Word: customs
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...robust first aid continually administered by those seasoned troupers, Richardson and Ashcroft. The nagging question remains: Why do even the finest of British actors bother with this sort of stuff? Can one imagine a Herbert von Karajan conducting No, No, Nanette? COWARDY CUSTARD Age has not withered or custom staled the tunes and lyrics of Noel Coward. This animated musical anthology has been culled from a half-century of his songs and patter. For Coward fanciers, a substantial cult, the only word for the evening is enchanting. Retrospectively, one can see that Coward the lyricist has been the slyly sophisticated...
Hardly any Miami Beach merchants want to be quoted by name about the delegates' spending habits, but they agreed that both blue-jeaned Democrats and custom-tailored Republicans were tightwads. Doc Baker estimates that each Republican spent $35 a day in Miami Beach, and each Democrat $30. To hear some retailers gripe, the Democratic figure at least is a gross overestimate. The average Democrat, grumbles one businessman, "brought a set of underwear and a $20 bill with him and did not change either one." Merchants who relied on the Republicans to be big spenders were also disappointed. "We will...
August, in short, is Europe's most grueling month, when by custom almost everyone on the Continent goes on vacation at the same time. If official estimates are to be believed, fully half of West Germany's 59 million people are away from their homes. More than 50% of these have left Germany for Austria, Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia and other points south; 29 flights a week arrive in Majorca from Germany. Half of The Netherlands' 13 million people are out of their country. Some 22 million Frenchmen (46% of the population) continue to insist upon their August...
Then why does the custom of August vacations persist? Partly it is sheer habit, but partly also the crush begins with the large industries, whose managers claim that only by shutting down altogether can major maintenance be done and everyone be given a holiday without an unacceptable slowdown of the assembly lines. After the factories close, a whole chain of related businesses follows suit. Then the food, clothing and other industries schedule their vacations for the "dead" period. Even so, Europeans seem in no hurry to change. When Italian workers were recently polled on their vacation preferences, almost 80% said...
...COMING OF AGE, Simone de Beauvoir recounts the plot of the ancient Japanese novel Narayama. It tells of the primitive custom, the "Feast of the Dead", the execution of village elders who have become a burden on their children, or have merely reached an untenable age. "Do the sacrificed elders often have a reaction of dread and rebellion?" de Beauvoir asks. She thinks evidence proves they do. Yet spanning the centuries as well as the distance between East and West, she concludes that old age has become life's parody in all societies, an end to life so degrading that...