Word: blandness
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Aside from these two, and the a capella rock and roll, all the songs are about equally bland. To be sure, it is better to be bland than abrasive; the Dunces are well coordinated, their entrances and pitch are good, and even the solos are, in the main, well handled. Their faults stem mostly from the inherent disadvantages of the form, and weak material...
...Vice President's fifth foreign tour could no longer be a bland good-will mission in the manner of his round-the-world trip of 1953 or his visits to the Caribbean in 1955, the Far and Near East in 1956, Africa in 1957. The dividends instead would be the fair warning of Communist progress in Latin America and of the urgent need for U.S. attention, plus the admiration that Dick Nixon earned by his own show of calmness and courage...
These are of course isolated instances; but the fact remains that there is little consideration for Central Kitcheners. Vanilla is a popular flavor; but its constant repetition is just the "bland leading the bland," and macaroni with lemon meringue pie is--to phrase it softly--a highly original combination...
...artistry or conviction. If he can tell a story--and Caldwell can--he's entertaining. "I wouldn't try to tell anyone how to become a writer or try to influence anyone's style, but I hope that my example is occasionally an inspiration." Caldwell's approach is disarmingly bland and frank. He's not an old lecher, and he's probably a lot softer than he was in the Depression years, but he still really doesn't know "anything about advertising or promotion." And it's all rather admirable...
...answers to these and sundry other questions are offered in a fictional session of bland man's buff by Sloan Wilson, the man who did more for gray flannel suits than Brooks Brothers. The novel's key setting is Pine Island, Me., a summer retreat and a kind of "perverted Garden of Eden from which one was expelled for the sin of poverty." Among the unexpelled nouveau poor are the Hunters, who eke out their stay as genteel innkeepers. Fortyish Bart Hunter is an existentially minded drunkard whose most cutting insult is to call someone "cheerful." His disillusioned...