Word: plainness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That encounter took place near Hattin, within sight of the Golan Heights. Saladin had assembled a pan-Islamic force of 12,000 cavalry near Lake Tiberias. The Christians were lured on a long July march across Galilee's parched Plain of Lubiya. Saladin had the right bait--he had besieged the lakeside town in which a knight's wife was staying--and the Crusader force, frying in heavy armor and unable to fight its way to the water, was overwhelmed by the Muslims. When the Christian knights retreated to the coastal fortress of Tyre, Saladin turned his army inland. Jerusalem...
...number of Beanie Babies. But there's also luxe (usually a few Rolls-Royces are going at any given moment). Poke around and you'll come across the impressively old (dinosaur teeth!), the bizarrely new (who really needs to bid on last month's TV Guide?) and the just plain weird (anyone for a metal BEWARE OF ATTACK RATS sign?). And you will find thriving subcultures that collect things you didn't know anyone bothered to collect. Really, people: antique waffle irons...
...even more summary. Velazquez paints shapes that look so obsolete that they're almost abstract--the massive cornrowing of the brown wig, for instance, and the mysterious, icily translucent lace butterflies that adorn it. He paints paint, or, more exactly, cosmetics: that pale mask flushed with matte pink, a plain little girl--she was a teenager then--propelled onto the international market by Papa's political schemes. Such portraits were made to be sent abroad to the relevant ambassadors, in the hope of arranging a suitable marriage. In due course, in the year that Velazquez died, 1660, the infanta...
...kids know where babies come from and that a rainbow is just light refracted through water droplets. Maybe this is a good thing, but it sure has taken some of the magic out of parenting, not to mention childhood. Christmas, however, is a time when believers in the plain truth should consider applying some varnish. Parents might want to explain away the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Elvis' ghost and E.T. But we shouldn't be too literal about Santa Claus...
Reynolds Price offers a simple solution to the din of millennium madness: respond to the quiet voice of Jesus [RELIGION, Dec. 6]. Price eloquently rewrites the Gospel in words too plain to miss. His work shows that an individual's honest approach will not be turned away. This is one of TIME's most powerful pieces. DENNIS MISNER Grants Pass...