Word: outlandish
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Hope, in Emily Dickinson's dictum, is the thing with feathers, and so it develops on Zenkali. If Osbert gets his way, the Mockery Bird really will die out, and with it the island. For, in a chain of interdependence as outlandish as nature itself, the Mockeries feed on the fruit of the Ombu tree, remove its outer layer and allow the seed to germinate. The tree grows, plays host to a moth that fertilizes the Amela tree-upon which the island's economy depends. Will the London plutocrats get their way? Will Zenkali perish? Will Peter entice...
...appalled by sports' high finances. (Cincinnati has surrendered its outfield in toto to New York-Ken Griffey and Dave Collins to the Yankees, George Foster to the Mets-for contracts amounting to more than $20 million.) But they are growing used to grand sums, not to mention outlandish arbitrations. Mike Flanagan, the Baltimore pitcher, submitted a figure of $485,000 and then found out that the Orioles' recommendation to the arbitrator was $500,000. Deferring to their superior judgment, Mike instantly gave...
...financed by the ACLU. Indeed, in modern popular culture there is no more distinctive aesthetic than the gay one. As defined by Canadian Critic Lawrence O'Toole, it includes a taste for grand romantic gestures, excesses of "spirit, personality and desire" and "a refusal to apologize for outlandish behavior." This spirit, O'Toole argues, informed the mannered and stylized American comedies, musicals and romances of the '30s and '40s, many of which are now considered classics. These days he finds it notably lacking. Of the current crop, Victor/ Victoria perhaps aspires to some of it, though...
Still, the publishing business has endured crises before. The paperback revolution of the '50s was perceived as a threat to hardback publishing; so were television, outlandish contracts, school and library closings, and federal cutbacks. The business survived them all. And today it is moving, however slowly, toward a new reality-although the latest paper chase sounds like a fairy tale: the Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear deal. The term was coined to describe Tom Robbins' 1980 intermountain fantasy, Still Life with Woodpecker. The book was published simultaneously in a $12.95 hardcover (Papa) and a $6.95 quality paperback...
...Kremlin succession: The Soviet Union is in deep crisis. Its economy is in serious trouble. Soviet power is overextended globally, and there is mounting disaffection among diverse social and ethnic groups. When [President Leonid] Brezhnev goes, his successors will face two choices. They can keep making outlandish appropriations for defense and engaging in global adventures, or they can face up to their internal problems, turning away from military expansionism toward reform of the domestic system. Russia has experienced throughout its history periods when the government had to turn inward to cope with its problems. The idea that the greatness...