Word: minuets
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...emptive attack by Moscow or an all-out war, the Chinese were looking for a counter-threat to Soviet pressure. At that very moment, the U.S. was subtly signaling Peking that it was interested in a fundamental change in their relationship. There followed what Kissinger calls "an intricate minuet, so stylized that neither side needed to bear the onus of an initiative, so elliptical that existing relationships on both sides were not jeopardized." The complex maneuvers began paying off. In October 1970, Nixon asked Pakistan's President Yahya Khan, who was about to visit Peking, to let the Chinese know...
...minuet went on, and several subtle signals were exchanged, including an invitation to a U.S. Ping Pong team to visit China. On April 27, 1971, the real breakthrough occurred. Another note from Chou, transmitted via the Pakistani channel, said: "The Chinese government reaffirms its willingness to receive publicly in Peking a special envoy of the President of the U.S. (for instance, Mr. Kissinger) or the U.S. Secretary of State or even the President himself for a direct meeting and discussions." The next morning Nixon told Kissinger to get ready for a secret visit to Peking. But shortly before...
...production suffers from severe weaknesses. Director Greg Farrell seems to find no distinction between projection and bellowing. Thus the tone of the entire play is too loud, like a minuet turned to disco level. There is also a strange mish-mash of modern and antique costuming that, despite its cuteness, is distracting. And though designer Tamar Zimmerman constructed an adequately elegant sitting-room for the only set, her lighting often darkens half the stage, shadowing actors at key moments...
Anywhere in China, the banquet follows protocolar rules as rigid as those of the minuet or mah-jongg. Beside every place setting are three glasses: a big one for beer and two shot-size glasses that will briefly contain mao-tai, a colorless 160-proof liquor that could power China's first moon shot, and a red, rice-based wine that tastes like a blend of Campari and cough syrup. The beer, bitter and warm, is served immediately and may be immediately sipped. The mao-tai and the wine, however, are reserved for toasts, which soon ensue, copiously, capaciously...
...AUTUMN IS dying hard in Cambridge; already there is January in the air. But for now, the Yard fills up with students walking back and forth in an endless minuet of form to library to class, stopping perhaps to sail back an errant frisbee. It is hard to get very concerned about anything in such an idyllic setting; contradictions are not so apparent. There are other streets in Cambridge that are not so pretty, and they are only blocks away. But then, Cambridge is a town full of contradictions. It is a city that contains a colony of the most...