Word: exotica
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...under the patronage of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovitch, Diaghilev opened his first season of dance in Paris. The jaded city was ripe for an invasion of exotica. His company, to the frenzied rhythms of the Polovtsian dances from Borodin's Prince Igor, swept Paris like a Mongol invasion. Next came Scheherazade, with its orgy of writhing dancers, the extraordinary half human, half feline Golden Slave portrayed by Nijinsky, and the unexpected colors of Bakst. That was succeeded by the most famous opening-night brawl in history, when a glittering crowd booed Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Nijinsky...
...throne his father had fled in 1941. And once he disappeared behind the awesome symbols and deadly trappings of autocratic power--the Peacock Throne and the phantom jet--both the Shah and the United States lost sight of any Iran beyond the central court and the romantic exotica of ancient Persia...
This season the holiday exotica that can be ordered by mail are more extravagant than ever. Neiman-Marcus, the tony Texas chain, has sent the 350,000 customers on its nationwide mailing list a batch of Christmas gift suggestions that range from monogrammed "passports" for pet dogs or cats ($18) to an edible Monopoly set made of several kinds of chocolate ($600), and a Wooton desk that once belonged to Queen Victoria ($150,000). In Manhattan, trendy Bloomingdale's is countering with the perfect gift for the aspiring Truman Capote for $100,000 the store will arrange a holiday...
Already 590 million of them fatten Americans' wallets and purses, and the easy, pay-later access to goods and services that credit cards offer extends to such exotica as Nevada divorces, surgical work and, in some areas, bail money. Now the ever inventive credit card companies are poised for a new phase of expansion. Growing twice as fast as in recent years, the amount of purchases billed on cards so far in 1978 is up 40%. Americans spend $16 billion a year on cards, and the total is expected to soar to about $50 billion in the late 1980s...
These are only a few of the exotica cited by British Journalist Peter Watson, 35, as evidence of the increasing reliance of the U.S. armed forces on the work of psychologists. Indeed, studies done for the military cost $68 million this year, about 35% of all federally funded psychological research. In his new book, War on the Mind (Basic Books, $17.50), Watson says that the Pentagon's forays into psychology "outrank most other military research projects when it comes to cruelty, deception, ingenuity and sheer absurdity...