Word: conning
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...awash with love of the world. At his best, this has made him a kind of romantic poet turned pitchman for the seamy side of life. Miraculously blending hip talk, shop talk, tough talk and the rumpled jargon of half-educated America, Gold often makes fun of the grotesques-con men, carnival barkers, sleazy hotel managers-who are his favorite characters. But he never treats them as victims of society. Their small limbo worlds take on the likeness of the great world; their cowardice, their courage, their need for love loom as vast as anybody...
...genuine travelers. He had never been anywhere farther flung than a pension on the French Riviera. His name was sometimes Robinson, but as a last resort, Pimley. Then it transpires that even his death was phony. He is very much alive, a slightly hangdog young minor spiv and con man who has happily dropped the burdens of authorship in favor of marriage to a sprightly American divorcee with silver hair and a white and gold yacht. Powell has a truly English wariness toward women, whom he seems to regard, at best, as dangerous domestic pets always ready to slip their...
Through it all, Sam spiegeled-a verb which has a special meaning for anyone who has worked for him. It means to soothe, cajole, or con another; a talking-out-of, a sleight-of-mouth operation. During the six months the Lawrence crew spent in the desert, many a worker cracked, more from Sam-than sun-strain. A typical mutineer's speech: "I'm through. I've had it. I quit. I'm going to tell Sam he can take his bleeding, bloody picture and shove it. I'm getting out of here...
...Con-Con Battle. Romney's No. 1 objective during his first months in office has been to persuade the citizens of Michigan to adopt a new state constitution. The old one, written in 1908, has been amended 67 times, runs nearly three times as long as the federal Constitution and, Romney argues, acts as a drag on Michigan's progress. It was the fight for a new constitution that brought Romney from automaking to politics. Having started the compact-car revolution with the Rambler, Romney in 1959 sparked Michigan's constitutional convention (called Con-Con for short...
Allied with Romney in the battle to get the Con-Con constitution adopted was an array of civic and professional organizations, as well as the Republican Party. The most important opponents were the Democratic Party and the United Auto Workers. What the opponents objected to most strenuously was the proposed constitution's provisions on legislative reapportionment. At the convention. Democrats had argued for legislative representation based solely upon population, but Con-Con adopted instead a complex provision giving 80% weight to population and 20% to "land area." The area factor would give extra representation to the state...