Word: clever
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...that every decision he makes--from a car journey to the appointment of a general--is a function of "Will this make me safer?" He started with nothing. The villagers in his native Peam Koh Sna, four hours up the Mekong River from Phnom Penh, remember him as a clever, quiet boy. He displayed "a talent to persuade people by speaking," according to Chin Tho, 58, who farms tobacco along the river. But Hun Sen's family was poorer than average, and he never finished school. To this day, he is more at ease campaigning in the rice fields than...
...midget who inspires him to found his own religion. The guru turns his California pad into a temple and teaches his followers to wear Gap clothing, bungee-jump and practice Tantric sex in preparation for their own "disappearance"--nirvana in Robinson's religion. The novel is a patchwork of clever ideas that never quite settle into a story. It's a relief when Robinson finally, inevitably, "disappears...
...enduring appeal: leader Harry Frommermann and his pals made scintillating music. The six of them (two tenors, a tenorbuffo, a baritone, a bass and a pianist) blended swank and swing in the pop songs, folk tunes and classical airs they sang in German, Italian, French and English. In their clever charts and spritely renditions, "German humor" was for once not an oxymoron. Looking elegantly tuxedoed on their sold-out tours of Europe and the U.S., they spiked their tight harmonies with expert, deadpan vocal clowning; they could imitate band instruments and barnyard fowl. They sang a love song...
...most part, dead-on. The play itself, essentially a lampoon of modern bureaucracy based on the introduction of a scientifically engineered language, "Ptydepe," into a truly bizarre office space, is remarkably relevant to 20-somethings caught up in today's corporate America. Because Havel's material is so clever, a decent production of The Memorandum would be easy, but an exceptional production will require a special affinity for Havel's idiom. Surprisingly, this group of students can speak Havel's language--excellent acting, creative set design and, most importantly, faithfulness to the spirit of Havel's wild imagination, produced...
Goodman's pop-rock score, almost entirely sung through, tends toward the predictable (there are songs, alas, called I Love Drugs and I Wanna Have Sex Tonight), but his lyrics are clever, fractured correlatives for the life-style he's chronicling ("One more topsy-turvy, hunky-dory, manic panic, magic high..."). And if the hard-rocking numbers never really get the pulse racing, the lyrical interludes give some excellent singers a chance to shine, particularly AnnMarie Milazzo as Jamie's mom, who sprinkles Happy Birthday Darling with country-and-western teardrops...