Word: gimmicks
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Gestures All Around. Determined to outdo the traditional 21-gun salute that Ben Bella got on the White House lawn, Castro had an old Communist satellite gimmick to impress his guest-a 21-tank salute. As the long rifles of the Russian-built tanks barked their welcome, the bearded Cuban gave the slim Algerian rebel a mighty abrazo and then led him to the microphones. Said Castro: "To make this visit at a time when the powerful Yankee empire has redoubled its hostility against our country ... is, on your part, Señor Premier, an act of courage...
...standard you-are-there-under-the-couch voyeurism, Robbins has added carefully observed studies of Mike Hammer's biff-bam psychopathology and Cash McCall's high-finance inside-dopesterism. But the ingredient in the mix that comes nearest to being Robbins' own is the gossip gimmick. He picks a public personage who has figured in lurid headlines, changes his name and a few unimportant details, and writes the novel around him-leaving him as difficult to identify as Liz Taylor in a false beard. In the case of The Carpetbaggers, although of course Robbins would deny...
...advantages of Robbins' gimmick are: 1 ) there is absolutely no necessity that the author know any inside gossip, and 2) there are almost no risks. Where Confidential Magazine got into trouble by naming names and implying facts. Robbins merely gets rich by naming "facts" and implying names...
...Communist Central Committee, presided over by a plump and healthy-looking Mao, 68, was meeting in Peking, Hartini was taking in the sights of Nanking and Shanghai. At banquets and parades, the little-known Peking matrons plainly competed with her for attention. Had a clever government agent wanted a gimmick to divert attention from Red China's woeful economic failures, he could scarcely have dreamed up a better one. Mao's wife is a slender, handsome woman of about 45 who once acted in Chinese movies under the name Lan Pin, now calls herself Chiang Ching. She married...
While still in high school, the sisters started interviewing movie stars for community papers. They got onto the glamour gimmick when they visited their first movie studio. The heat caused their hastily made eyebrows to run (they have been sprucing up with cosmetics since pubescence), and the makeup director generously lectured them on the proper use of eyebrow pencil. "Were we embarrassed!" recalls Reba, re-creating her blush. But next day they wrote up the incident in their column and were deluged with letters asking for more tips...