Word: idea
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...working for a richer and posher clientele--not that they made him rich. The plain stuff of his interiors gives way to more sumptuous surfaces: marble, Turkish carpets and gilded walls of embossed leather, all of which he painted with virtuosity. The people are dressed to the nines. The idea that De Hooch sold out to them, and to their way of life, thus sending his art into decadence, was widespread once. It isn't borne out by the pictures themselves. A strangely moody image from 1677, of a couple eating oysters in a shadowed courtyard while a black servant...
Call it the sidekick theory of history: the idea that behind every famous individual was an unsung, exceptional assistant whose aid and support guaranteed his or her chief's success. In the case of Charles Darwin, the invaluable aide-de-camp may have been one Syms Covington, an obscure British sailor who, though he's barely mentioned in Darwin's writings, toiled at his side throughout his early career, bagging the vast array of specimens upon which Darwin founded his theory of natural selection. Now, in Australian novelist Roger McDonald's Mr. Darwin's Shooter (Atlantic Monthly Press; 365 pages...
...ultraconservative wing of the Republican Party seems lost. These old gray men are so convinced they're doing the right thing and so obsessed with the idea of trying to let the American people see how evil their President is that they've lost touch with reality. If they can't put their anger aside and forgive Clinton, this impeachment process will eventually result in their own end. FRANS VAN RUMPT Santpoort, the Netherlands...
...only politician brave enough to advocate spending federal dollars for caffeinated-gum research is Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who pushed for a measly $250,000 in this year's budget. (To give you an idea of how little money that is, if you had a stack of $1,000 bills, there would be only 250 of them.) Hastert knew about the issue not just because he's a progressive-thinking lawmaker, but also because Amurol, the company that makes Stay Alert Caffeine Supplement Gum, is in his district...
When architectural firms began to compete for the Gap Inc. office complex in San Bruno, Calif., William McDonough saw it as a competition of ideas rather than for a contract. "Our idea," he says, "was that if a bird flew over the building, it would not know that anything had changed." If that sounds like pure eco-nut talk (I almost resist noting that McDonough is for the birds), try the question he puts to potential clients when he undertakes any of his architectural projects: "I ask, 'How do we love all children, all species, all time...