Word: headsman
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...well as the bad, to kill." The dark side of religious conviction can be a violent intractability, an avenging angel's note of retribution. As Martin Luther wrote, "He who will not hear God's word when it is spoken with kindness must listen to the headsman when he comes with his ax." Religion can provide a warmth of certitude and belonging. When its energy is turned outward, it may express itself in acts of mercy and even saintliness. But piety can also be lethal when directed against strangers and infidels. William James, writing 75 years ago, defined...
...Lord High Everything Else, was marvelous as the proud but corrupt political hack. But the undisputed star of the show was Josh Rubins, as Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner. Following the opulent train of reverent courtiers, he wore a ludicrous robe decorated with axe-heads and carried a headsman's axe several inches taller than he is. It was enough to bring down the house. His version of "As someday it may happen that a victim must be found" included some updated lines ( that singular anomaly, the strict constructionist ), and visual effects-pulling out a picture of Nixon while...
...future." It blasts off with a scene so brilliant that the whole picture shivers from the thrust. In a masque, a musically flatulent clown capers on a stage, mocking the audience with scatological jokes and gestures. A grinning idiot is carried onstage and led to a chopping block. A headsman mimes a blow with his weapon -then chops the victim's hand off to a chorus of cackles, while freshets of blood stain the scene. It is a savage fragment of the cinema of cruelty, a death-in-life image, like T.S. Eliot's perception of "the skull...
...like Katherine, she is natally undone. England needs a future king. The old Queen produced stillborn princes. The new one gives birth to a live female and a dead male. Enraged, Henry VIII rigs charges of adultery against Anne and dooms her to the Tower of London and the headsman...