Word: dourness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...public face of U.S. diplomacy in the Vietnam era, dour, obdurate Dean Rusk never apologized, rarely explained and, after leaving office in 1969, even declined to write his memoirs. Alienated by that flintiness -- and by the war -- Rusk's son Richard fled home in 1970 for a succession of dead-end jobs in Alaska. He returned 14 years later with a tape recorder and a determination to make his father talk. The result is an affecting mix of diplomatic memory and filial rediscovery...
...dour news, Cambridge remains in a better situation to absorb the continuing cuts and the worsening economic situation than other Massachusetts communities, said city administrators...
Just like show biz, fashion thrives on outlandish happenings, which seem to come naturally to Margiela. His clothes are anything but gaudy, however, reflecting instead the dour severities of northern Belgium, where he grew up. He is one of several young designers who have emerged from Antwerp's Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts and who adapt menswear for women. Margiela likes to make new clothes look lived in. Although a scrupulous tailor, he sews dark seams at the knees of trousers to resemble a crease. Like everyone else, he goes for thigh-high boots, but his are real fishing gear...
...starkest contrast is the hurriedly published autobiography of Boris Yeltsin, the charismatic populist who seems more of a cross between Mick Jagger and Huey Long than a veteran apparatchik. His book, as predictably frank as Gromyko's is dour, bounces from biographical anecdotes to a diary of % his successful 1989 election campaign for the new Soviet legislature. The former volleyball star, who despite touches of buffoonery has become a cult hero among Soviet rebels with a cause, struts his arrogance from the schoolyard to Red Square...
There was no need to ask. As the Kremlin emissaries filed onto the stage, the answer was written all over their faces. The normally dour Lukyanov let a grin slip. The balding and bespectacled Yakovlev looked like a schoolboy who had just received straight A's. After praising the plenum as a "major step . . . away from an authoritarian-bureaucr atic model of socialism toward a democratic society that has opted for socialism," Yakovlev was asked how the meeting had affected Gorbachev's position. A smile, then the reply: "Very, very positively...