Word: crystallic
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...bulk of the exhibition is devoted to folk arts and crafts. The quality--particularly of the older, genuine folk-art pieces--is often quite high, but the juxtaposition of genres, nationalities, and periods is confusing. Samovars, porcelain tiles, embroidery, lace, wood carvings, jewelry toys, lacquer boxes, tapestries, wall placques, crystal.... The non-initiate, unless he has a map of the U.S.S.R. imprinted on his consciousness, will have trouble putting it all in place...
Other contemporary offerings are not so successful. In the vicinity of the beautiful lacquer boxes are some of the most God-awful tempera and lacquer wall placques I have ever seen. A display of good crystal is flanked by a five-piece set of red glass vases with standardized workers' images frosted into the sides. Fortunately, an entire wall is allotted to an imaginative wall hanging of a woolly owl with immense purple eyes--if not, it would be lost in a forest of skillfully constructed by thematically banal tapestries...
Since then, Harrington, 53, has sampled and written about many varieties of American life. He worked for a time in the public relations department of a gigantic corporation (Life in the Crystal Palace), and he indulged in the New York LSD scene (The Secret Swinger). Throughout his adventures-he has now taken refuge with a wife and two children in an adobe cottage near Tucson, Ariz.-he has remained obsessed with the vision of Dr. Modesto, that we all live in the conditions stated by Falconbridge in King John: "Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition...
...Minute a Year. The hottest battle is being fought over the quartz watch, which keeps time by the vibrations of a quartz crystal. It is judged to be the most accurate timepiece now on the market, losing or gaining only a minute a year, compared with one or two minutes a week for most other watches. Bulova introduced the first marketable quartz-crystal watch in 1970, but its $1,350 cost was prohibitive. Late last year Bulova brought out an improved and cheaper version, the $395 Accuquartz, believed by many to be the best quartz watch on the market...
...minute hands. Bulova uses the electronic tuning fork developed in its Accutron watch, a battery-powered model that is just a shade less accurate than the Accuquartz; Timex employs a conventional balance wheel; Benrus, the Swiss and the Japanese use a "stepdown" motor. Linking these mechanisms to the quartz crystal is an integrated electronic-circuit chip, and U.S. electronic firms are enthusiastically moving to supply the chips to the quartz watch market. Japanese, Swiss and American watchmakers are buying theirs from such firms as Motorola and Texas Instruments...