Word: blockheads
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Freelancing has never been the gentlest of callings. Samuel Johnson in his 1755 Dictionary immortalized the ink-stained wretches who lived on London's Grub Street turning out literary piecework. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money," said Dr. Johnson, who nonetheless spent most of his life in poverty. In the platinum age of periodicals, roughly from the 1920s to the 1950s, it was possible for man to live by word alone, provided he sold it to a magazine. The Saturday Evening Post, Look, Collier's, LIFE, Woman's Home Companion and Coronet routinely...
Sharp Spikes. The sideshow barkers extolled their wares: "Miss Delilah, the girl who thrives on electricity and smiles when we push the switch on her very own electric chair," and "El Diablo, the king of fire, the human volcano," and "the human blockhead who loves to pound large sharp spikes and razor-tipped awls into his skull...
...another side of Trudeau also began to emerge. He grew imperious in his dealings with the Commons, openly sneered at members who disagreed with him (favorite asides: "dope," "blockhead," "fool"). He seemed at times to become equally disdainful of the electorate. He tended to lecture rather than orate. While staffers groaned, he announced last fall that he would not campaign in his first re-election bid. Instead, he would hold "conversations with Canadians" on important issues...
...egalitarian in that social status or wealth or brawn can confer no advantage. Neither can a high IQ. In fact, a New Jersey psychiatrist-chess player, Dr. Henry A. Davidson, has applied the theory of the idiot savant to chess and concludes that it would be possible for a blockhead to excel in the game, but adds tersely: "He usually doesn...
...Dadaist who is still alive and well and living in Paris, transformed his hat block into a blockhead by adding dark glasses and a scholar's mortarboard. L'Imposteur reads the caption at the bottom. Martin Carey, a fine-line draftsman of frogs, insects and flowers, turned his block on its side, decorated it with butterflies and found, much to his surprise, that it reminded him of both an owl and a soldier's helmet. Jasper Johns coated his block with metallic plaster-and his dealer put a price of $9,000 on it. Andy Warhol stripped...