Word: freak
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This itself was an act of inspired chutzpah that cast Fiedler as a cultural freak, an outsider and kinsman to all the Chingachgooks and Queequegs whose "otherness" defines white America. Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self is a natural extension of Fiedler's concern with the "other." Only now he confronts not society's but nature's own outsiders. He would prefer a term less offensive than freaks, though he defends it against such euphemisms as mistakes of nature and phenomènes on the grounds that they "lack the resonance necessary to represent...
...about society's strangers-red men, black men, and now, the deformed. If the new book seems less academic and theoretical than many of the author's earlier works, it is simply because, as Fiedler says, "you can't talk about abstractions when you talk about freaks." R.Z. Sheppard Excerpt "Children who are born legless or armless, their limbs amputated by a tangled umbilical cord, are sometimes hard to tell from true phocomelics, or seal-children, with vestigial hands and feet attached directly to the torso. But once identified, they are primarily felt as objects...
...musical litany of the faults and failings of shorter folk, reminds us that our country is still overly concerned with physical appearance and height. Sales of platform shoes suggest there are many people out there who wish they were taller. The short man is a popular staple of circus freak shows. Crowds flock to basketball arenas partly to gawk at the scantily-clad seven-foot behemoths lumbering around the court...
...melody freak," says Joel. Indeed, "big" neatly describes the size of the melodies as well as his enthusiasm for them. As demonstrated by his current hit single, a graceful ballad called Just the Way You Are, Joel harks back to the luxuriant strains of superb song craftsmen like Harold Arlen as much as he follows in the tradition of masters of rock-'n'-roll delirium like Phil Spector. His songs have also been covered by belters like Streisand and jazz stylists like Bobby Scott, and seem easily to snuggle into whatever groove comes...
...Chicago, San Francisco and Montreal, thinks Plato's should be more selective about people it lets in. "I mean head-wise, not body-wise," he says quickly. "Look at all those sightseers. It's not like the old days. Now it's too much of a freak show." Across the pool, the stout lady grasps the hand of a tiny Oriental man and pulls him resolutely into the mat room...