Word: motif
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fish, a central part of the house shield, became Cabot's mascot after the Loeb Drama Center donated a 15-foot wooden version of the aquatic creature last year. The fish motif reappeared throughout yesterday's festivities, taking such forms as a Fish-shaped cake, a fishnet hanging from the ceiling by the entrance, and gummiFish and goldFish crackers sprinkled liberally in bowls throughout the reception room...
Nothing could be more banal, but Bartlett attacked this motif from dozens of stylistic angles and levels of attention, from Dufyesque silhouettes of color to gaudy calendar-art cliches, from cautious realist scrutiny to Warholian transcriptions of holiday-snapshot cropping. Sometimes the scene is light and sun-drenched, sometimes it is drowned in bloom and speckles, or elided by pastel smudges, or darkened into an eerie nocturnal calm. There is no favorite medium; Bartlett uses gouache, watercolor, ink, pastel, crayon, oil and pencil with almost equal facility...
Mann also says that his rooms have been centered on a theme. Two years ago he achieved notoriety when he and his roommates decorated with a Garden Party theme, complete with astroturf. "We're working on something new now--a Jackson Pollock motif," he says. In addition to six Pollock-like paint dribble canvases, Mann says that his Claverly suite will soon contain an imitation Pollock...
...where did all of this desperation come from? New York, you say? Good answer, but desperation goes too far back and strays too far afield from New York. For all its Newest Wave, mod feel, Susan traces its anxious female motif back to the gangster melodrama films of the 30's, with one twist. Like the vapid blonds in film noir, our housewife seeks her thrills in a more happening world, but there the comparison must end. Her idol is not a man, but Susan; her goal not to grab her idol's pants, but to wear them...
Which ties it to THE GRADUATE (Harvard Square). Mike Nichols' masterwork whips the desperation motif into full-fledged obsession with a strong 60's tinge. It's Dustin Hoffman's first film role and arguably his best as the boy next door seduced by the mother next door who falls for the girl next door. For freshmen, at least one screening is as perfunctory as first-year writing class--not to be practiced on vacations, but for collegiate literacy the next time someone mumbles, "Just like The Graduate...