Word: prankster
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Wright and other self-exiled American Negroes, Author Baldwin does not pretend to have found the good, free life in Europe. On the contrary. He tells how, in Paris, he was clapped into jail at Christmastime when a prankster friend left a stolen sheet in his hotel room. Baldwin describes in chilling detail the glacial speed of French due process of law, the dank, verminous cells, the human derelicts ("faces the color of lead and the consistency of oatmeal''), and the laughter of the French court which released him, "the laughter of those who consider themselves...
...pretty boy with fat red cheeks," who can convulse his playmates by mimicking the rabbi's manner of taking snuff, or bring a glint of pride to his bearded father's eyes by citing chapter and verse in a Bible exam. Since he is more prankster than scholar, Sholom's boyhood sometimes seems like a parade of cuffs, slaps and beatings. As one observer has pointed out, "the Jews of Eastern Europe considered childhood a phase to be got over as quickly as possible, a sort of malignant disease, the curing of which justified...
...poet in Saroyan, unlike the prankster in him, lacks the power to override the facts of life. There is something beguiling about Saroyan's fantasies, but soft-bellied about his truths...
After the first few concerts and much publicity, the bells became something of a joke to the students. One Lowell House prankster sent a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt informing him that the Russian bells would be christened "The Roosevelt Bells." Shortly after, Master Coolidge received a gracious thank-you note and was forced to rectify the error. The President, in a return letter, said: "I am not in the least perturbed about the name of the bells because, strictly between ourselves, I should much prefer to have a puppy-dog or a baby named after me than...
Continuous Performances. In Detroit, asking police for help, George Van Kula reported that an anonymous prankster had 1) directed to his address two coal trucks, four TV repairmen, two florists, six milkmen, a plumber, a veterinarian, two tow trucks, two exterminators, 2) advertised in the Detroit News that his apartment was for rent, cheap; 3) inserted a want ad stating that Van Kula needed a "dandy man, good wages...