Word: brasses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...lesson in all such instances, as the wise have always told us, is the abiding value of silence. La Rochefoucauld, for example, got down to his usual brass tacks by calling silence "the best tactic for him who distrusts himself." It is not simply that silence is generally prudent; it also encourages the presumption of virtue, appearing-especially in times of adversity-as a sign of both discretion and suffering. How unlikely (goes the public reasoning) that a guilty party would endure calumnies without a peep...
...ceremonies this morning outside the school. Originally Rep. James Shannon (D-Mass.) had been scheduled to appear, and four AF-10 jets planned a flyover. But Shannon sends his regrets, and someone crosses out "AF-10 jets" on the press release, replacing it with "color guard." Mainly, there are brass, and from their appearance, tinted sunglasses are now as regulation as black shoes. They gather in small knots, discussing logistics, while the students trickle into the cafeteria seats behind them...
Fitzgerald hands the flag to a team of four fliers from nearby Hanscom Air Force Base so they can raise it over the school while the band plays the national anthem. But with the brass looking on, they run into problems--the halyards are too thick for the grommets in the corners of the flag, and try as they will--and they try as they will for fully five minutes--the goddamn thing will not go up. Finally, a little desperately, Colonel Phillips goes up to help. At last, the flag goes up and the band begins to play...
There is a most definite air of history surrounding Charles Eliot. On the brass plate on the door of the house he grew up in, the inscription of the family name is gradually fading away. The 106-year-old house is being repainted now, but not even the smell of lacquer could hide the mustiness of the library where Eliot sits, clad in a kind of somber pinstripe suit he wore when he taught at Harvard...
...opening night the answer was no. Dozens of critics and musicians disputed the long reverberation time, the strident brass, the puddles of aural mud. Too much depended on one's location in the auditorium. The bass was usually too strong. (That is good; after 18 years and expensive tinkering, New York's Avery Fisher Hall-the Titanic of postwar acoustics -still has a mumbling bass.) In general the sound seems too bright and unfocused. That, however, is better than starting out with a dead hall...