Word: manic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...driving this thing? More than anybody else it's a manic, shaven-headed character named J Allard. (Yes, it's just the one letter.) In 1993, as a 25-year-old wunderkind Microsoftie, Allard wrote an 11-page memo that almost single-handedly persuaded Gates that maybe personal computers should be able to connect to something known as the Internet. Now a 36-year- old V.P., Allard is one of the few people who can get the Microsoft juggernaut to change direction; he's known as one of the "Baby Bills," the company's young up-and-comers, and Gates...
...Where the Truth Lies can be quickly dismissed. There's piquancy in the plot (from a Rupert Holmes novel), about a blond corpse discovered in the hotel suite of a comedy team - smooth Vince Collins (Colin Firth) and manic Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon) - and the efforts of a young journalist (Alison Lohmann) to solve the case. Such a tale, set in two periods, the glitzy 1950s and shaggy 70s, might have had some period effervescence. But the concoction here is flatter than a long-opened bottle of sham...
Randall Jarrell never received the attention given his flamboyantly talented and troubled friends. Robert Lowell's struggles with manic-depression and mental institutions found their way into his later, confessional poetry. John Berryman's alcoholism was legendary while he lived, and his suicide made headlines. In contrast, Jarrell refused to exercise his poetic licenses. He did not drink or philander; his first marriage ended in an amicable divorce after twelve years, and his second lasted until his death...
Jarrell kept his disparate natures tightly linked until shortly after his 50th birthday. Then, a depression followed by medication led to manic episodes that landed him in a hospital. A terrible irony ensued. He saw a hostile review of his latest book of poems; several days later the onetime scourge of other poets slashed his left wrist. He recovered and picked up his normal life. Within a few months, while walking along a North Carolina highway shortly after dusk, he was sideswiped and killed by a car. The official verdict was accidental death; the rumor of suicide arose and persisted...
...Amateurs begins as straightforward coverage of the manic scramble for a handful of spots on the 1984 U.S. Olympic rowing team: "It was not a celebrated event ... no tickets were sold, and the community in which it was held, Princeton, New Jersey, largely ignored it." But a subtext soon makes itself apparent. Within a few pages the book becomes not merely an examination and celebration of one of the few authentic amateur sports. It is also a close analysis of addiction. For these rowers are, to a man, driven, single-minded, type-A combatants who make better companions...