Word: fatuousness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...work of art in its own right, the museum is far more interesting than many of its contents--the dull, inflated conceptual art and late minimalism that appeals to the taste of the Guggenheim's Krens. There is a whole gallery of messages from Jenny Holzer; a fatuous "work" by Laurence Weiner in the form of the word reduced written in huge block letters on the wall of its main gallery; another gallery devoted to a single drawing by Sol Lewitt; some huge and utterly banal sculpture by Jim Dine; and so on. And, of course, that one-shot icon...
...hilarious third act in which Eliza makes her first appearance in genteel society, Mary Klug and Celeste McClain add to the laugh quota as the dresden-china gentlewoman Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and her would-be-fashionable daughter Clara, while Neil McGarry plays an appropriately pop-eyed Freddy, Eliza's fatuous suitor. This scene-Shavian social comedy at its greatest-is probably the best of the entire production, though McConnell mugs a little too hard as the half-finished creation...
...self-discipline in our indulgent and permissive society. Bill Bennett--perhaps America's greatest example of the value of a humane education--says that self-discipline means to be a disciple of oneself. "One is one's own teacher, trainer, coach and 'disciplinarian,'" Bennett says. Is this as fatuous as it sounds...
...John Tesh The former host of Entertainment Tonight served up embarrassingly fatuous commentary during NBC's telecasts of the Olympic gymnastics. A cross between Barney the Dinosaur and Fabio, Tesh said things like, "It was the U.S. who had the key, soaring through the rarefied air, newly baptized in the fire of Olympic competition." At one point he cautioned, "There's something in the warm summer air tonight, can you feel it?" Yes, it was a blast of hot air from a himbo who knew what had happened at events taped that afternoon. E.T., take him home...
...even human sacrifice. It is Western civilization--specifically, its values of reason, individualism, and freedom--which has made the greatest progress in history in eradicating such horrors from the face of the earth. Ear from smearing the man who introduced such a life-giving culture to this hemisphere with fatuous invocations of Hitler and Stalin. We should hail Columbus as one of history's greatest benefactors. --Barry D. Wood, Member, Harvard Objectivist Club