Word: concocted
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There is a larger point to make here though and it's this: as Trillin feared, the absurdity of reality is catching up on him. In the introduction to Uncivil Liberties, Trillin explains that the challenge to an American humorist is to "concoct a situation so bizarre that it may not actually come to pass while his article is still on the presses ... in other words ... when Ronald Reagan appointed as Deputy Secretary of State a man who could not name the Prime Minister of South Africa, some Sunday newspaper satirist somewhere in America was groaning at having his joke...
...kind of dirty half-secret. Viet Nam was, for America, essentially a class war. The children of the poor and the lower middle class tended to do the fighting. The children of the privileged tended to get draft deferments to go to college, or to bribe doctors to concoct and certify a disability for them...
...they have never sold particularly well. But Human Edge recently came out with a $50 program called Mind Prober that took the concept out of the boardroom and into the boudoir. When supplied with a few dozen descriptive adjectives about an individual, Mind Prober will concoct an instant character analysis that includes a report on his or her romantic attitude. Backed by some come-hither ad copy ("We'll get you into her mind. The rest is up to you"), the program quickly climbed into the software best-seller charts...
Exploits at sea are complemented by onshore skulduggery. A mole in the Kremlin tips off the CIA to Ramius' intentions. The agency, the Navy and the White House then concoct a scheme to deceive the Kremlin into thinking that Red October has exploded in a nuclear accident when in fact the U.S. has blown up one of its own obsolete boomers. The denouement has Soviet and American nuclear subs playing a game of chicken that stops just short of unleashing World...
...dozen or so skits in each revue are scripted and rehearsed, but they begin life as spontaneous vignettes developed at the end of each night's performance, when the audience is asked to yell out ideas for the cast to work up. The actors retreat backstage to concoct some appropriate sketches, then return with the results. Afterward, cast and director refine the best bits into formal scenes for the next revue. Tonight the audience is asked to suggest professions. "Psycho killer!" someone shouts. O.K., you asked for it. Dan Castellaneta, a stand-in that night, comes back as a bellowing...