Word: neon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Still, those who predicted four years ago that Castro's regime was doomed have been proved wrong. The economy has emerged from the abyss. At the depths of the special period, the country had almost no petroleum, electricity, food, transport or production. Today Havana blooms with chicly renovated hotels, neon signs, crowded restaurants and nightclubs. The U.S. dollar has swallowed the Cuban peso. Farmer's markets and mom-and-pop entrepreneurs fuel a production boom of sorts. Cars outnumber bicycles again in Havana, and many of them are 1990s Nissans, not 1950s Chevys. Foreign investors not only share ownership...
...again. If you believe that weathered saying, it might help to explain the shiny new face that director Jose Zayas and the Gilbert and Sullivan Players have put on their new production of The Mikado, one of the greatest comic hits of the G&S repertoire: neon-haired schoolgirls straight out of Japanese animation flirt with sharp-dressed business executives juggling briefcases and cell phones. Of course, some also claim that the more things change, the more they stay the same. And that's probably the real reason that this clever, high-energy production is just so gosh-darned entertaining...
...yellow fluorescent glow. "If we had known how big Airborne was going to get," says Wilmington Mayor Nick Eveland, "we might not have been so welcoming." As Airborne grew, so did Rombach Avenue, the commercial strip that links the overnight-mail complex to downtown. Rombach became "Hamburger Alley," a neon riot of fast-food outlets and discount retailers like Wal-Mart. Eveland, who has held the part-time mayoral post since 1984, now says he wishes Wilmington had imposed design standards on Hamburger Alley to limit the blight, but at the time he feared doing so would slow the town...
Above all, though, the tongue-in-cheek chapter titles and neon-lit campy details capture the novel's overarching irony. As humor is Hartley's means of survival, it is also his means of narration: "Just when I'd decided I had the soul of a drudge, just when it came clearest I was the muddy flower-peddler, not her aftermath-princess, just when I felt that Immortality would only know me as a helpmeet, just when I'd gained six pounds, Farce, as it will when your happy-quota shades off into urban gray, intervened: all pinks, oranges, reds...
...decor leaves a lot to be desired, unless one is a fan of neon signs, plastic tablecloths and tacky wall murals. Don't expect to find chopsticks (without a special request) or matching silverware either. If a patron survives the steep staircase down to the basement, the bathrooms are even more repulsive, stinking of human fertilizer...