Word: dourness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...they would probably love Spitz's book. He marshals a staggering mass of research in support of the conclusion, broadly speaking, that Lennon was a drug-addled, attention-hungry rageoholic who picked fights and cheated on his wife; Paul McCartney was a smarmy, manipulative charmer; and George Harrison was dour and sour. Before you lose faith entirely, it turns out Ringo really was just a lovable goofball...
...political implications are clear: the U.S. sees itself as the lonesome marshal--Gary Cooper in High Noon--when in fact it possesses the world's biggest arsenal and is making more trouble than it's preventing. Or not. But you needn't agree with this dour vision to find Dear Wendy a potent fable about America's history of violence...
...blustery as the wind off the desert. Until this point, Slow Man (Knopf; 265 pages) has been about the unraveling of retired photographer Paul Rayment in Adelaide. After his bicycle is clipped by a car, he loses first his leg, then his dignity and, perhaps, his mind. Dour of disposition and without family, he's drawn to his hot-blooded Croatian nurse, Marijana Jokic, whose troublesome brood he offers to support. At which point "the unattractively freckled, somewhat fleshy shoulders" of Elizabeth Costello appear up his stairs. Is she an authorial intervention? A meddling cupid? A cynic about his real...
...This man has a nice smile, but he has got iron teeth." Coming from the notoriously dour Andrei Gromyko, it was a revealing endorsement. To combat the image of decrepitude generated by a succession of Red Square funerals, the Kremlin knew it needed someone youthful and vigorous, To compete effectively in the arena of international public opinion, and particularly to vie with Ronald Reagan, it required its own Great Communicator, with a commanding presence on the podium, strong eye contact at the bargaining table, and a nice smile for the camera. That man was Mikhail Gorbachev, 54, the youngest member...
...talent may remind Eddie of his old self, but if Vincent is a natural nine-ball artist, his personality is strictly that of an adolescent eight ball. Not for him the dour reserve and cunning calculation of the traditional pool player, setting up his opponents for a hustle. He likes to announce his presence at the table with a thunder break. When he is on a hot streak, he boogies around the baize as if he were starring in a music video. To him, guile is a synonym for cowardice, and patience the deadliest of virtues. There is something funny...