Word: gasp
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Ahem. (Gasp.) Ahem...
With Joshua Shapiro our given ethnic is Jewish, persecution-complex and all. "Look how they eat?" we gasp as Josh egregiously woofs down a fancy plate at a posh WASP-establishment restaurant. "They do that?" we squeal as Joshua exhibits the dishonesty of Yer-Basic-Semite on the time-honored subject of money. Shock-shlock, no ands ifs or buts...
...true that Franklin shares a few stripes with Tina Turner--both apparently are tough-minded, independent women who have taken their knocks. But musically they are miles apart. Where Franklin cruises the gospel-inflected domain of church R&B, Turner remains raunch'n roll's preeminent gasp-and-grinder. One sells her soul, the other...
Patsy Cline's voice was a wondrous instrument, a plangent contralto aged in whisky and barroom cigarette smoke, with the traditional hillbilly yodel transformed into the gasp of a mature heart breaking. All evidence suggests she earned that voice. In her marriage to Charlie, she shows that she can stand by her man, stand up to him, then throw him out when he gets too rough. Curing the on-the-road blues with a little a cappella harmony on Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms, Patsy finds therapy in music: a way both of transcending her troubles...
Calvino's spare narrative seems to cry out for allegorical explanations. Mr. Palomar could represent the travail of Western empiricism, in which every new discovery adds to the inexplicable. Or he might represent the last gasp of a class (European, intellectual, well-to-do) that is being smothered by the rise of the masses. None of the possible interpretations seems as interesting as the novel's deceptively plain but beguiling language. The wise reader of Mr. Palomar might best adopt a strategy that the hero formulates but fails to follow: "Perhaps the first rule I must impose on myself...