Word: mirthfulness
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...against am t and "it's me." Connoisseurs savor genuine follies like those of the new priests of thanatology, who describe dying as terminal living," or the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare who explained a $61.7 million cut in social services as "advance downward adjustments." But whatever mirth there may be in these and other buffooneries, euphemisms, pomposities tautologies evasions and rococo lies, they are also signals of a new brainlessness in public language that coincides with a frightening ineptitude for reading and writing among the young...
Unglossed with second thoughts or self-justifications, Wilson's impressions sometimes recall the heartless mirth of an otherwise very dissimilar writer of the period, Evelyn Waugh. If friends got divorced, or somebody disappeared, or a girl slit her wrist with the top of a spaghetti can-well, the other revelers could not pause too long over the misfortune lest they lose their grip and go under too. Wilson himself almost did. In 1929 he suffered a nervous breakdown, probably from the cumulative strain of deadlines and tangled romances. While in the sanitorium he became addicted briefly to the drug...
Graveyard Mirth. On a trumped-up charge that some sportive local bloods have attempted to rape her, Silia demands that Leone issue a dueling challenge to one of them, a Marquis Miglioriti. The code requires that a husband avenge an insult to his wife's honor, so Leone accedes and presses Guido, who also happens to be his good friend, into serving as his second. Guido issues an unconditional challenge, only too slyly aware that the marquis is both a crack pistol shot and a master swordsman. But Leone makes the final move on the chessboard of fate...
...polished cast paced by the sensitive honesty of John McMartin's performance makes the evening hum with suspense. And Pirandello lends it the ironic graveyard mirth of a man who saw life as a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. ∎T.E.K...
...some regal praise for portly Comic Harry Secombe, veteran of Ihe BBC's Goon Show and author of the recently published Twice Brightly. Freely admitting his "hopeless bias" in Secombe's favor, the rookie reviewer disclosed to his readers that he "was shaken with spasms of helpless mirth al frequent intervals" over Secombe's novel. For his 635-word article, which was sent to Punch's office immaculately typed on Buckingham Palace stationery, Prince Charles received a not-so-princely standard fee of less than $150. Explained Punch Literary Editor Miles Kingston: "It would be ridiculous...