Word: cleverer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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FOLLOWING THE LATEST stage trend of religion-mongering, Arthur Miller has given us yet another modernization of the Bible, specifically the early portion of Genesis. Despite the recent appearance of so many productions on the order of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Miller's script seems clever enough-or may be just familiar enough--to win sympathy. In a Biblical context, somehow even the worst puns and the broadest slapstick can be funny. As a topic for comedy, the Bible is like sex: embarrassment or guilt provokes laughter where the mere humor of a joke might not. Needless...
Nixon went after personal achievement and material success. Life became a contest where the strong and persistent endured, the controlled and clever won the field. Each person looked out for himself and his, worried about his own life more than his neighbor's. Horatio Alger may have entered McGovern's life, but not nearly so much as the apostle Peter. If there was endurance and struggle and self-improvement, it was often related to other people or grander designs. In those small towns of Depression days the churches taught history through the Bible and the music that came...
...Earth's novels. His characters exhibit a comfortable, charming nihilism. Fat with alternatives, they can change roles as easily as socks. As an immortal resident of Parnassus tells the hallucinating hero of The Sot-Weed Factor, "There's really naught in the world up here but clever music...
What finally happens in the second part. "Stones of Night 1956-61" is typical. Dawes excels in little league only because he's a clever cheater. In the next few years Dawes drinks by the quarry and consistently ruins his father's car. He gives everything he does an extra flavor. He is continually beaten up, to the point where he is spitting blood. Still, he continues in a Celtic hedonism and self-abuse. But there is one tragic event that changes his life. This leads to part three, "The Stones of Dust and Mexico...
...politicians, adept at their art, and in that way much unlike their successors, Smith, Mutscher, and the rest, whom the author calls "second stringers." Only one man among them Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, seemed to be cast directly from the Johnson-Connally mold. And even Barnes, despite being more clever and more personable than his fellow legislators, had his political fortunes spoiled by his association with the Smith-Mutscher clan...