Word: magie
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...beneath the sea. He holds his flute still, as a drowning man clutches a straw. There could be no greater gulf than that which separates Stuart's Flautist from the Black King painted by Hieronymus Bosch. The King is Caspar, the Moorish monarch and one of the Three Magi. He dominates Bosch's Epiphany at the Prado Museum in Madrid. The other Magi kneel to adore Jesus. Caspar, by contrast, stands splendidly erect. He is waiting to offer a silver coffer of myrrh: burial ointment nestled in a symbolic world egg. Within himself, one feels, Caspar holds greater...
...nature is watchful, balanced. He may have been the first of the Magi to see the Star of Bethlehem. His beauty is ideal; the painter shaped him to inspire. Seen at some distance, Caspar looms like a tower of onyx robed in slashed summer clouds. Peer closer; he becomes a full-lipped flower bitten by the sun, bleeding pollen...
People working for communications and science-oriented companies, by contrast, usually dress with more of a flourish, especially if they hold down creative jobs. Like other women at Manhattan's freewheeling Jack Tinker ad agency, Commercial Producer Magi Durham likes to wear bell-bottomed trousers and men's sport shirts to the office. Her bearded husband Guy, associate creative director of Daniel & Charles ad agency, sometimes goes to work in blue jeans, other times in Edwardian suits and wide, polka-dot ties. Says Magi admiringly: "He swings on two lengths of the pendulum...
...mink pillbox hat. "The year I didn't fill out a card, my husband gave me a sink garbage disposer." The system would have forestalled the contretemps of O'Henry's young husband and wife in his celebrated story of mismatched sacrifice, The Gift of the Magi. But if the art of giving is to survive, there ought to be room for such mistakes-and such sentimentalists...
Today, the gift of time is perhaps the most important, even if it is ritualized: any society needs rituals. The true gift of the Magi was not the myrrh, frankincense and gold but the time and trouble they took to bring them. The effort -and its modern-day equivalent of hours at crowded counters-can also be a testimony of concern, also a gift of self...