Word: acridity
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...well fires that spewed untold tons of smoke into the air? Some of the direst predictions, including altered weather patterns across Asia, failed to materialize, and the well fires were put out in only eight months (actually faster than expected). But in Kuwait itself, the air remained acrid the whole time, and the oil that seeped into the sandy soil will stay there for years...
...Metropolitan Opera, goes the old line, is New York City's second Met museum. It's an acrid joke, deriding the opera house's conservative repertory, its emphasis on Verdi, Puccini and Wagner standards. Where, the critics ask, is innovation? What about experiment? But the hard truth is that new works don't sell, and the Met, with one of the most ambitious schedules in the world, must try to fill 4,000 seats at 210 performances a season. And for the most part, its forays into premieres have been failures. Met veterans still wince at the memory...
William "Boss" Tweed was horrified by Nast's acrid portrayals of him: "I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles. My constituents don't know how to read. But they can't help seeing them damned pictures." Nast followed the commandment that a cartoon should be a mirror in which readers can recognize salient ideas with relevance to their own lives...
That could be literally true. American specialists warn that the smoke, which is high in sulfur dioxide, can cause serious lung ailments, especially among the elderly and the very young living within 20 miles of the burning oil wells. Some scientists fear that the acrid plumes will climb into the stratosphere, darken the skies, lower temperatures and change the weather pattern of the entire gulf region. And, say oil experts, it might take until the end of 1991 to extinguish all 600 blazes...
There's an acrid tang in nearly every area of modern American pop culture. Heavy-metal masters Motley Crue invoke images of satanism and the Beastie Boys mime masturbation onstage. Rap poets like N.W.A. and the 2 Live Crew call for the fire of war against police or the brimstone of explicit, sulfurous sex. Comedians like Sam Kinison and Howard Stern bring locker-room laughs to cable TV and morning radio. On network television, sitcom moms get snickers with innuendos about oral sex. In movies, the F word has become so common, like dirty wallpaper, the industry's conservative ratings...