Word: metaphoritis
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...never subtly: it is a childlike grin, or a petulant frown, or a quivering rage. In another moment, the man is a sculptor, chiseling a massive imaginary block until it becomes a miniature, a fragment, then dust. Slow fade, then, to emphasize that this is a self-conscious metaphor for the man's own meticulous, minimal art. -By William A. Henry...
...profusion of thick dividing lines and varying column widths fight to keep a reader's attention from straying to the words. The writing often reflects a lack of firm editing. Short reviews offer mostly glib opinion with scant analysis; the writers, moreover, apparently believe that if one metaphor per sentence is good, several are better, even if contradictory. A rambling rumination on "an American loss of nerve" by former New York Times Critic John Leonard has, aptly, a running leitmotiv of Japanese fog. In other articles, the language is occasionally odd, opaque, even incorrect...
United States, however, is much more than a vanishing block of ice. Anderson's theme is nothing less than the dehumanizing crackup of modern society, and she treats it with an elaborate structure of symbols and images. Airplanes are a metaphor for physical risk (she was in a plane crash once), weightlessness and enforced camaraderie; dogs become a symbol of nature in harmonious, trusting alliance with humanity; the telephone is used both as an instrument of impersonal communication and the conveyor of whispered intimacies. Although there is no story line, Anderson strings her ideas together with deft, homey wordplay...
...clear consomme made by Isak Dinesen's African cook, she writes, "You keep the spirit, but discard the rough ingredients: eggshells and raw bones. You then submit them to fire and patience. And the clarity comes at the end like a magic trick." The recipe stands as a metaphor for all well-written Lives...
...strangely quiet denouement to one of the dirtiest, sloppiest, most wasteful takeover battles in U.S. corporate history. At its height, the contest was an unseemly spectacle of "cannibals gorging on one another," in the apt metaphor of Television Commentator Bill Moyers. Last week it ended with a whimper. In meetings at Southfield, Mich., and Morristown, N.J., shareholders of Bendix Corp. and Allied Corp. formally approved the merger of their companies. There was scarcely any dissent, but there was some sober reminiscing. Allied Chairman Edward L. Hennessy Jr., 54, said of the torturous maneuvering leading to the $2.3 billion deal...