Word: glooms
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...message pinned to the bulletin board at the Paris headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization by disgruntled staffers captured the general mood: "Enough is enough." One reason for the gloom: Britain last week affirmed that it will withdraw at year's end from the 160-member organization. Charging that UNESCO has become "harmfully politicized," Timothy Raison, Minister for Overseas Development, declared before the House of Commons: "We are determined that our support for the United Nations should be seen as support for effective and efficient organizations. Unfortunately, UNESCO is not such a body...
Across A Crowded Room (Polydor) by Richard Thompson: Bring a little doom and gloom into your holiday season. One of the love songs here, "Love In a Faithless Country," deals with a mass murderer and his wife roaming across Britain: the surprising thing is that the song (and the rest of the album) is quite beautiful. Thompson is also the best guitarist in the world--though his low-key style doesn't brag about that distinction. Perfect for post-holiday hangover listening...
...however, is Nunn's staging. He sometimes spoils one effect with the hasty arrival of the next, but his conceptions are clear and simple. Almost every manifestation of evil, from Valjean's skulking emergence from prison to the army's brutal murder of a street urchin, takes place in gloom. The shadows are not soporific but turbulent with agonized life. They prefigure the almost celestial light in the finale, as the dead of Paris rise to join the living in a hymn that promises, then demands, a better future. The moment and the show are thrilling...
...offensive subject matter doesn't bother Molina, who protests something like, "I hate politics, but I love the leading man"--in other words, fantasy's healing power is in the spellbinding, not in the political message. By acting out the parts in the gloom of his darkened cell for his initially reluctant cell-mate, Molina saves his sanity and helps break the ice with Valentin--proof positive of fantasy's rich payoff for reality. As with Spielbergism, style subordinates content for our protagonist...
Once again, there was an air of expectancy. Under intense pressure, at home and abroad, to lift the gloom created by his refusal a week earlier to indicate any path away from apartheid, P.W. Botha had a chance to clarify his intentions. Some 4,000 young people at the University of Pretoria greeted South Africa's State President with cheers, whistles and applause. But Botha did not budge. Portraying himself as a moderate operating between "radical Communist forces" and "conservative elements who shout murder and fire," he delivered much the same message as he had in his speech to members...