Word: frisson
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Europeans tend to get nervous at times like this. The pomp and ritual that attend the start of a new American presidency?the parades down Pennsylvania Avenue, the handing over of the nuclear briefcase?induce a patriotic rush among Americans, but cause a frisson of anxiety in Europe. Not long ago, when a young, unknown Southern governor with little stated interest in foreign affairs won the presidency, gloom settled over many corners of the Continent. ?Nothing suggests (he) believes the problems of the planet are as serious as those of his country,? Le Monde sighed. ?We are facing an American...
There are few surprises about who the villains of Tiananmen were, but there is an unmatchable frisson in watching them play their roles in real time. Li Peng, then China's Premier, was and is still known as a hard-line troublemaker. He comes off terribly in the papers: wheedling, whining, gleefully back-stabbing peers unlucky enough to have missed a meeting. Watch as he tries to manipulate Deng Xiaoping in an early conclave: "Some of the protest posters and the slogans that students shout during the marches are anti-Party and anti-socialist," he says. "The spear...
...When the subject of capital punishment came up, and Bush briskly, unapologetically pronounced himself satisfied that all of the 143 people executed during his tenure as governor were a) guilty as charged, and b) given their fair chance in court, Oprah's producers chose to record the frisson in the studio by panning a succession of grave, skeptical female faces...
...course, the thrill had pretty much dissipated, and I was complaining about homework, or my homeroom teacher, or swimming class. For the most part, I enjoyed school over the years, but every year I hoped (to no avail) that I'd be able to hold on to that initial frisson of excitement that saturated every first...
...them interesting as TV. Perhaps the conventions' best hope for clawing their way back to prime time may occur outside the halls - at the shadow events and street protests planned by elements ranging from major-party mavericks to Starbucks-trashing anarchists. At least those have the not-quite-scripted frisson of reality...