Word: patinas
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...with Clinton in Hyde Park two days before, U.S. intelligence agents thought they had spotted a problem. Something, it seemed, was amiss with the Russian President. His gait looked awkward; he was walking with difficulty and with his legs spread apart. His skin had taken on a disturbing gray patina. And his face appeared strangely bloated--"puffy," in the words of one American official present. In the minds of the CIA analysts, it all pointed to one thing: Yeltsin was poised on the threshold of another bout of heart trouble that could swiftly land him in the hospital, or worse...
...this film's Van Helsing (lank, loopy Peter Fonda) sleeps inside a grand piano, Nadja is a fairly close reading of the Stoker tale. What distinguishes it is its serenely mannerist glamour. Almereyda shot parts in glorious "Pixelvision"--with a toy camera that gives the most garish images the patina of a dreamscape. Nadja is beyond a midnight movie; it's a late late show for the artistic couch potato...
...high-tech hybrid teas with names like Chrysler Imperial-"a rose named after a car, for God's sake." What's different today, he observes, is that gardening has become such a fad. "You can pour vast sums of money into an acre of land and acquire the patina of sophisticated gardening very quickly." Horticultural social climbers speedily master the passwords. "There is a whole hierarchy of color," he says. "White flowers are considered the most prestigious because you have to be more sophisticated to appreciate white. Blue in a garden is almost as good as white...
...trailblazer in entertaining, eager-to-offend conservatism was William F. Buckley Jr. in the early '60s. His cutting wit had the patina of moral certitude, in a fight his liberal opponents were often too genteel to win. Buckley's heirs (William Safire, Buchanan, P.J. O'Rourke) helped lift from Republicans the stigma of the pruney banker. On the radio side, conservative talk also had '50s and '60s pioneers: cantankerous Joe Pine and Bob Grant. Grant and Limbaugh, who have broadcast back to back on New York City's WABC since 1988, have set the limits -- one growly, the other comic...
...professional schools are looking to go abroad. Such wanderlust among the young is nothing new, of course; travel has traditionally been a means of letting off steam after years of cramming for exams -- a chance to see some sights, live out some romantic fantasies and pick up a cosmopolitan patina before going home to the serious business of life. The difference these days is that young people are leaving the U.S. not for pleasure or the burnishing of their education but for the serious business of life...