Word: essayist
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...threats. He abandoned the satirical work not because he had lost his inspiration, he says, but rather because in the face of “total terror and total boredom, irony, even militant irony (which is what satire is), merely shrivels and dies.”More than an essayist, Amis considers himself a writer of fiction. One of his only positive beliefs is in the value of literature to a rational society. “A novel is a rational undertaking; it is reason at play, perhaps, but it is still reason.” Two of Amis?...
...Obama's Radical Friends Essayist Michael Kinsley argues that it is "absurd" to make an issue of Barack Obama's relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground bombers Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn [June 9]. If this association exposes Obama as a radical or "a man with terrible judgment," Kinsley writes, then the same could be said of many respectable people who have also not shied away from Ayers and Dohrn. But none on that "respectable list" proclaim their superior judgment, as Obama does. More importantly, they are not running for President. Jonathan Karsh, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania...
...well as architects, engineers, editors, bankers, and even a few economists. Many listed the title "vice president," and, not a few, "president." But the class of 1975 also includes those who listed their occupations as composer, environmental advocate, musician, playwright, rabbi, conflict resolution coach, painter, community organizer, and essayist. And even for those of us with the more conventional job descriptions, the nature of our daily work and its relationship to the economy and society is, I am sure, very different from what we might have guessed in 1975. My point is only that you cannot predict your path...
...American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, writing in 1856, captured a persistent truth about the Englishman: "Born in a harsh and wet climate, which keeps him indoors whenever he is at rest ... he dearly loves his house." Little has changed since then; the English still lavish attention on their homes. Any whiff of news about the U.K.'s housing market is enough to make the front pages. When British TV channels aren't airing advice on buying or selling homes, they're offering lessons on how to do them up. "Domesticity," Emerson noted, "is the taproot which enables the nation...
...Buckley’s case, the dirt comes in the form of a 1968 debate with homosexual essayist Gore Vidal (this was back when people other than Chris Matthews were permitted to speak on American television). Told to ‘shut up” and otherwise antagonized, Mr. Buckley lashes out: “Listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the god-damn face, and you will stay plastered.” Quaint postwar vernacular aside, the moment, somehow benign on the page, seems pretty ugly on video...