Word: icarus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...contemporary of Mahler's saw him as "a great terrorist genius who, striving for unattainable goals, meets the fate of Icarus." That's a shrewd appraisal of the passionate composer and conductor during his embattled last years as head of the Vienna Opera--when his visionary compositions and inspired performances were commonly met by savage criticism, often fueled by anti-Semitism. In this penultimate volume of his monumental biography, La Grange locates Mahler at the heart of turn-of-the-century Vienna's flourishing cultural milieu, which, together with Mahler's relationships with many of its major figures, he vividly...
Last week the rules snapped back with a vengeance when MicroStrategy, a supercharged Vienna, Va., software and Internet company, was forced to restate drastically results it reported in 1998 and 1999. MicroStrategy's stock, which had risen like Icarus--from $7.34 to $333 over the past 12 months--suddenly fell from the sky, losing more than 60% of its value in a single day. More than $11 billion in market value was erased, and the company's brash chairman, Michael Saylor, 35, personally lost $6 billion in paper wealth in less time than it takes to say overvalued dotcom. "There...
...atmosphere of gold rush - of 24-year-olds in Gap khakis making billions - creates invidious expectations and a simmering resentment of Why Not Me? The stock market flaps higher and higher, soaring magnificently, but something in us expects the sun to melt its wings and bring it down like Icarus. Free-floating anxiety causes anger...
...Core Program, in practice, has an Icarus problem: By aspiring to such lofty goals in so many areas, the wax holding together professors, teaching fellows, students and resources begins to melt. The program crashes to the ground in at least one area a year, and all the participants--students and professors alike--are dashed upon the rocks...
...from Alcatraz. You know, Birdman of Alcatraz. The fact that it's an island and for prisoners, the idea of flight. The feather has to do with defying gravity, up or down. Also, the feather, white feathers particularly, can be a symbol of cowardice. I like the story of Icarus flying into the sun. It seems like a very banal, everyday object; they're floating everywhere. I think I have one from the Alamo, you know, famous sites...I travel a lot. If you're traveling, you can't carry much with you. Feather, dust, tarnish rubbing--those things...