Word: phantomed
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...book, says Vonnegut, "is about what life feels like to me." That feeling might be described as the phantom ache an amputee sometimes has where his limb once was. Vonnegut is keenly aware of the separation between his present and his past-the Indianapolis where he grew up surrounded by members of a large, cultured and comfortable German-American family. Indeed, Slapstick begins with a recollection of flying home a few years ago to attend the funeral of a favorite uncle. Predictably, Vonnegut finds the city has become just another "interchangeable part in the American machine...
Newton remains part interstellar phantom, part earthbound Howard Hughes. He watches a dozen television sets at once. Newton is also a curiously vulnerable superbeing. He is intrigued by a Southwestern hotel clerk named Mary-Lou (Candy Clark), dogged by a curious scientist named Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn), whom he eventually hires and who betrays him. Newton plans to use his vast industrial resources to build a spacecraft that will return him to his dying planet, the tiny population of which will then be borne to earth. This idea does not go down well on terra firma. People in high places...
...Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie at 4:35 and 8:20; Phantom of Liberty...
...claim "isn't this surrealistic." Bunuel's new surrealism has none of the acid critical touch that characterized his earlier films like Viridiana or Belle de Jour. The same obsessive themes appear--bizarre sexual fetishes, anti-clericalism, absurdly stiff social rituals--without being integrated into any larger perspective. Phantom of Liberty is even worse. When we are shown aunt-nephew incest side by side with sadomasochistic monks and nuns in a French country inn, or when we see an elaborate fantasy in which people at a formal dinner sit about publicly on toilets and retire to a dark stall...
Following the checklist, the student porter gathers the needed implements. Mop bucket, mop. He is well aware of the danger involved in performing his function at this time of day. Playtex gloves. Some people are still sleeping. Sponge. They know him only as an early morning phantom who arrives with clinking pail on tip-toe. Broom. He recalls the morning he knocked, no answer, and entered, to find a couple obviously not expecting him, the girl screamed, the guy gurgled forth obscenities and the student porter dove into friendly porcelain territory locking the door behind him. Squeegee. And then there...