Word: musing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There are some examples of successful near-absolute monarchies. For instance, in Monaco, Prince Rainier reigns supreme and uncontested, his principality in the spotlight since he married the late Hollywood actress and Hitchcock muse, Grace Kelly. In this tiny Mediterranean country the size of New York City's Central Park, to be Monegasque is to lead a tax-and-crime-free life. Monegasques appreciate the fact that it is only the Monegasque princely family that keeps Monaco intact since once the family dies out, Monaco reverts to France...
...most of the world, Gloria Estefan is a pop superstar, the goddess of salsa, the muse of Miami. But in the city dubbed Little Havana because of its large Cuban-exile population, Estefan, 40, is more than that. She is the emotion-laden embodiment of the Cuban-American dream. Her family fled Castro's communist regime when she was just two years old, and today thousands of Cuban exiles celebrate her success as though it were their own. Gloria, they exult, is the "glory" of Cuba...
Worse, still, than losing a lover is losing a muse. Gently, lovingly, at other times with parasitic intention or vampiric intensity, men have turned to women for inspiration. F. Scott Fitzgerald had Zelda, Rodin had Camille Claudel, Picasso had a distaff palette; and Bob Dylan, one of the most intriguing, important, irascible figures in rock, had whom? On Time Out of Mind, his first CD of new, self-penned material in seven years and his most consistently rewarding album since the '70s, Dylan seems to be haunted by an imaginary, unnamed muse who has come and gone, leaving him loveless...
When it comes to playing God, of course, cloning the images of hapless dead celebrities is not in the same league as mucking with actual genes. But the question of CG humans does allow designers to muse like college freshmen about the nature of reality and still call it work. For instance, effects artists can give you long disquisitions on skin, its subtle sheen, the complexity of pores. To a computer, it's the little things that are most confusing about humanity. "The closer you get to reality, the harder it is to make something look real," explains Muren. "When...
DIED. DORA MAAR, 89, Pablo Picasso's muse whose relationship with the painter inspired such works as Weeping Woman, 1937; in Paris...