Word: antic
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Inoue, who first established himself as a TV script and gag writer, combines the fecundity of Isaac Asimov, the antic regionalism of Erskine Caldwell and the solemn dedication of Inoue Proust. A lapsed Catholic, Inoue works in a monkish annex that he calls "the cockpit," next to his vast and growing collection of books. Except for dinner breaks with his wife of 21 years, he shuns company. "The world of imagination is my reality," he says. "I haven't left this house in a month." He refuses to attend parties, to undertake book tours or appear on TV interview...
...attitude helped Walker to prevail over the wilderness; he died a proud and prosperous rancher in 1876 at the age of 77. Westering Man offers an unfamiliar frontier landscape. Here, the Indians are con men, whisky distilling is a regional pastime, and meteorites terrify intrepid explorers. The mood is antic, but the True West is not always the most appealing of places. Still, Joseph Walker is its true exemplar, and Bil Gilbert is its true celebrator. Those in search of myth should try Louis L'Amour or Zane Grey...
Michaelis' account of the book's final pair of friends, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, comes as something of a shock. The relationship between the two antic entertainers is like a half nelson after a series of handshakes. Aykroyd's attachment to his friend, dead of a drug over dose in 1982, sometimes edges close to hysteria: "Whenever Danny Aykroyd drives by [Belushi's] graveyard, he always honks his car horn - long and loud - on the good chance that somewhere, somehow, in some form, John can hear...
...here he is standing over other human beings with a knife in his hand." At first, locked in a dead end affair with Frank, Hot Lips was simply a stock shrew, an excellent nurse but a failure as a woman. She was also attracted despite herself to the antic Hawkeye and Trapper John, and Swit and the writers saw possibilities in that. "First she be came unhappy with Frank," Swit recalls. "She realized there had to be something more in life for her. Then she started to talk about how lonely her position of authority made her feel...
...strewn with Producer toys. Earnest philosophizing about suffering and social evolution is played as vapid bourgeois chitchat. The fondest wish of the Prozorov sisters - to return to the gaiety of Moscow - is voiced as a giggling endearment to a baby. Yet the essence of the play is conveyed with antic energy and force. Serban adroitly manages a welter of themes: aimless ambition, futile romance, grotesque distortions of honor, loneliness in a crowd. The play becomes the raucous comedy that Chekhov always insisted it was and hurtles exuberantly toward a triumph of optimism over experience. Among a solid cast, including Jeremy...