Word: prankishness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Mamet's wit at first appears equally prankish -- the stage is ablaze with hellfire and brimstone, aroar with howls and explosions, and the devil's chief clerk (Steve Goldstein) doggedly keeps trying to tell a "two Jews in a bar" joke -- but he has more serious matters in mind. His subject is how to live morally in this world rather than penitently in the next, and the dynamic that fascinates him is why people make excuses, time and again, rather than attempt to be better. The title character, played by Treat Williams, is the conscience-pricked but ultimately expedient movie...
...screen. Scientific American Columnist A.K. Dewdney, who published the first article on computer viruses, describes what he calls a "nerd syndrome" common among students of science and technology. Says Dewdney: "They live in a very protected world, both socially and emotionally. They leave school and carry with them their prankish bent...
Second: Peace, good tickle-brain, thinkest thou the brawny lacketh brain? To denote the 50th anniversary of the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, good Master Steve Garvey of the San Diego Padres, and his most puissant teammate, Master Tony Gwynn, are posing for a prankish publicity poster to help the theater. Sirrah, they are patrons both...
Customs agents suspected the real buyer: the Soviets. Aided by West German customs officials, they found a manifest for the laser with a most incriminating address: a physics lab in Moscow. Cormerford and Adamski, charged last week, each face up to seven years in prison. Prankish federal agents decided to send along the Soviet-bound parcels-sort of. They filled the crates with 700 Ibs. of concrete and, inside one, tucked a two-word note, in plainest English...
...nothing impressed Thompson like the arm. It was black and clad in green fatigues. Loren Jenkins of the Washington Post saw it in a garbage can outside his hotel. "My God," he yelled, "look at that." It turned out to be a prosthesis, apparently planted by a prankish MP, who splattered it with ketchup for dramatic effect. "We hung Goebbels for jokes like that," declared Thompson. He demanded an explanation. An Army public affairs officer told him, with a straight face: "Sir, that's our disarmament policy...