Word: life
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ever figured out how to make much of a buck out of Thanksgiving. That is why it stands as a tranquil oasis amid the tawdry tinsel trappings of modern life...
...Threepenny premiered. In this rarefied place, even victims are privileged: a bankrupt baron (David Carroll), an embattled industrialist (Timothy Jerome), a ballerina in decline (Liliane Montevecchi) and her dogsbody, a closet lesbian (Karen Akers). A dying accountant, played by Michael Jeter with a dazzling mix of febrile weakness and life-grabbing gusto, has enough money to live out his waning days in luxury, while a typist (Jane Krakowski) who moves from man to man always has her looks to fall back...
...tidings and an amalgam of turkey-time truisms. There is a stubborn rectitude to the holiday itself, reminiscent of its stiff-necked Pilgrim forbearers. More than any other date on the calendar, Thanksgiving has remained private and personal, devoid of the tinsel trappings that mar the rest of contemporary life. On this ecumenical holiday, Americans are allowed to be as prayerful or as secular as they choose, with no one complaining that they have somehow taken the thanks out of Thanksgiving...
...novelty of an extended family forced to spend the day doing little other than talking, eating and digesting. Distractions are gloriously limited: the malls are closed and the televised sports offerings sparse. Unlike New Year's Eve, no one feels compelled to have the time of one's life or broods unduly when reality fails to conform to these exaggerated expectations. The perfect Thanksgiving is timeless, as families replicate their own familiar rituals, complete with the unconscious re-enactment of parental conflicts and sibling rivalries that may date back to the Eisenhower Administration...
...mettle -- or at least the proper brass -- for the job. He is none other than Tom Wolfe, apostle of the New Journalism, archaeologist of radical chic and, most recently, best-selling author of Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), which gleefully pilloried the greed and corruption of New York City life. Wolfe's summons to revolution, published in the November Harper's, pinpoints a new and surprising target: his fellow American novelists. This latest bonfire is already throwing off a lot of heat...