Word: armchair
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Wendell Furry, associate professor of Physics, accused of being a former Communist, was sitting in an armchair facing eight members of the Boston press when we walked into his living room. That afternoon the professor had balked when a Senate committee had asked about his supposed Party affiliations; he had flown back to Boston that evening and upon his arrival had informed local newspapers that he would hold a press conference in his Belmont home within the hour...
Like his father, however, he handles words well and has produced a magnificent if frightening volume. Through his keen senses, the armchair adventurer is plunged into a world that out-wonders Wonderland. To many his paradise may seem to be somewhat south of Dante's ninth level of hell and his philosophy may grate. But they will be amazed and relieved to go back to the headlines and petty disturbances of man, to wait in the quiet bliss bombs and bars until A.C.D. returns to tell of his next foray. If he bothers to return...
Catching some of Hollywood's excitement, the New York Herald Tribune editorialized on the 3-D age: "The flat screen, the silent screen, the uncluttered stage of Shakespeare and Marlowe, even the book in an armchair before the fire all have had their stimulating moments. What wonders may now be expected of a medium which out-engulfs all these predecessors and makes every man a voyager to a brave new world...
...staring navvies it must have looked rather like the corpse of a drowned man, bloated and discolored. In fact, the man was alive, though drowning inwardly of dropsy and so weak that he could scarcely move a finger. There was nothing for it but to strap him in an armchair and hoist him over the side like any common lading. As the winch turned and the invalid rose lurching, the sailors and dockmen burst into jeering laughter at the pitiful figure...
...ever topped by man. In Annapurna, Herzog's story of the expedition in the spring of 1950, the victory becomes a literary anticlimax. What is vastly more exciting than the climb is the return trip, the harrowing ordeal-by-nature calculated to shiver the spirit of the toughest armchair explorer. Author Herzog-an engineer by profession, a mountain climber by religion-is no great shakes as a writer. His account of the trip to Nepal, the organization of the expedition, and the search for a route up the mountain sometimes reads like a boy camper's letter...