Word: monkeyed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...WHERE'S THE MONKEY...
...Zimmerman, has chiseled her story from a megalithic 16th century Chinese novel, Hsi Yu Chi. It tells of a spiritual quest, drawing on the legend of a 7th century monk who journeyed to India to bring Buddhist scriptures back to China. A trio of supernatural familiars attend him: a monkey, a pig and a river spirit. They are archetypal figures, as timeless as the Nereids who rescued Jason and the Argonauts, or the three sidekicks who accompanied Judy Garland into...
...picaresque narrative might be described as a cross between the Odyssey and the Arabian Nights. Or perhaps as a shaggy-dog story about a monkey: Douglas Hara, playing the monkey spirit, often steals the show. He's a cartwheeling, somersaulting, scaffold-climbing presence who occasionally releases, in his rare moments of repose, a pleasant simian cooing. The production abounds in lovely visual effects. Blending silks and spotlights, dragons and conveyor belts, Zimmerman serves up the Court of the Jade Emperor, a courier from Buddha, a ghost-king. There are slow stretches-much of the burlesque falls flat-but the overall...
...mermaid." Barnum, not quite certain himself what the creature truly was, gave it to a naturalist friend for confirmation of its mermaid status. In his autobiography, Barnum describes his friend's incredulous reaction: "He could not conceive how it could have been manufactured, for he never saw a monkey with such peculiar teeth, arms, hand & c., and he never saw a fish with such peculiar fins." However, the naturalist told Barnum it must be manufactured, not because he could prove it, but because he didn't "believe in mermaids." Barnum's response: "That's no reason at all, and therefore...
...doctor to let a few of his friends, including several reporters, have a look at it. And, as Barnum smugly notes in his autobiography, everyone was convinced that it was a genuine article, "nor is this to be wondered at, since, if it was a work of art, the monkey and fish were so nicely conjoined that no human eye could detect the point where the junction was formed." He goes on to describe the minute fish scales visible underneath the monkey hair; the hands, teeth and fingers, distinctly different from a monkey's; and the fins placed differently from...