soaking in a bath and reading a book about edible plants.

MY LATE SON

This is David Rieff's second sentence in his essay "After 9/11":

"Designed by the architect Michael Arad and the landscape architect Peter Walker and called "Reflecting Absence," the memorial will be about eight acres in size and consist of two sunken reflecting pools, each surrounded by an enormous waterfall, the largest manmade ones in North America, according to the memorial's official website."

"Designed by the architect Michael Arad and the landscape architect Peter Walker and called 'Reflecting Absence'" is a participial phrase with a compound verbal that modifies the subject of the main clause, "the memorial."
--"Designed" is a participle. It's half of the compound verbal.
--"by the architect Michael Arad and the landscape architect Peter Walker " is a prepositional phrase with a compound object of the preposition. This prepositional phrase functions as an adverb because it modifies "Designed."
--"and" is a conjunction that joins the two verbals in the participial phrase.
--"called 'Reflecting Absence'" is the other verbal, which has a direct object, "'Reflecting Absence."

"the memorial" is the subject of the sentence.

"will be" is half of the compound main verb. "will" is a modal that carries the present tense.

"about" might look like a preposition, but here I think it's an adverb. It's like the word "approximately" here.

"eight acres" is the subject complement, the predicate noun, to the main verb, "will be."

"in size" is a prepositional phrase that works as an adjective since it modifies "eight acres."

"and" is a conjunction that joins the compound main verbs.

"consist" is the other half of the main verb.

"of two sunken reflecting pools" is a prepositional phrase. Or maybe it's some kind of complement since nothing can just "consist." Some has to "consist of" something. Not sure here. "sunken" and "reflecting" are both participles that act as adjectives. "sunken" is a past participle and "reflecting" is a present one.

"each surrounded by an enormous waterfall" is an appositive phrase that modifies "pools." "each" is modified by the participle "surrounded," and "surrounded" is modified by the prepositional phrase "by an enormous waterfall." I am using the passive voice for good reason because, in this sentence analysis, what's more important are the things being affected--David Rieff's language--instead of the writer, the agent, David Rieff.

"the largest manmade ones in North America" is another appositive that modifies "waterfall." The thing, though, is that "waterfall" is singular and "ones" is plural, so it looks like there's an agreement problem. I am no expert, however, on any of this.

"according to the memorial's official website" is something. I want to say it's a participial phrase because of the "according," but I don't think that's right because "according" is one of those things that look like participles but aren't really attached to any specific noun. Instead, this is something that might be called an adjunct. It serves the purpose of orienting the reader toward something, but it's not really attached to a specific noun. It modifies an idea or something vague instead of something specific. This is the weakest phrase in the sentence, so it's not a good idea to end on it. And "website" is a boring word, so it's not good to end with such a word.

THE FIRST TIME HE SAW MR. KILGALLON HE FELL MADLY IN LOVE WITH HIM

1.
One of these dogs, the best one, had disappeared.

His father, a beekeeper, swore by the curative powers of bee stings.

2.
Among the company was a lawyer, a young man of about twenty-five.

Under the rock pile with his feet sticking out was a dead superintendent, a man with cracked heels and gnarled yellow toenails.

3.
Halfway there he heard the sound he dreaded, the hollow, rasping cough of a horse.

He was so upset he tasted his bile, an unusually delicious, flavorful bile.

4.
Poppa, a good quiet man, spent the last hours before our parting moving aimlessly about the yard, keeping to himself and avoiding me.

The hairless horse, one of the oddest things Markham had ever seen, loped over to the fence, making small, plaintive noises in its throat for sunscreen.

5.
Standing in the truck bed, holding onto the bars of the sides, rode the others, twelve-year-old Ruthie and ten-year-old Winfred, grime-faced and wild, their eyes tired but excited, their fingers and the edges of their mouths black and sticky from licorice whips, whined out of their father in town.

Whistling for birds, clucking for horses, Marshon stood on an upside-down bucket, his pants at his ankles and his toes covered with mud.

So we beat on, like boats against the current, borne back carelessly into the past

A small dog is killed. Its legs are cut off and arranged in a vase.

