Word: high-strung
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Geraldine Ferraro was head and shoulders above George Bush in the vice-presidential debate [NATION, Oct. 22]. She was always in control. He came off as agitated, high-strung, faltering and angry when any viewpoint but his was expressed...
MARRIED. Gilda Radner, 38, high-strung, quirky comedian who skittered from Saturday Night Live to films, most recently The Woman in Red; and her co-star in that film, Gene Wilder, 49, frizzy-haired actor, writer and director who specializes in playing jumpy, self-deprecating shlemiels; she for the second time, he for the third; in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, a tiny hilltop village in southern France. The quiet wedding was limited to a few guests. Noted Wilder: "The world is becoming a giant McDonald's stand, and it's nice to find a quiet village, 900 years...
...high-strung baby boomers have mostly passed 30 and are trotting toward 40: they have chosen careers, settled down, married, stabilized. Families and mortgages act as ballast. Furthermore, such a fresh, burgeoning stake in the future naturally fosters hope for the future. In political terms, a concern for the next century can turn right or left, toward economic conservatism, for instance, or toward a special determination to avoid nuclear war. Or up, into sheer ambition. Says Yippie turned Yuppie Jerry Rubin: "People are very patriotic. I'm much more pro-American than I have ever been in my life...
Question: What competitive event would pit a running back (Earl Campbell), a race-car driver (A.J. Foyt) and an astronaut (Air Force Colonel Joe Engle) against a high-strung team armed only with cellos, violins, one harp and a collection of horns? No, not ABC's Wide Whirl of Junk Sports. Real answer: the 1984 Houston Symphony Olympics, a cacophonous assembly of nine celebrity guest conductors who showed up last week for a publicity-stunt contest that generated more than 1,500 new subscribers for the symphony season. All conducted themselves admirably-and the suffering orchestra less well...
...turning more resolutely antiCommunist. As a Reagan pet, she has had an unsual degree of influence in shaping policy. But as a prospective National Security Adviser, she had obvious drawbacks. In dealings with colleagues as well as adversaries, Kirkpatrick tends to be everything McFarlane is not: high-strung, argumentative, ideological, organizationally disheveled, and candid to a fault. At White House meetings, says one Reagan aide, "she doesn't give an inch. When she really gets going, she throws down her glasses on the table." Reagan's advisers surely knew that if she were picked, Kirkpatrick could be expected...