Word: awkward
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Looking like the shy and slightly awkward newlyweds they are, Alexei Semyonov, 25, and his wife, Liza Alexeyeva, 26, were reunited in Boston last week after 3½ years of separation. Alexei, the stepson of Soviet Dissident and 1975 Nobel Peace Prizewinner Andrei Sakharov, 60, and Liza, fell in love when they were students in Moscow. Alexei emigrated to the U.S. in 1978 and arranged a proxy marriage with Liza last June. The Soviet government, however, refused to permit Liza to join her husband. Only after a much publicized, 17-day hunger strike by Sakharov and his wife-now living...
...they are painted looks awkward at first, ill defined-but only because it makes no concessions to haste. Morandi used no short cuts. He eschewed the sharply abbreviated shapes, high contrasts of tone and grabby oppositions of color that make an image "memorable" on first sight. Instead, the things in his paintings seep deliberately into one's attention. They start vaguely, as little more than silhouettes, a vibration of one low color against another...
...obvious. Charron as the Cap'n is too busy mugging to create even a convincing caricature of the traditional Southern bigot, though Jeremy Rabinovitz contorts his own face to better effect as Cotchipee's wimpy-yet-enlightened son. As these two and others draw Purlie into more and more awkward predicaments, one realizes LaVergne's repertoire of emotions is limited to a few gestures--a frown and shake of the head for disappointment, and a recurrent toss of the shoulders to suggest the determined faith that is ostensibly Purlie's defining characteristic...
...ultimately, the awkward script undermines Purlie's message. Oddly placed one-liners mar serious moments; incongruous scenes paint Purlie a fool or a liar after his most moving and far-reaching sermons. The grand climax exemplifies this confusion. Purlie, finally ensconced in his church, passionately orates the beauties of being Black...before his first integrated audience. The delivery is emotional, the sentiment compelling, except when one tries to reconcile it with Charlie Cotchipee's presence and with the wierd shenanigans that made Purlie's dream come true...
Making the Allen affair especially awkward for the White House is the fact that he and Counsel Fielding are close personal friends. They worked together during the Nixon Administration, and Fielding served as a legal adviser to Allen through the 1970s. In 1976, the two men bought shares in a Florida condominium. It was Fielding who said two weeks ago that the FBI had cleared Allen of any wrongdoing, a declaration that the Justice Department promptly denied...