Word: mordant
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...rural poor, wrote that his favorite things about going to school at Harvard were "Boston Common with an actor and hangover and peanuts and pigeons, midafternoon; the New England Boxing Tournament, for steady unsparing (if unskilful) ferocity; East Boston for swell houses, stunted trees struck through with mordant street lamps, and general diapidation...
...Chico, Prinze gets to try out his wisecracks on the crusty old bigot (Jack Albertson) who owns the garage he works in. Chico's humor, like Freddie's, is mordant but never really malicious. Says Prinze: "Chico's made something of a life that could have left him very bitter. He could have been anything from a pusher to a pocketbook snatcher...
Bruce's routines tapped the ghetto idiom and jazz slang of the fifties black jazz musicians with whom he gigged, scored junk and shot up. He mined the radio shows and grade B movies of the thirties and forties to forge his early mordant satires. Finally, Bruce found his most comprehensive metaphor for human experience in the hustling world of show business itself. As Goldman reconstructs and distills the creative process, Bruce's greatest work would invariably pose the question...
...inspiration behind these noms de plume is WWD Publisher John Fairchild. Most Esterhazy items are written by Fairchild himself (he is usually "Louise"), though Adelita's effort was the work of Karen Winner. The habit of killing off Esterhazys springs from Fairchild's mordant interpretation of the term "once-in-a-lifetime assignment." Says Editor Michael Coady: "It's a fun thing we have around here." Hungarian monarchists on the staff are said to be particularly amused...
...Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, as well as several high officials who are not Jewish. He went on to name local people, besides Murphy, whom the "army" had considered kidnaping. The list included Atlanta's recently installed and amply girthed mayor, Maynard Jackson, and in a flash of mordant wit the kidnaper quipped: "We decided against the mayor because he wouldn't fit in the trunk...