Word: blue
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...could have lived with the burden of comparison to the King of Rock 'n' Roll. Rockabilly pioneer Janis Martin did. In the mid-1950s, riding the success of Blue Suede Shoes and Heartbreak Hotel, RCA discovered the talented 15-year-old and dubbed her the "female Elvis." Though she privately winced at the moniker, Martin--who preferred the sound of Carl Perkins--lived up to the billing with a booming voice, gyrating hips and appearances on American Bandstand and the Tonight Show. She faded in the late '50s, but her records, including Drugstore Rock 'n' Roll...
...turned prime-time TV into a giant indie art-house theater, and regular American channel surfers by the millions became its denizens. The story of a teen girl's death--and the pie-eating, deadpan-soliloquy-spouting FBI agent investigating it--carried on the theme from Lynch movies like Blue Velvet of sordid secrets and ancient horrors hidden behind a façade of wholesome Americana, proving that TV could equal or surpass film in its storytelling ambitions. Twin Peaks may have had the shelf life of a freshly poured cup of coffee, but it was damn fine nonetheless...
...More specifically, these plans aim to achieve near-universality with a couple of incentives. One is a general ethic of "volunteerism," enforced by peer pressure, corporate public service advertising campaigns, earnest reports from blue-ribbon commissions, speeches from politicians, covers of newsmagazines, goody-goody student-council types who infect every college campus, Oprah, Larry King, and so on. America is very good at marshalling all the forces of bullshit in our society toward a noble end, like stopping cruelty to animals or hounding sexual predators. Pressuring young people to "serve" for a year or two is a perfect subject...
...Hank knows a lot - the number of men in an infantry, the way a blue car looks green under a yellow streetlight - but he has much to learn about the effect of this war on today's young men. One vet has drowned his wife's dog, and later drowns her in a bathtub. Hank has also hears that Mike had been called Doc by his comrades. Why? Because, on patrol in Iraq, Doc would "stick his hand in some hadji's wound and say, 'Does that hurt?' And the hadji would say yes. Then he'd stick...
...considers Western, including beauty. Now the billboards display attractive black-and-white photographs of grinning revolutionaries and Islamic calligraphy that resembles urban graffiti. One morning a white van with PEYK-E KHORSHID (MESSENGER OF THE SUN) emblazoned on its sides rolled into my neighborhood, and two women in powder blue chadors opened its doors to unveil a portable library. They smiled at passersby and handed out white gladioluses and free books as part of a municipal program to promote reading. I got children's editions of epic Persian poetry to read to my nephew. "This is positive, at least," said...