His father killed the small dog. His father was a short man. His father was in his 30s but had white hair. His father had dark skin and many many dark freckles on his face. The way his freckles looked, it looked like someone had a mouth full of dark liquid and sputtered it all over his father's face. His father had white hair. His father killed the small dog he had brought home. He had found the dog on the side of a road at night. He was just ten at the time, but he and his friends had a car they would drive on dark roads. He and his friends had a car that they had painted matte black. The entire thing was black. They knocked out the headlights and spraypainted the cavities that the broken headlights left black. The entire car was matte black. At night, the boy and his friends would drive this car. They had a set of nightvision goggles. They used those to drive the car at night on dark roads. They could drive by other cars, and those other cars--rather, the people inside them--would have no idea that they drove by. It was one night, when they were driving this black car, that they found the small dog on the side of the road. When they found the dog, it became day for three minutes. It then went back to night. The dog had a compartment inside it that was full of wires and electronics. When they submerged some of the wires in sodapop, the wires sang and spoke to them. The wires sang of tropical islands--where it was easy to get your own tubers and fish. All you need to eat is tubers and fish. Find yourself the right berries. The right mushrooms. Have some wild pig every now and again. The tropical islands no longer existed. The wires stopped singing. The boys had their car taken away and had to spend some time in a dungeon. The one boy brought the dog home. His father told him he could not have the dog in the house. The dog could live on the roof, sure, but it could not live in the house and leave its dog smell all over everything--especially the couch. How about I put towels on the couch then, the boy said. It was that thing that he said--that thing about the couch and the towels--that enraged his father. His father took a pair of tin snips and cut off the dog's ears and tail. He plunged the tin snips into the dog's belly and scissored open the dog's belly. Inside this dog, they found a baby. The baby was the father's son. He recognized it right away. Now, you are a big brother, the father told the boy. The dog lay open and slowly started coming back together again. Its ears found its head and healed. Its tail found its ass and healed. Its legs all came back. The road at night. When it is dark. When a father's hair turns white, and you can't help but to look at all his freckles. The boy has dared friends of his to sneak into his father's room and connect his freckles with a marker. He tells these friends of his that if they connect all the freckles, then they will see a curse word spread across the father's face. The father wakes up. He turns on his shower and uses cold water because he wants to save on heat. He gets himself wet and then turns off the shower because he wants to save on water. He soaps himself up with soap he had made. His body tingles from the chilies he had put in the soap. He does not need hot water when he has chillies in his soap. He soaps himself up. He gets soap in his ears. He uses the soap on his hair. He runs his hands over his face. He knows he cannot open his eyes because then he would get soap laced with chillies in his eyes. He fumbles at the spigot and gets the water back on. He rinses himself off, and that is how he takes a shower. He makes sure that his son does the same thing, but his son wants to use hot water. His son does not want to turn the water off. His son does not want to use his soap because he doesn't like the way its oils smell. His son does not like the chillies, so he kills his son's dog. He takes it apart with tin snips. After some days, he takes the stiff legs of the dog and arranges them in a vase.

She saw some mound rising on the horizon.

She has a small nose and all her other facial features--her eyes and her lips and her mole--seem to want to be as close as they can be to that nose of hers. The result is that it looks like she's not using her face as much as she could. She is in a relationship with a man who already has children. He did not have these children with her. He had them with another woman, but that woman is dead. He had built a greenhouse out of salvaged windows. It was a great idea. The greenhouse worked great. They grew great vegetables, but what wasn't great was that she climbed on top of that greenhouse only to fall through it and cut major arteries on the interior of her elbow and thigh. She was dead. He was alive. His children were alive. The other woman with the small nose was alive. She was so alive that she climbed a mountain. At the top of this mountain, she found a wooden box, and in this wooden box was a handmade book, and in this book she saw that other people had written messages. These were banal messages--ones that said hello to people who climbed the mountain or ones that tried to say something about the mountain or the trees or a particular sunset. She took this journal with her. She ripped out all the banal things and replaced them with other banal things. She was in a relationship with a man who had two children. The woman the man had had the children with is dead. She first gave birth to a girl. This girl proved to be at least twice as strong as any other child her age. When she was five, she requested her own benchpress set. Her father told her she shouldn't start to lift just yet because it would stunt her growth. So she made her own bench set. She made the bench itself out of rough-hewn wood. She even nailed nails through it so that when she'd lie on the bench, the nails would pinch at her back. And she was five, mind you. She made her own weights out of old paint cans she'd fill with concrete. She'd workout and not ask her dad to spot her. Instead, she'd ask other men to spot her. Her mother often talked to these men. Her father would come home, see her mother talking to some man, and ask, "Who's this man?" Only the man would be a large man. The greenhouse. Oh, go tend to your squash and tomatoes. His daughter was naturally twice as strong as any child her age, but once she started lifting, it couldn't even be measured how strong she was. Her muscles did not bulge. She wasn't a bodybuilder, mind you. She was a weight lifter, not a bodybuilder. Her muscles did not bulge. Instead, they became incredibly dense. She trained the nerves in her body to withstand incredible weight. Any normal body would scream to get all the weight off it, but she slowly trained her body to accept large quantities of weight. And then her body didn't just accept the weight. It came to expect the weight. And she was just five, mind you. She was a five-year-old who had built her own masochistic weight bench and weights. She was a child who would recruit men to spot her. She was five. Then her mother got pregnant with another child. The girl was nervous about this child. She started to hate her mother. When the mother gave birth, the child went after the baby. Many people in the hospital had to hold this child back. She wouldn't stop coming after the baby, her brother. No one knew what to do because she was just a child. She was now six. They figured she would get tired. That she would accept her brother. But she never accepted her brother. She would come after him hard, screaming that she'd rip him to pieces. She came so hard. People had to hold her back. They had to take her someplace else far away. They had to lock her up, but she would break out and run back to where she thought her brother was. To kill him. She vowed she would never stop, and she never did. Her mother died by falling through that greenhouse. Her father had a new relationship with a woman with a small nose. She continued to lift weights. She continued to do this. She would bend nails for fun. She would bend screws because they bit into her fingers. She would blend up entire chickens with twelve ounces of warm water and drink that in squad cars. The police did not mind if she drank her shakes in their cars. The police didn't mind because they thought they'd have to call on her someday.

