Word: aunt
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...actual pubs, most of them in the English countryside, and until Help the Poor Struggler they have involved a quirky trio: a stereotypically literary, sensitive bachelor detective from Scotland Yard, a fey, scholarly nobleman who has eccentrically given up his titles, and, usually, the nobleman's meddling, Wodehousian aunt. That arch setup proved charming in her early books but has worn a little thin, as Grimes seems to recognize...
...create remains as long as one breathes," says an obscure Yiddish poet in one of these tales, and he obviously speaks for his author as well as for all the compulsive monologists who continue to pop up in and then dominate Singer's short stories. "Now listen," commands Aunt Yentl, who is overheard telling three different anecdotes, and only the dull or the terminally uninterested could possibly disobey...
Ralph: A cynic might say she is using a marketable shtik, Wanda. Your dowager aunt can be counted on to ask about the children, but Ruth -- looking so tiny, wholesome and middle-aged -- leans forward sweetly and asks you what setting you use on your five-speed vibrator. It's a brilliant effect, a variation on about 40 familiar dirty jokes. It wouldn't work at all if she were a normal size, or if she looked and sounded sexy. Apart from two or three of those sharp comments per show, she has the wit to play the straight...
...musicals. Indeed, with just a little stretching of the Tony rules, a whole stageful of prizes could have been bestowed. Best new musical: Zip! Goes a Million. Best actress: Judy Kaye as the Gay Nineties chanteuse in Sweet Adeline. Best supporting actress: Jane Connell as the inebriated Quaker aunt in Oh, Boy! Best eccentric dance: Mia Dillon for her daft balloon ballet in Music in the Air. Best orchestrations: John McGlinn for Leave It to Jane. Best book and lyrics: Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse for Oh, Lady! Lady! Best composer: Jerome Kern, for all of the above...
...request: "That's better that's better, Little Gloria--only smile, please, smile smile smile smile!" Later she becomes pathetically grateful for romantic attention. Some adolescent scenes might have been snipped from a Philip Barry comedy: when 16-year-old Gloria develops a crush on a neighbor, an aunt informs her, "You can't marry him--because if you did, why--well--your name would be--Smith--wouldn't it? You'd be--MRS. SMITH!" The sobbing girl is consoled by her grandmother: "Maybe he could call himself Smythe--wouldn't that be a good idea? Yes, yes--or even...