Word: machinas
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...Calcutta! and the judges who smothered Caligula, President Carter and Associates have been searching for a way to close the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's smash hit. An attempt to airlift the 53 performers en masse from the theater wings failed when a pulley strap of the deus ex machina snagged on a piece of scenery...
...unarmed, heavily guarded cons break out of a maximum-security fortress surrounded by the treacherous waters of San Francisco Bay? The answer to this question proves to be as ingenious, precise and exciting as one might wish. There are no fudged details or deus ex machina plot developments to nudge the story to its climax...
...rape Silvia in the woods only to be discovered by Valentine. Here Shakespeare resorts to implausible devices to save this play as comedy, because no sooner does Proteus make a lame apology than Valentine forgives him all, and offers to give him Silvia in the bargain. Deus ex Machina, in the form of the Duke, restores order, and all the right couples reunite happily, apparently suffering from collective amnesia as far as the past four acts are concerned...
Mitch disemboweling a culprit in print is a sight only brave readers should witness. "Some of the stuff we have to read causes cramps and vertigo," he mutters, warming himself up to a fine frenzy over "the works of Scriblerus X. Machina," as he dubs the bulletins from the chairman of the college's communications department, or perhaps the "feats of Clay," as he cruelly pun-points the communiqués of one Glassboro dean. "A detailed analysis," he worries out loud, "might well cause irreversible brain damage." But he risks it. One writer's offenses against...
...officials have tried, as usual, to prevent any exaggerated expectations of the outcome at Camp David. Said one: "There is no magic formula. On the basic questions, nothing has changed. There'll be no deus ex machina coming up with a great plan." In fact, even a modest success is far from assured. It will depend in large part on the stern and cantankerous figure of Menachem Begin?and on whether any mixture of pressure and persuasion can induce the onetime guerrilla fighter to lessen his intransigency and make at least some concessions for the sake of a settlement...