Word: joking
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...past when the out-of-town driver, lost on Boston's streets, was a good joke," said the Boston Globe in a recent series on traffic. "That confused visitor, halted in the middle of an intersection, is likely to be the - direct cause of a traffic jam that extends several blocks . . . Get some signs up -- and make sure they are readable and make sense...
Before it was even enacted it was something of a joke, laughingly likened to the girl who, unable to say no, buys a chastity belt and throws away the key. In December, Congress passed, and President Reagan signed into law, the Gramm- Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. Cast as an amendment to a measure raising the U.S. debt ceiling above $2 trillion, Gramm-Rudman was the sugarcoating to help embarrassed Congressmen swallow that gargantuan figure. The law required that annual federal deficits, now hovering at the $200 billion level, be reduced in stages...
...Sentimental Journey or a poker game played to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Perhaps his most famous creation was the Nairobi Trio, a pantomime band of musicians in ape costumes, derbies and overcoats who mechanically plunked out a nonsensical tune like figures on a music box. The laboriously articulated joke came when one ape bopped another on the head at crucial points in the tune. The humor was too bizarre to explain, but the bit had the grace and precision of a comic sonata...
...they have problems growing grass, so they paint the ground green"), remembers the greatest catch by a fan and includes the autobiographies of some less than celebrated players. Rocky Bridges: "The more I played (with the Dodgers), the more it became obvious that no one there could take a joke. My batting average." Greg Minton: Growing up, "I never even thought about playing professional baseball. I wanted to do something meaningful--I wanted to be a surfer." Marc Hill: "The team's press guide listed among the highlights of my career that 'Hill did not appear in the '83 playoffs...
Just as in that fourth grade joke, the play makes you feel as though you would rather laugh and be done with it, thereby absolving yourself from all responsibility for the perversions. But after it's over the thoughts it provoked remain...