Word: leites
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Since Sagan clearly wrote the book for a general public, he should have trodden gingerly when he encountered political and religious issues. His consistent bumbling in these spheres is the unintentional leit-motif of Broca's Brain. When in doubt. Sagan shies away from the secular implications of his lofty ideas. In the course of declaring, for example, that we will one day have robots for garbagemen (at current prices, the human version are "expendable"). Sagan mentions hastily that "the effective re-employment of those human beings must, of course be arranged; but...that should not be too difficult." Such...
...Pelleas et Melisande complained of the work's "constant nebulosity" and of its "monotonous recitative, unbearable and moribund," remarks which are critical failures because they judge Debussy's original work by precisely the musical conventions which he renounced. His opera eschews the sumptuous polyphony, turgid mythologism, city-directory leit-motives, and vertiginous romanticism of the Ring. Debussy seeks a deeper organicism in which music is not grafted onto drama or drama is used as suggestion for musical contours, but rather where music and poetry are absorbed one into the other to yield an operatic metier of innocence and foreboding disciplined...
Hurt understanding was his leit-motif...
...leit-motif of German diplomacy between the wars was not aggression: it was Hitler's perception that the Western Powers would let drop the plums he was after without too much shaking, if he would only be patient. Hitler's genius as a diplomat resided in this incredible patience -- and in such confidence in himself, that he was able to win battle after battle in the war of nerves by out-waiting his opponents. "Right to the end," says Taylor, "Hitler did not make demands; he graciously accepted what was offered by others...
...music itself, it cleverly combines astute humor with unpretentious craftsmanship. Westergaard's sly use of leit-motives and his jazz-like rhythms supply an effective and sardonic commentary on the action. The seven-piece orchestra played the difficult score incisively...