Word: clever
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There are moments like these in the stories when Oates is simply too clever, too conscious of being a writer. More often, her tyranny relaxes into an awesome demonstration of control. One of the most remarkable stories in the collection is a series of "Unmailed, Unwritten Letters," conceived by a young woman to be sent to her parents, husband, and lover, also his wife and daughter, a genius who at six wrote "tidy, little poems like Blake's." The sense of desperateness and guilt that these letters evoke taints the final fragment to her lover with an almost ghoulish bitterness...
Even a nonbeliever knows his astrological sign. If his birthday falls, for example, between May 22 and June 21, the charts have always told him that he is a Gemini. They reassure him that deep down he is a restless, versatile, clever, exuberant and expressive chap, even if friends and neighbors find him stolid, sullen and introverted. Sudden notification that this same fellow is in reality a Taurusstubborn, systematic, kindhearted and musicalis sure to prove unsettling, particularly when he appears decidedly sloppy, mean and congenitally tone-deaf...
Writing a flawless murder mystery for the stage is probably rarer than committing the perfect crime. Anthony Shaffer has done it in Sleuth. Shaffer, twin brother of Peter Shaffer (The Royal Hunt of the Sun), has written a thriller that is urbanely clever, unashamedly literate, clawingly tense and playfully savage. If it is not the best play of its genre ever, it is neck and neck with the best...
...seat except who sat in it last night. (This was opening night, maybe now they've got that too.) The box office director said they're cheaper than regular tickets. I guess that's how they got the money for all those sequined mirrors. The publicity poster is also clever: it shows the Queen of Hearts no less, with a tear running down her high cheekbone. Hmmmm...
Whatever the reaction to Superstar may be, Webber and Rice have fused words and music into such a convincing narrative style that rock may never be quite the same again. Webber's clever sounds and rhythms (such as Latin, soft rock, ragtime, Prokofiev four-step) not only do not drown out Rice's words, but actually show an awareness of their syllabic structure. Just imagine, listening to rock and understanding the words too. The musical depiction of Christ (Ian Gillan) is far too neutral to capture either a man or a myth. But Mary Magdalene (Yvonne Elliman...