Word: hacking
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...young hack scripter (William Holden), broke, desperate, and pursued by his creditors, ducks his car up a Sunset Boulevard driveway and blunders into an eerie survival of an extinct world. In the moldering, overgrown grounds he finds a mausoleum-like Hollywood mansion, circa 1921, intact to the last monstrous detail. It is inhabited by two living relics: Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a great star of the silent movies, still wealthy, with an arrogant grandeur once rooted in fame and now propped by delusion; Max von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim), once a great director (which Von Stroheim was), now her devoted...
...find nothing but a dull collection of odes and occasional pieces. Browning did discover, however, that poor Poet Smart had been confined in an asylum just before A Song to David was first published - which prompted Browning to the romantic conclusion that Smart had been no better than a hack while, he had his wits; that when he lost them his dormant genius had burst into bloom...
That cruel prophecy soon came true. Smart found a job with a bookseller who waxed rich on the profits he made from concoctions such as "Dr. Hooper's Female Pills." Smart became his hack, churning out for him a flow of trite but salable verse and prose. Then Smart's high-strung system collapsed. He took to interpreting literally Christ's "injunction to pray without ceasing"-and pray Smart did, whenever he was moved to do so, whether in public places or in the small hours of the morning, summoning those near him to do likewise...
...Republican," Robert A. Taft, running unopposed, got 73,000 more votes in the Republican primary than all seven candidates seeking the Democratic nomination put together. The winning Democrat, who will face Taft in November, is bouncy, bombastic State Auditor Joseph ("Jumping Joe") T. Ferguson. Since Jumping Joe, a jovial hack, was a bit weak on big world issues, Democrats had to reassure themselves that at least he was quite a vote getter. The story goes that when asked what he thought about Formosa, Jumping Joe replied: "Don't worry about Formosa-I carried it by 2,000 votes...
...Senator is expected to devote long hours to seeking the long view, yet to be on call whenever a constituent wants a guide to show him about Washington. If he strictly supports his party leaders, he is called a hack; if he defies them, he is called an obstructionist. His real bosses, the voters, are innumerable and nagging, usually indifferent to his best work (which passes unnoticed), and often hostile because of insignificant or irrelevant happenings. His every move is conditioned by a set of rules that would confuse a good chess player. The job would seem unrewarding...