Word: frightener
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...nickname "der Tolle" (the crazy man). George Grosz remembered him at a ball in Berlin, gnawing on the fresh and bloody bone of an ox. He sometimes hid among the waxworks of criminals in the chamber of horrors of the Berlin Panoptikum, and sprang out with a howl to frighten the visitors. These early "happenings" (artist as cannibal, artist as criminal) were subtexts to the main theme of artist as primitive, untrammeled by conventions of any kind. O.K.'s letters were full of nostalgia for the innocence and vitality he felt had been lost to Europe under the crust...
...picture will tantalize with originality of story or tone. Then genre anxiety sets in--the filmmakers' compulsion to return to the formats that have worked, and been worked to death, for decades. Can't take the risk of challenging those people out there in the dark; it might frighten them. Movies have to be like TV now: a medium not of surprise but of reassurance. Give 'em what we think they want. More of the same...
Alarmed by the flood of adverse publicity abroad, Soviet authorities moved against Shcharansky. His 1978 trial was a major step in the Kremlin's systematic destruction of human-rights groups. To frighten other Soviet citizens from informing foreigners about dissident activities, the prosecution charged Shcharansky with spying for the U.S. Although President Carter issued a formal denial that Shcharansky had ever been employed by American intelligence, he was sentenced to three years in prison and ten in labor camps...
...Ethiopian plane, probably a Soviet-made An-12, unleashed a payload of bombs and flares near the camp, lighting up the sky for miles around. The brilliant display, which the Eritreans call the "Christmas tree," fell harmlessly into the mountains. But ERA workers report that the night raids frighten refugees for miles around. "What the Ethiopians want," says one, "is to scare our people into leaving these camps and force them to cross into Sudan or into government- controlled camps...
...ministers called on non-OPEC countries to cut back their output, or else. They apparently hoped their threat alone would make competitors fearful of a superglut and persuade them to slash production. But the message backfired. While it succeeded in panicking oil traders, the tough talk failed to frighten Britain or Norway enough to make them tighten their spigots. British officials said that they would not accede to Yamani's wishes...