Word: elementalism
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Possum's cat book rates high. The verses, which show a perfect skill, are profoundly Anglican, closer in spirit and allusion to Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll than to any U. S. humor. In some of them Eliot goes kittenish in a big way, recalling that suspect, sissified element in Lear and Carroll which sets U. S. teeth on edge. Yet latent in other of Possum's poems is enough ferocious fancy and parody to knock the spots off most cat books and most child verses...
...organization of solid and full-bodied plastic cubes within a limited space. A Cubist would paint a landscape by directing the various trees and buildings into a series of lines and solids. It is almost as if he had built his painting with blocks and spheres. Each element in such a creation is placed with direct regard to its relation with the other elements. It is an intellectual method of presenting the essence of matter in its artistic form...
...Largo" is a play with an axe to grind. Plot and cast are subordinate to the grinding. So is the entertainment value. But with such men as McClintic, Mielziner, and Muni at the helm of the production, the element of entertainment is far from gone. McClintic and Mielziner are up to standard,--that is praise enough. As for Paul Muni, he's been sun-bathing out in the wilderness of California far too long. He belongs on the stage. He belongs in front of an audience he can feel and which in turn can feel the dynamite of his personality...
Last week Dr. Pincus exhibited a further marvel-a fatherless rabbit, born from an ovum which had never encountered the male fertilizing element at all. This process, called parthenogenesis, occurs naturally among certain insects, has been artificially induced by man in sea urchins and frogs, but never before in a mammal. Dr. Pincus used high temperature, hormone treatments and hypertonic salt solutions* to fertilize the ovum, and his canny microsurgical technique got the egg well started toward normal development in the host mother's reproductive tract...
Revenge, the precious instrument of nature which goaded Satan to tempt Eve, and caused the death of Socrates, is with us now, hanging on a small wall of the Germanic Museum. Never before has the element of vengeance entered the realm of art and music, but in a series of pen sketches by Oberlaender, entitled "Piano's Revenge," a new vista of conjecture is opened for those who appreciate the rare combination of real humor and fine craftsmanship...