Word: dullness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...audiences have changed, so have the mechanics of auctioneering. Twenty years ago, salesrooms were decorous, dusty-and dull. They were frequented mostly by dealers or agents for anonymous collectors. Save for the hobbyist or scholar who might attend a sale of arms and armor or rare folios, amateurs seldom bid for anything; mostly they were scared away. One intimidating aspect of auctions has been the seriocomic notion that by a cough or casual gesture the unwitting onlooker may become a high-rolling bidder. Only half in jest, Louis Marion, who headed the old Parke-Bernet firm and was the father...
...unfairness is compounded when the artist dies: the state then assesses the paintings in his estate at their highest market value and makes his heirs pay tax on that. This may be why the geese are not cackling with rapture as they lay golden eggs for others. A dull thump and a sigh are enough...
David H.C. Read, 69, Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church of New York. "The worst sin is dullness," says Read, a transplanted Scotsman and British army chaplain who is never dull. Still, he disapproves of the whole idea of "princes of the pulpit," and he deplores the fact that people go to church to hear a celebrated preacher rather than to worship. But if there is any one prince of the Protestant pulpit these days, it is Read...
...time world's champion rodeo rider now reduced morally, if not economically, by having to hustle Ranch Breakfast, a conglomerate's cereal. He is frequently obliged to ride out into darkened stadiums wearing a suitful of colored lights while carrying a snootful of whisky in order to dull the pain of exploitation...
...prose exactly betray this caution. Yacowar has written a worthwhile book about Hitchcock's British Films - we need books about Hitchcock, since it's dismally current for people to think of him as 'the master of suspense,' the public property, grand and genial. Most film criticism tends to be dull, especially the kind which tries to give a prose version of the film. This can only be a dilution, so, the first priority should be to find something strong enough to need explaining. This doesn't necessarily limit film criticism to 'art' cinema--good articles could be written...