Word: ear
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...other factor producing Council failure is the lack of preparation for debate shown by most councillors. When asked their intentions or positions, most reply they will "play it by ear." This is often a euphemism for waiting until the meeting begins to seize opportunities for making headlines or creating obstructions...
Some listeners may be uneasy because Taverner is not so much a traditional opera as a mélange of spinning theatrical events that dazzle the eye and rivet the ear. Musically, when Davies is not weaving in themes from Taverner, his treatment of the usual choirs of the orchestra has enough richness and fireworks (ignited in masterly fashion by Conductor Edward Downes) to placate the most avid devotees of Richard Strauss. Davies' hair-raising special effects-massed percussion, squealing clarinets, even the grating of a knife grinder-should be enough to titillate John Cage...
Apart from its serious pretensions, the film is consistently entertaining. Larner's dialogue is deadly accurate: it takes a sharp ear to pick up the proper colloquial uses of such Yiddishism as "schmuck" and "kischkes"; to imitate to perfection varying political jargons, from Jarmon's "the individuals made this country great" to McKay's "we're all in this (mess) together"; to invent speech idiosyncrasies which seal characters' fates for us, like a noxious emcee's "unequivocably...
...much gone." But then who really runs the show? "Clark MacGregor," says MacGregor sharply. "I'll have the benefit of his advice, but the responsibility is mine." He is not, however, as close to Nixon as Mitchell is. As a top G.O.P. strategist puts it: "John has the ear of the President any time he wants...
Like many others, the Children's Zoo in Des Moines has had a serious vandalism problem. There is no money to hire a night watchman, and trespassers have broken in to cut off a cougar's ear, steal a trained hawk and release penned deer. Director Robert Elgin finally worked out an ingenious way to police the grounds at no cost: let Becky do it. Becky is a 180-lb. lioness...