MY LATE SON

"On September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of the attacks that destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the official memorial will be dedicated at Ground Zero (the opening of the adjacent museum had been delayed and is now scheduled for 2012).

This is the first sentence of an essay written by David Rieff in the August '11 issue of Harper's. David Rieff might be the son of Susan Sontag, though it's hard to check this fact without the internet or Susan Sontag's journal collection Reborn. Reborn is fascinating, but many readers are annoyed by all of the interjections by her son. It is touching that her son interjects to explain things or justify his decisions, but some readers aren't touched at all and find such intrusions annoying. Other readers don't understand why he didn't include more of her journal entries in Reborn. At one point in Reborn, after a fascinating list of words and names that Susan Sontag had made, Susan Sontag's son interrupts to let his readers know that Sontag habitually made fascinating lists in her journals. He says this, but then there is never another list in Reborn. Where are the other lists? And where are the sequels to Reborn? On the jacket of the book, it says that Reborn is the first of a series, and yet there are no other collections of Susan Sontag's journal entries. Her son might be David Rieff, and David Rieff is the author of the essay in the August '11 Harper's. His first sentence is above. That first sentence floats like a balloon. Or should it be "as a balloon"?

"On September 11, 2011" is a prepositional phrase that acts as an adverb. It answers the question "When?".

"the tenth anniversary of the attacks that destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center" is an appositive phrase that tells us more about the preceding prepositional phrase about September 11, 2011. David Rieff is making us wait for the main clause and main subject of his sentence.
---"the tenth anniversary" is the simplest part of the appositive phrase. Maybe it's what's called a "head" of the phrase.
---"of the attacks" is a prepositional phrase that acts as an adjective because it modifies "the tenth anniversary."
---"that destroyed the twin towers" is maybe a relative clause. It is a clause that acts as an adjective because it modifies "the attacks." "that" is the subject of the clause, and "destroyed" is the verb. "the twin towers" is the direct object.
--"of the World Trade Center" is another prepositional phrase that acts as an adjective because it modifies "the twin towers."

"the official memorial" is the subject of the sentence's main clause.

"will be dedicated" is the verb of the main clause. This main verb has a modal in it, "will." This verb is also in the passive formation. Who will dedicate the memorial?

"at Ground Zero" is a prepositional phrase that acts as an adverb.

"(the opening of the adjacent museum had been delayed and is now scheduled for 2012)" is something that's hard to identify. What's in the parenthesis is a complete sentence, so the "the" in "the opening" maybe could have been capitalized, and the period could have been put in the close parenthesis. But maybe, instead of being treated like its own sentence, the stuff in the parentheses wants to be treated like stuff that comes after a dash.

"the opening" is the subject of that parenthetical clause.

"of the adjacent museum" is a prepositional phrase that serves as an adjective.

"had been delayed" is half of the main coordinate verb. It's in the passive formation. Who delayed they opening?

"and" is a conjunction that joins the coordinate main verb.

"is scheduled" is the other half of the coordinate main verb. Like its other half, it's passive. Who scheduled?

"now" is an adverb that modifies "is scheduled."

"for 2012" is a prepositional phrase that acts as an adverb. It also modifies "is scheduled."