Word: formicaed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...written with an ax." Schwartz, who has four children and has been married to his wife Mildred for 54 years, fired off memos to Paramount chief Sherry Lansing, threatening to campaign against the film should it contain racy scenes or base language. He won. The film, which transports the Formica-loving clan to a '90s world of fast teenagers, evil developers and psychotherapy, was much more to his liking. But the stress took its toll: the day the film opened, at dinner Schwartz blacked out. He later had a pacemaker implanted to correct a heart condition--called, incredibly, bradycardia...
...national figure. And no sign of Jeffries. Forty-five minutes after class was scheduled to start in a windowless, first-floor lecture hall, he still has not arrived. Several of the 40 or so young students (all black but for one Asian) are sprawled face down on their blue Formica fold-out desks. Every few minutes, someone tires of waiting, gets up and leaves...
...many French, no other institution so embodies their civilization as le zinc. Today the counter of the typical cafe-bistro is rarely made of zinc -- metal alloys and Formica are easier to clean -- but the rituals remain. The owner who shakes hands with the regulars. The blue-uniformed laborer downing his half-liter of beer. The war veteran nursing his Calvados-laced coffee. In villages, farmers gather after a day's harvest for a shot of pastis and a dice game. In cities, shopgirls pause for orange juice and a croque monsieur, the grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich that...
...home for lunch. In the country, mechanized farming has shrunk village populations, leading to the closing of the cafes that served them. Still, most towns have a place where tradition survives. In Houlgate, a small town on the Normandy coast, six men and a woman chatted around the Formica counter on a recent Saturday. "We come for the conviviality, not for the alcohol," said Sylvain Lecuyer, a 40-year- old seasonal worker. "If someone does not show up for two days, we phone to see if he is sick." Musing on the closing of several local cafes, his drinking companion...
...fare will at first seem unfamiliar--even alien--to regulars, and it just won't be the same without Tommy's with-it juke box and signature formica tables...