Word: belief
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Zawicki's belief in a cost-free route to fortune is what Atlantic City, in its newest incarnation, is all about. Shrine of the shill, hometown of hucksterism, municipal embodiment of the motto "Ocean, emotion and constant promotion," the city has reinvented itself time and time again for the sake of a new hustle. In 1936 its mayor claimed that the Miss America Pageant was a "cultural event." (True, a contestant in last week's pageant -- the 63rd -- did sing an aria from Die Fledermaus, but the event is still more about swimwear than opera.) During the Prohibition...
...proctor meetings. Contrary to popular belief, the term "proctor" does not derive from the Greek proktos, meaning anus. Instead, it comes from the Middle English procutour, meaning "one who holds meetings until at least half of those present fall asleep." Our proctor--and this is not a joke--once took 15 minutes to tell us not to throw oranges out of our windows at passing administrators...
Honest, now: Can you be a veteran fan and still respond as rock 'n' roll demands you respond -- by belief, by passion, by always raising the stakes -- to performers who may be a quarter-century younger than you are? You could do it with Springsteen; you both were younger then. You did it with U2. But for somebody new? Was rock 'n' roll, forever young, finally middle-aged...
Beyond the aesthetic and mechanical challenges, there is the basic issue of what zoogoers should be allowed to see in a naturalistic setting. Zoo directors refer to "the Bambi syndrome," a belief common among visitors that all creatures should be cuddly, or at least not killers. A while back, the Detroit Zoo staff euthanatized a dying goat from the children's zoo and placed it in the African-swamp exhibit, which includes big vultures. Doing what came naturally, the vultures ate the goat. About half the zoogoers who happened upon the scene were fascinated, says director Steve Graham...
Still, the productions were mostly brief and small-scale, the livelihood far from lavish. "The least hint of the starving-artist routine," he recalls, "did not behoove my immigrant legacy of belief in education and upward mobility." In 1983, when he was 26, Hwang suffered the sort of crisis of conscience that comes to many people whose success was quick and easy. "I lost belief in my subject matter -- I dismissed it as 'Orientalia for the intelligentsia' -- and virtually stopped writing for two years. I thought seriously about going to law school." After the anxiety passed, Hwang tried to broaden...