Word: flea
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...variation on the old country mouse/city mouse story. Bluntschli, you see, is the unscrupulous and urbane businessman (in the course of the play, he inherits the proprietorship of six hotels) who displays his acumen by fleecing the Bulgarians during war treaty negotiations, of 50 prisoners of war for 200 flea-ridden horses. This is Bluntschli the mobile mercenary, the modern and disinterested man who, like Andrew Undershaft in Major Barbara, sells his services to the highest bidder...
Forbidden Fruit. Irish Playwright Sean O'Casey dismissed Wodehouse (pronounced Woodhouse) as English literature's "performing flea," an acidulous comment that P.G. himself ("Plum" to friends) loved to repeat. But other writers, ranging from Rudyard Kipling and George Orwell to Bertrand Russell and Evelyn Waugh, recognized that Wodehouse was a good bit more. Waugh, an indisputable master of the comic novel, would reread his favorites from the Wodehouse canon every year, as some people go back for spiritual sustenance to Shakespeare or the Bible. "For Mr. Wodehouse there has been no fall of Man, no 'aboriginal calamity...
...used to hordes of shoppers stampeding through the doors each Thursday-the day a fresh supply of items goes on sale. Business has been so good lately at the Junior League Bargain Tree in Portland, Ore., that the store closed down one Saturday for lack of merchandise. At the flea market on the grounds of Miami's Tropicaire Drive-In Theater, stalls are booked an unprecedented two weeks in advance. The latest trend in shopping, apparently, is the shift to thrift...
Business at flea markets and thrift shops has doubled, and even tripled, in recent months. At so-called "resale" shops (where the owner and the stores usually split the sale price), customers are streaming in not only to buy goods but to place clothes and furniture of their own on consignment. Much of the secondhand spirit stems directly from the recession. Explains Jane Kulian of the Salvation Army's Red Shield Store in Evanston, Ill.: "Many of our customers are people out of work." Adds Nancy Webster, owner of Nancy's Resale Shoppe in Dallas: "Loads of people...
...prices through the end of the year. The out-of-sight costs of materials and labor have had some hidden benefits. Millions have become craftsmen; the arcana of carpentry, plumbing and auto repair have been revealed to those who once thought they possessed ten thumbs. In a variety of flea markets, church bazaars and garage sales, secondhand furniture and utensils trade hands and are given a new life...