Word: buffer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Since Buchwald never opts to go all out for satire or all out for farce, the play seems to be stalemated in a diplomatic buffer zone between the two. In straight allegories, the characters go by general labels such as the Pilgrim, the Fool, the Saint. In Buchwald's comic allegory, the characters are similarly walking labels: the Hawk (a syndicated Washington columnist), the Ambassador, the Pentagon Man, the C.I.A. Man, the A.I.D. Man, the Local Prince. Stereotypes do contain truths, and they serve a playwright well, but only 50% of the way. The other 50% comes from...
...small but satisfying victory last week. Pan American World Airways announced that smoking will be banned in three rows of first-class seats and four rows of economy seats aboard its 747 superjets. Unless the aircraft is full, non-smokers will be separated from smokers by a couple of buffer rows. Though it would seem more logical for the smokers to have to seek out special seats, Pan Am's decision at least represented the first recognition of nonsmokers' rights...
...knows that the subjects of the story almost always complain about the results. That is usually a good sign, since the reporter tries to get a more detached view than any of the participants. And most newspapers are usually able to endure the gripes because they have a healthy buffer zone: since only one or two per cent of their readers are ever involved in the stories, papers like the Times or the Globe have more room for both interpretation and error...
...either one; the dangers are practical. People can get on these drug trips and not come back. I'm just scared to death of drugs, including marijuana, which might lead to addiction to harder things. Anyway, I just don't think we need the kind of buffer that drugs afford us. Life is not all that bad that we need something to break the reality...
...left him. His son Caxton, a conniving p.r. flack for a top political candidate, helps support his father-primarily because of the embarrassment the old man could cause by showing up in Washington. Freeman's cousin Gerrish, a money-mad but bumbling lawyer, acts as an unwilling buffer between the members of this emotionally bankrupt group...