Word: prosaic
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When told by Hill that she will soon have to move from posh Paris to prosaic Houston, Kellerman greets the news with a wild-eyed speechlessness that borders on the truly...
...primary culprit is the city itself. "At the risk of overdramatization," Auletta cites 21 "original sins" which the city, state and federal governments committed. In addition to rather prosaic "sins" like the growth of the suburbs and high taxes, Auletta reveals financial shenanigans that politicians and bankers employed to allow the city to continue its spendthrift ways. His discussion of the Nelson Rockefeller championing of moral obligation bonds clearly explains how an irresponsible procedure, responsibly put forth, grew into common practice. Moral obligation bonds, designed by then little-known bond lawyer John Mitchell, allowed the state to sell bonds...
...focus on creating a series of stage pictures that reinforce their interpretations. His monumental style, however, is least effective at the very beginning, where a touch more continuity and less mannerism might help the actors introduce themselves and the play's refrains. As it is, the opening portrays the prosaic daily life of the Prozorov household and friends with jerkiness. Perhaps Chekhov intended a sense of alienation from the start, but that shouldn't make the actors themselves look uncomfortable on stage, as they do for the first 15 minutes...
...however, a certain Marvel magic has been lost in the translation to video entertainment. TV's attempts at relevancy are encroaching on fantasy. On television the Hulk tries hypnosis therapy to cure his curious green condition and takes on such prosaic problems as teen-age alcoholism and child abuse. Similarly, TV's Spider-Man battles familiar terrorists and assassins instead of his old intergalactic foes like Doctor Doom. Lee misses the fantasy of the printed page. "A lot of the plots on the Spider-Man show," he complains, "are situations that Kojak could just as easily have handled...
Nikolai Gogol had a mind like a trap door. Anyone venturing on the deceptive surfaces of his works must be prepared to lose his footing at unexpected moments and be sent plummeting into radical alterations of consciousness. Realism shifts to fantasy; the prosaic turns mystical; solid citizens stumble unwittingly into topsy-turvy land...