Word: nero
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...analyzing the themes of late Picasso, but there are moments when he goes right off the edge. The last period, he declares, "is not a 'swan song,' but the apotheosis of his career." A ten-dollar word: it means transformation into a god. It is what mad Nero dreamed of; and now, on the theological authority vested in the Guggenheim Museum and its trustees, it has come to "Ol' Cojones...
...Vaticana bibis, bibis venenum," wrote the Roman satirist Martial in the 1st century: "Drink Vatican and you drink poison." Martial was writing of the wine produced in the neighborhood, which at the time was more famous as the site of the Vatican Circus, where Nero threw Christians to the lions after the great fire that swept Rome in A.D. 64. On such engaging historical notes opens The Vatican (Abrams; 398 pages; $60), a book that will do much to fill in the fragmentary picture that even dedicated travelers take away from this tiny (108 acres) yet labyrinthine city-state. This...
Dictators' pastimes are far more striking because they often contrast with the rulers' normal behavior. Nero, no fiddler incidentally, did play the lyre and sing to vast, appreciative audiences. Hitler was a painter who started out doing postcard-size works of art and, as his career improved, worked his way up to large water-colors of wartime destruction: rubble, crumbled walls, caved-in roofs. Eventually he created his own subjects, a rare chance for an artist. According to his lackey, the featherbrained Putzi Hanfstaengl, Hitler also adored whistling. His best numbers were Harvard fight songs, which Putzi...
...show a light heart, however, and has played the accordion at dances. It would be a sad end to so carefree a hobby if Amin were now discovered because someone happened to overhear Lady of Spain. Still, the mind is cheered by the image of Amin on his accordion, Nero on his lyre, Hitler whistling away. Where a band like this would play offers problems, but its repertoire would surely include I've Gotta...
...reach this pinnacle? Ice cream was perfected in the U.S., as all honest chauvinists know, but it was not invented here. Nero liked to eat flavored ice, according to Paul Dickson's scholarly and amusing The Great American Ice Cream Book, and in the 13th century Marco Polo returned from the Orient with a recipe for some sort of frozen dessert with milk in it. Catherine de Medicis appears to have introduced sherbets and ices, possibly ice cream, to France in 1533, when she arrived there with her retinue to marry the future Henry II. Beethoven, during the mild...