Word: genteel
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...silver and ebony mace, an emblem of congressional authority, has been placed on its green marble pedestal behind the rostrum in the House of Representatives. Quill pens, symbolic links with a more genteel past, have been sharpened in the Senate, where they are available to any member. At high noon this Thursday, Jan. 19, Speaker Tip O'Neill in the House and Vice President Walter Mondale in the Senate will smartly rap their gavels on the polished desks before them. Thus will begin the second session of the 95th Congress, one of the boldest and balkiest in memory...
...group cannot fully participate in the genteel rituals of late-evening milk and crackers or "gracious living" (drinking sherry by candlelight in hostess gowns) without satirically mocking them. Yet they sense a disquieting gap between themselves and a catatonic freshman (Anna M. Levine) who announces that she plans to make a film about the linguistic philosopher Wittgenstein...
Most Plimpton fans know him through Paper Lion, which while appealing to adults, was also the quintessential gift book from suburban fathers to 13-year-old sons. Plimpton, as the self-effacing yet enterprising fan, symbolized a unique brand of genteel masculinity. As a gift, Paper Lion was a way a father could say "yes" to his son's interest in pro football and its heroes of incredible size and strength, competing at a level unimaginable for ordinary men--and "yes" to his son's desire to be Bart Starr or Mean Joe Greene, tough, hard-bitten, or just awesomely...
Might there not be another, darker Plimpton hiding behind the genteel journalist-at-large who just happens to do unusual and sometimes dangerous things out of dedication to his line of work? Plimpton founded and was for a time editor of the Paris Review, which suggests literary ambitions greater than his success in the somewhat limited area of "participatory journalism." Yet not a hint of jealousy shows as he discusses the idiosyncrasies and foibles of great writers he has known--Hemingway, Mailer, Marianne Moore. Neither does Plimpton give himself the airs of a celebrity, though he is certainly more entitled...
...Princeton weekend, you see, and just as Harvard-Yale means tradition, and Harvard-Dartmouth means war, Harvard-Princeton means something far more genteel. The word for it is tailgate...