Word: dictum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Vegas follows another Disney dictum: it sets out to create entertainment the whole world will pay to see. The aim is pure show-and-tell: it shows with grand images and lavish costumes; it tells with familiar songs. A cuddly optimism replaces the mordant philosophizing of Tony Award-winning shows. People don't go to Vegas for a Sondheim musical (indeed, not many go to Broadway for one). Vegas shows are zippy, out-of-mind experiences aimed at vacationers of all classes and countries. "You have to have a certain style of show here," says EFX! master Crawford. "When half...
...Madame Glyn's day, sober and cautious men wearing double-breasted suits and tasteful ties have paid huge bucks to production executives they thought could realize this dream for them. Such men don't read novels. If they did, they would be familiar with F. Scott Fitzgerald's dictum: "Not half a dozen men have ever been able to keep the whole equation of pictures in their heads...
Fitzgerald romanticized the business (as he did everything else) and so vastly exaggerated his census of production genius. Another writer, William Goldman, author and fixer of many a screenplay, came closer to the true figure, which is zip. NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING, he wrote, putting his dictum in capital letters in the vain hope that people would pay serious attention...
...here?" are among the father's last words). Grief is put on hold as they squabble over the Chinese takeout, gang up on a sibling's spouse and expertly rip the scabs of old family wounds. The RSC's production impeccably fulfilled Chekhov's famous dictum that events onstage should be "just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life. For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time their happiness is being created, or their lives are being smashed...
Ending all ties would be a symbol of Harvard's stand against discrimination. Symbols are fine--they are often very powerful. But a symbol must obey the dictum "do no harm." Cutting all ties would do much harm...