Word: hacks
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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There is a legend, fostered notably by a Pushkin poem and later by Rimski-Korsakov in an opera (Mozart and Sa-lieri), that Salieri poisoned Mozart. Scholars discount the thesis, but there is no doubt that Salieri hindered the career of his younger colleague. Small wonder. Salieri was a hack who saw Mozart as a threat to his own reputation. Is such historical byplay justification enough for combining the two works at this late date? Alas, no. Prima la Musica has about 15 minutes of passable music; at a length of 70 minutes, it is maddeningly vapid...
...Times--perhaps because of assumptions it makes about its readers or perhaps out of sloppiness--didn't bother to recognize the possibility that people might not see the memorandum for the hack job it is. It never placed the profile in the context of a contrived and systematic attempt to discredit the Ellsberg defense and only in a news story three pages away did it quote anyone as questioning the profile's accuracy. The Times presumed that everyone has realized just how demented Richard Nixon and his government are, and that's not a safe assumption for anyone, let alone...
...decades one of the special delights of childhood has been to hack the tops off cereal cartons, stuff them into an envelope, pound on a stamp, and send away the lumpy packet. The boxtops, plus a coin or two, eventually elicit a "prize." The agony of the wait is exquisite, and the day some ticky-tack gadget arrives can be a private little Christmas...
...song duos and magic acts. The songs that Stephen Schwartz and Henning have provided seem to have been composed under water and piped directly from the ocean floor in all their gurgly indecipherability. The Top Hat, where Henning is a promising neophyte, has as its resident magician an alcoholic hack. In the role, David Ogden Stiers flutters a few pages of Bob Randall's life less book with a rich parody of Barrymore à la ham. A myopically talent-scouting producer spots this sorry lot and, mesmerized by the redoubtable Henning, books them for Broadway, where they will remain...
...story is a poke-in-the-ribs at the absurd histrionics of the Bliss family (a quasi-retired actress, her hack-writing husband, and their two long-suffering children) who invite four similarly foolish characters for a weekend in the English countryside. The plot unravels with the reception and treatment of the guests, and winds up with the visitors making a furtive escape after one memorable night...