Word: blandly
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...mirror of official history, the '50s are seen as our most xenophobic decade. That is exactly wrong: then, the seemingly alien cultures of Europe and Asia held endless fascination for Americans who were either back from war service abroad, their aesthetic tastes spiced a bit, or simply tired of bland domestic fare. Foreign-language pictures were suddenly chic, and represented a much broader geographic span than today; world-class auteurs emerged not just from France and Italy but from Japan, India, Sweden. Ingmar Bergman would eventually make the cover of TIME...
...aside the imposing stats. Giddins is impressed by Crosby's importance in the history of pop singing, his talent for vocal nuance and lyric-reading; rather than a bland stylist, the first easy-listening star, Crosby is promoted as, in Artie Shaw's words, "the first hip white person born in the United States." To Giddins, Bing was more. He embodied an attractive prototype: the casual, unflappable American, at ease in his eminence, who faces life with equanimity, win or lose - but who always wins. Giddins also dares to admire the fullness, longevity and ease of Crosby's success...
...nation's lawmakers elected him Prime Minister last week. Despite the odds against any leader's succeeding with Japan's seemingly insoluble array of economic woes, this man they call henjin, or weirdo, is likely to leave a mark of some kind. He's certainly more colorful than the bland parade of 10 predecessors over the past dozen years. A fan of the heavy-metal band X-Japan and of Puccini operas, Koizumi has been single since his divorce 19 years ago, when he won custody of his two sons. His unconventional lifestyle, an independent streak and a habit...
...Agony,” is undercut and their overall characterizations suffer. When Berwick, though, shares the stage with the Baker’s Wife or Cinderella he is on the exact right pitch. Karoun A. Demirjian ’03 is clear-voiced as Cinderella, but bland. Though she sounds especially lovely in “No One is Alone,” no sense of the character’s modern or independent spirit comes across. As the Baker, Anderson possesses one of the most thrilling tenors I’ve ever heard, yet he is cast...
...most of the audience it seemed, the awards presentations were just a means of killing time between performances. The speeches were uniformly bland and unexciting, as group after group engaged in a contest to see who could kiss more corporate butt. Perhaps this was necessary from a practical survival standpoint, since most of these artists belong to unstable independent labels, but it made for extremely boring listening. Even Dave Holmes seemed to notice this, and repeatedly apologized for wearing a coat and tie to the event, saying it made him look like “an asshole stockbroker...