Word: monstrous
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...creation, but there is none of the self-doubt. A whole vital dimension, the fear of personal failure, is lost to the character. Finch's Macbeth is finally adolescent--petulant, introverted, guilt-ridden. Similarly, Francesca Annis's Lady Macbeth is pale and lovely sentimental; not cold-blooded, hardly monstrous. In an early central scene, her persuasion of Macbeth to the regicide--the sexual taunts of the Shakespeare are replaced with tears. The two are here more Romeo and Juliet than Macbeth and his Lady, and FrancescaAnnis more a product of the Hefnerian, than the Shakespearean, imagination...
...dealing with Oldenburg's unbuildable projects is to see them as monstrous parodies of this situation. In 1965, he dreamed up a monument for upper Central Park in the form of a giant teddy bear: this woebegone and helpless image was, for Oldenburg, "an incarnation of white conscience; as such, it fixes white New York with an accusing glance from Harlem but also one glassy-eyed from desperation. This may be why I chose a toy with the 'amputated' effect of teddy paws-handlessness signifies society's frustrating lack of tools...
...looked around and saw the United States transformed into a hideous monument to these men and their beliefs: cities everywhere run like kingdoms, filled with high-rises for the A students and rubble for the rest; an electoral system designed to preclude any real choice by those voting; a monstrous war begun by executive order and designed by the former Dean of the Harvard Faculty and his bright young cronies. Our rebellion was, in part, an attempt to destroy the identities which Harvard had prepared for us as administrators of the A students' empire, to reach out and proclaim...
Should it come about, it is conceivable that hundreds of thousands of dollars could be saved in travel expenses and the more monstrous requirements of packaging and selling the candidate on commercial television. Men of means might even be lured to the shadow bivouac at their own expense. More important, the energy of the candidates would be husbanded and expended on meaningful effort. The public would be spared political oversell. The successful challenger presumably would arise on the morning after his election reasonably clear of eye and steady of limb. Within a few hours, he would confirm the designation...
...much as you do, but I would suggest the following rule of conduct: When dealing with subjects of investigation other than human beings, let researchers feel as free to advance hypotheses as they wish, whatever the evidence (or lack thereof) may be; but when dealing with propositions so monstrous and destructive to human relations and the cause of human dignity as that of hereditary racial inferiority, let this freedom be tempered by the utmost caution and sense of responsibility. In the case of your Atlantic article this, it seems to me, would have called for a careful and extensive discussion...