Word: mumbo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...most of his books, Butter Battle took eight months to get right. He bristles at the suggestion that such fare takes less talent or work than literature for grownups. "When you write for kids, if you don't write more clearly and concisely and cut out all the mumbo jumbo, you lose your audience," he says. But the result can "seem frightfully barren because they only want the meat of it." If the idea of a Seuss book being barren seems surprising, imagine the reaction of the occasional young visitor bold enough to call on the Wizard of Whimsy...
...magnetic compass from afar but repels and disorients it when approached." The more modest truth, for those with unwiggled needles, is that Penck's imagery is often so obscure that he seems to feel no special responsibility to the system he deploys. A lot of the paintings are mumbo jumbo, and their formal attributes can be remarkably trite-cliché figure-ground reversals, careless scrawly drawing...
...moderate Progressive Federal Party (P.F.P.) attracted voters who regard Botha's cautious moves as a series of improvised compromises that will neither placate blacks nor ultimately prevent armed confrontation with them. P.F.P. Leader Frederick van Zyl Slabbert called Botha "an illusionary figure of reform" and his promises "vague mumbo jumbo." The P.F.P. gained nine seats in the new parliament, bringing its total to 26. They also dealt the Nationalists their worst single blow, defeating Minister of Industries Dawie de Villiers in his Cape Town constituency. It was the first time an incumbent National Party minister had failed...
...Russell, who has become the high-brow equivalent of Peter Bogdanovich, a professional--yet always employed--failure. In his last effort, he heaped so much simpleminded Significance on top of Tommy that he destroyed a quality score. With States, he takes an already overwrought script and ladles enough technical mumbo-jumbo onto it to make the film almost unwatchable at times...
...over the mouthpiece, asked if I could come over and type my story up before going off to Pushkin Square. Alas, B.J. was at the office, so I handed the typed copy to her there. Too bad. I felt I had let the side down. I liked all the mumbo-jumbo stuff, but my hand writing betrayed...