Word: cramming
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...shooting at helicopters, etc.), descend underground and prepare for the evening's unspooling. Shortly thereafter, the audience, bubbling with anticipation, would arrive through the various connecting tunnels. On movie night, the entire population of a small hamlet would simply vanish underground. Up to 100 guerrillas and their families would cram into the dank screening chamber, taking pains not to sit on any poisonous vipers. (The moviegoers would try to ignore the rats, which were tolerated as an important V.C. food group...
...after him, Iggy Pop's Lust for Life hammers the sound track, and Renton delivers his "Choose life" speech--the film is a nonstop visual and aural assault. Slo-mo, fast-mo, a hallucinogenic editing pace and the thick music of Scottish accents mean that you'll have to cram for Trainspotting. Attention must be paid, and will be rewarded with the scabrous savor of the movie's lightning intelligence. The subject is heroin, but the style is speed. This film is an upper--a jolt of pure movie energy...
Competition in Japan has always been fierce, and the schools have always demanded conformity and intense rote learning. But the system has become an extreme, decadent version of what it used to be. And not only do children suffer on account of the schools and cram courses, but they may not even be learning what they ought to. Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the main opposition party, argues that the educational system is at the heart of Japan's difficulties because it simply forces children to memorize and solve math problems. That may have been sufficient when Japan needed nothing...
...most forceful indication that parents are disappointed in the public schools is the intense competition to get into private ones, from kindergarten through high school. The key to success is the juku, an evening and weekend cram school where children from the age of four prepare for entrance examinations. Nearly 60% of junior high school students take juku classes, which cost their parents as much as $400 a month. They usually study material at least a year ahead of the public school curriculum and endure rigorous schedules that leave no time for the playground...
Unfortunately, the novel as a whole never consistently catches fire. It is fascinating to watch a writer of Updike's dexterity cram and mold all this diverse material into a single book. He renders, as tellingly as ever, the magic of individual moments. A movie begins in a small theater: "The heavy purple curtains drew back and the orange side lamps dimmed and in the air above their heads, with a racheted whir, a shuddering shaft of light surprised a few winged bugs, suddenly turned into darting, looping stars." But to fill up the long stretches between inspirations, Updike relies...