Word: deft
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...therefore in constant need of replacement. "Jolly," "Rubenesque" and the like have long been abandoned. A Washington writer scored by praising a woman's "Wagnerian good looks," which is far more polite than saying she is not bad looking for a massive Brunnhilde. The disinfecting compliment is particularly deft. As all practitioners know, a corrective lurch toward balance is the hallmark of good journalese. After all, journalism is a crucially important field that attracts high-minded, multitalented professionals, arguably the finest in the land...
...Snow Ball, like the best of Gurney's plays, is full of virtuosities. It is deft, insightful and winsome. The author's persistent tic is an unwillingness, perhaps an inability, to tell a straightforward story. No more than a few pages at a time of The Snow Ball unfold in chronological sequence. Instead, there are flashbacks, flashes forward, and crosscuts from one life story to another. Gurney is a master at this counterpoint. But he provides no crescendo, no epiphany. Despite many charms, The Snow Ball melts into fond but vague memory...
...fear of Star Wars that brought the Kremlin back to the bargaining table. The Soviets are afraid that U.S. computer wizardry and advances in laser and particle-beam research will leave them far behind in a space arms race. For the past six months Moscow has conducted a deft propaganda campaign of mir i druzhba--peace and friendship--designed to put the onus on the U.S. to avoid what the Soviets call the militarization of space. "It is especially important to avoid the transfer of the arms race to outer space," warned Mikhail Gorbachev, the Kremlin...
LAUGHING STOCK. At 54, Romulus Linney remains one of the American theater's mysteriously buried treasures. In this off-Broadway evening of three short plays, especially the masterly centerpiece F.M., Linney exhibited deft portraits of the half mad in which not a line was misplaced or wasted...
RUBEN BLADES Y SEIS DEL SOLAR: BUSCANDO AMERICA (Elektra/Asylum). The title translates as "Searching for America." But no translation is necessary to catch the salsa rhythms and deft jazz inflections that surround these political parables...