Word: pit
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...Beardsley points out in the catalog, the search for an identifiable American style was one of the great cultural fantasies of the 1950s and '60s. Once found, it was assumed, such a consensus would enable Americans to pit their art with confidence against the School of Paris. And it was found in abstract expressionism and then in color-field painting -- both high styles and, in theory at least, sociologically neutral. Thus, writes Curator Beardsley, there appeared an "unwritten presumption that the nearer an artist aspires to the level of high art, the more leached out will become the ethnic content...
...that shook comfortable perceptions with irony and contradictions. When Fussell goes to the races at the Indianapolis Speedway, for example, he begins with the standard derisive sociology about the "middles" in the reserved seats and the black-leather set that gathers in the muddy infield known as the Snake Pit. But by the time he leaves, Fussell is a fan of what he sees as a dangerous ritual that provides an outlet for an unruly national spirit...
...millennium: "This is a society facing social disintegration. They have a youth that is disaffected, an intolerable abortion rate and a serious alcohol and drug problem." Religious believers, points out this observer, "tend to be constructive members of society. I don't think any Soviet leader now can pit himself against the church." One of the Vatican delegates described Gorbachev's situation a bit more bluntly: "He realizes he needs more than the party. He needs the people...
None of the films that followed Splash -- Bachelor Party, Volunteers, The Money Pit, Nothing in Common and Dragnet -- attracted quite the attention that his first hit had. Big will almost certainly bring the spotlight back, and his next two pictures, Punchline, the story of a stand-up comic, and The 'Burbs, a dark comedy about a suburbanite's fixation on his weird neighbors, may even raise Hanks' asking price, which is now something more than $1 million a picture...
...milking pit, Mike Brentz, a burly offshore oil worker, lifts a snake from a garbage can and places it on a small center table. Carefully he flattens and immobilizes its head with a hook and picks it up just behind the jaw. He sticks the tail between his legs to keep it from coiling free and hangs the snake's fangs over a glass beaker. When he squeezes, a teaspoon of venom drips out. Then he walks around the pit giving spectators a close-up of the snake's satiny pink mouth, its curved fangs, black tongue. When Kelly Head...