Word: drabs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Jamaicans relax after their ten-hour day in the orchards. Some sip canned Budweiser as they sit on a steel-framed bed watching The Rookies on TV. Others play dominoes or listen to country music blaring from a stereo radio. In the steamy kitchen, its walls painted a drab military gray, chicken soup with dumplings, sea In the ramshackle one-story bar racks near Bolton, Mass., 16 Jamaicans relax after their ten-hour day in the orchards. Some sip canned Budweiser as they sit on a steel-framed bed watching The Rookies on TV. Others play dominoes or listen...
Typically, Margaret Drabble's heroines have been wry, intelligent women pitting their vivid psyches against their drab or otherwise unsatisfying outer lives. Her eighth novel alters this formula. Characters, female and male, no longer have the luxury of pursuing self-fulfillment or fretting about personal unhappiness. They are too preoccupied with current events -with the drama of England's economic decline, featuring a cast of millions of involuntary bit players...
...trouble is that everyone does know the story, or at least some version of it. The Deane-Balderston play is hopelessly dated; it does not rattle anyone's teeth, and the only resonances suggest old Clairol commercials. ("Now I am full of vitality. Before I was such a poor drab thing..." says one blonde character to another.) The production is paced like an old movie running on a rusty projector. There is no tension, no energy. Characters constantly strike poses straight out of silent pictures--but with none of the old film actors' sincerity...
They wear the insigne of the ace of spades, card of death, on their olive-drab flight suits, and they speak with studied confidence of their assignment. They are, after all, among the best trained pilots in the Marine Corps, and they would hardly betray anxiety over the risks of flying anything, much less a nifty little plane designed to revolutionize naval aviation. In the placid calm of the ready room of Marine Attack Squadron 231 at Cherry Point, N.C., Captain Cliff Dunn, 33, declares: "We're fairly convinced there's nothing wrong with the plane. We wouldn...
...tight, far out. Flow Through: choppy. Limited sidewalk checkin. No baggage carts. Two-level main terminal flanked by uncomfortable lounges. Confusing signs. Longest walk: almost 1,600 ft. Luggage checkout: palsied. Hotels/Motels: plenty within 5 min. Amenities: sorry. Austere, uncomfortable lounge. A 24-hr, snack bar. Best restaurant: moderate, drab Golden Eagle. Three bars open various hours from 9 a.m. to 1 1 p.m. Shopping: vending machines, curios. Barbershop. Doctor's office open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., M.D.s available by phone 24 hr. Overall: like a commuter station...