Word: ennui
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...resorted to a feeble device: the meeting of senescent civilization (the President's clan) and wily savagery (the potentates of Upper Gorm, an African nation with rich uranium deposits). When Newhart meets the Gormese, the two men cannot understand each other, which makes for five minutes of ennui. They are not the only odd couple in the film. In scene after scene, behavioral comedy attempts to engage in a dialogue with slapstick satire. But these are different comic languages, and the two forms finally fall silent in defeat. Maybe Henry should appear on TV less and watch it more...
...Better ennui than cataclysm, he concludes, and if the game must go on, better by the rules of SALT...
...turnabout as sudden as some of the scene shifts in Cosmos, ennui has turned into enthusiasm. Public curiosity about science, if not financial support of it, seems to be rocketing upward. Some signs: the New York Times has created a special weekly section to report the news of science, and other newspapers have expanded their science staffs and coverage. Some half a dozen new mass-market science magazines have been launched within the past few years, the most recent being Time Inc.'s new monthly DISCOVER. There is a growing readership for books on scientific topics, as opposed to those...
...Duke of Marlborough, a surly little man who hated "Yanks" but married two. His obsession was Blenheim Palace, and Gladys soon found she had married a house. As duchess, Gladys pruned roses, cultivated a rock garden full of snakes, and bred spaniels in the state rooms. Ennui soon turned to hatred. One night during a dinner party she placed a revolver beside her plate. Her startled partner asked her what she meant to do with it. "Oh! I don't know, I might just shoot Marlborough...