Word: besting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...promoted an employee ("I'm putting you in charge of Pittsburgh, Peter!") and closed a contract ("Dick, what's the deal with the deal?"). The 1982 Federal Express commercial featuring the fast-talking Mr. Spleen struck a chord in frantic managers everywhere. Last week it was rated the best ad of the 1980s in a Top Ten list compiled by the One Club, an industry group...
...revenge in mind -- the sort of Disney horror queen who has given kids nightmares for a half-century. All these characters are given witty, hummable pop songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken (the Little Shop of Horrors team), a reminder that the Hollywood cartoon has become the last, best refuge of the Broadway musical...
...Regan's defense team was certainly right to decry the Government's use of RICO. Even the Justice Department seems to agree it shouldn't be used this way again. At best, you might say it was sort of like bombing Hiroshima. The Government was looking for something dramatic to end the war, but it was of questionable morality...
...truncated and unrevised form, The People will add little to Malamud's reputation, which hardly needs embellishment in any case. His novels, including The Natural and The Assistant, and books of stories such as The Magic Barrel and Idiots First long ago established his place among the best postwar American writers. This triumph was not easily won. Malamud never catered to popular tastes or expectations. His fiction was often as grim as it was enchanting. He wrote, and rewrote, slowly, with consummate care...
...best part of this volume can be found in the 16 stories following the unfinished novel. Five have never been published, and the rest were never collected in hard covers. It is difficult to imagine why not. Malamud hit his stride early, writing stories of old men trying to preserve their dignity amid the shambles of harsh circumstances. In The Literary Life of Laban Goldman, an elderly Jew attends night school to improve his English and get away from his nagging wife; he experiences a brief moment of triumph when the Brooklyn Eagle publishes his letter to the editor urging...