Word: epochs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Rudimentary, says Meyer. Holmes was mainlining cocaine (cf. The Sign of the Four); Freud, at the same period, had effected some dramatic drug cures. What could be more logical than a meeting of the two most original minds of the Victorian epoch? The notion is at once revolutionary and traditional. Two decades ago, in A Study in Terror, Ellery Queen affected to find a fugitive manuscript of Dr. John H. Watson, M.D. It told of Holmes' pursuit of one John the Harlot Killer, also known as Jack the Ripper. For The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Meyer "uncovers" another manuscript...
...Tennessee Waltz; Jo Stafford and Shrimp Boats; Rosemary Clooney and Come On-a My House. Elvis, Bobby Darin, Fabian with a slew of golden oldies. At the drive-ins, American Graffiti and The Lords of Flatbush re-create the oleaginous pompadours and switchblade rhetoric of the Shook-Up Epoch. In affluent circles there are Fabulous '50s parties: the debutantes rigged out in calf-length skirts and open-toed, high-heeled numbers, and their dates in narrow ties and pink shirts and trousers that bag at the ankle...
...decade was never quite so drab or stagnant as its detractors would have it. In the grayness of the day came the epochal desegregation decision; through the fever of the Kefauver hearings the acute viewer could perceive a glimpse of the Mafia mind. Amid the treacle of Your Hit Parade, a few vinegary notes could be heard from the vulgarian disc jockeys, Alan Freed and Dick Clark. They were the early life signs of rock, a message that the Broadway melody was finished. In the art galleries, Jackson Pollock outraged onlookers with his whorls and spillages. On stage Elvis gyrated...
There are those who recall that epoch from the far side of the generation gap. To them, the '50s have a unique significance, a time when history seemed very close and life was lived more intensely. For those too young to remember 1950-1960, the time is suffused with a distant romance-as all things are when they exist beyond memory. Those who came of age in the '50s know better. To them the '50s were the embodiment of Dickens' phrase: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
...polished as Henning is, The Magic Show's success lies not with the star but with ourselves. In an epoch of uncertainty, people need a fraud they can believe in. Magic, with its cheerful promise of mountebankery, offers a kind of low comic relief. An audience that is fooled invariably laughs, delighted that its attention has been misdirected. To Magician-Historian Robert Lund, it is "a rebellion against science." To James Randi, it is "a sign that our society is still healthy. When people stop being enthralled by a magician who can make a lady vanish, it will mean...