Word: absurdity
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...completely out of his head. In God knows how many gears, he cut off buses, trucks, and pedestrians, ignoring the laws of Cambridge, physics, and common sense. "I got by 'em before they knew where I was," he claimed. His driving was almost a happening. Had it been less absurd he'd have been mashed, but as it was it was outrageously funny...
...months some scientist comes up with a shopping list of things we could have if we didn't have a space program," said a Life editor. "We could cure cancer and we could give every teacher in the U.S. a huge pay raise and so on. But that's absurd...
While Roosevelt does not believe the commission's guidelines "will cause a revolution in job patterns," he promised that the commission would "work cautiously" to avoid creating absurd situations. They will doubtless arise anyway. What about the woman pilot who aspires to be an airlines captain? Or the man who loves kids so much that he applies for a job as a nanny? The male homosexual who would like to fit bras for a living? Hardly more farfetched is the case of two prostitutes, Jeanette McDonald and Hattie May Smith, who have appealed convictions in Oakland, Calif...
...pretended to be. Following the tradition of "animal fables," all the flatterers who cluster around Volpone ("the fox") bear animal names which indicate the faults they personify--for instance a lawyer is known as Voltore, "the vulture." Almost all of these characters are as avaricious and as absurd as Volpone is, and they too are defeated and mocked at the end of the play...
Howard Bay's sets capture the gondola-and-moonlight atmosphere of Venice while avoiding the stereotyped gondolas-and-moonlight. The scenery is unusually attractive in its own right, particularly one shell-like backdrop--and yet it suggests the absurd opulence and greed which the play satirizes...