Word: enamel
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...home of Mao Tse-tung, where he made his headquarters in January 1937, preparing to fight the Japanese as ally of Chiang Kaishek. The shrine sits in a dusty courtyard, now gardened and grown with new pines. Here was his bed, says the guide, here the two blue enamel boxes in which he carried his records on the Long March; here is the charcoal pan at which, one day while he was writing, he was so absorbed his sandals began to burn. Next door is another little house, once shared by Chu Teh (with wife) and Chou En-lai (with...
...imagery of the visitors' PX: the white gleam of refrigerators and stove enamel, the iconography of GE and Hoover, so utterly different from the traditional dimness of the Japanese house and the mandatory drabness of wartime, with its austerity colors and nocturnal blackout. On a popular level, the war had caused an immense disenchantment with traditional Japanese architecture, wood and paper: "weak" materials, which burned. Concrete and steel were the substances of a victor culture, and the huge termitary cities of Japan were rebuilt with them...
...dress are rarely encountered. Buddhism flourishes: Marxist reservations notwithstanding, men still don the saffron robes of priesthood for a time and rise before dawn to walk through the morning mist in search of alms. Well-off Laotians may apply for exit visas and generally receive them. Items such as enamel spray paint, light bulbs and vitamins, all unavailable in Hanoi, are in plentiful supply. "Sure, the market is full of clothes and medicine," laughs Luang Prabang Merchant Chan Manee. "This isn't Viet...
...million. Presented to his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna by Nicholas II in 1914, the 3⅝-in.-high egg is made of intertwining gold belts and platinum mesh set with diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, topaz, quartz and garnets. The surprise inside is an oval plaque of gold, pearl and enamel on which are painted the profiles of the five royal children, all of whom were to be shot, along with their parents, by the Bolsheviks...
Occasionally Levine's imagery does hit the mark, such as her description of an awkward new couple who, "having chewed through the enamel of their date," find only "the raw nerve hanging in the air before them." Unfortunately, however, such insights are few and far between. More often, Levine's ideas collapse under the weight of her evident reverence for Harvard. Levine went to school here, She should know better...