Word: backgrounder
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Egypt has been an implacable enemy in four bitter Arab-Israeli wars that have cost countless thousands of lives and casualties on both sides, yet there was Anwar Sadat standing solemnly at attention as a military band played both the Egyptian national anthem and the Israeli Hatikvah. In the background, gunners fired off a 21-gun salute...
Waits' specialty is the narrative tale. While a tenor sax begins some bluesy background, he lurches toward his microphone and growls his way into the urban back alleys. "Small change got rained on with his own .38/ and his headstone's/ a gumball machine," he sings, recalling a shooting he once witnessed on New York's 23rd Street...
Perhaps, this background information will add a little credibility to what I have to say to the reader...
...only does Plimpton avoid the pitfalls of ignorance and condescension which have swallowed many another author in his situation, but he preserves his image as the little guy throughout. Plimpton's patrician background and best-seller success might belie his little-guy stance, were it not for the unmistakable honesty of the self-doubts, fears, vacillations, and failures which he reveals in a detached and slightly bemused tone. Plimpton's little guy lives at a more enduring level than rich or poor. Plimpton trying to gain entrance to Ali's restricted quarters, chatting with Hemingway, or catching flak from Malcolm...
...record that fairly thumbs its nose at the Intelligent Rock Listener, inside and out. The cover art, for one thing, is nightmarish--bright red lettering, a black-and-white checkerboard pattern spelling out "Elvis is King," and Costello himself feering out from a lurid yellow background. He clutches a Fender menacingly, and leans forward in that half-aggressive pigeon-toed stance so dear to the hearts of '50s rockers; his eyes are genuinely loony, wild and dangerous-looking, behind huge Buddy Holly horn-rims. No doubt about it--this guy is strange. Musically, too, the album has more than...