Word: puns
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like Collegium Musicum, the Latin name Musicus Modus Vivendi implies tradition. It means "music as a way of life." The name can be seen as a musical pun on the word "mode," which refers to the type of musical scales early composers used...
...refugee friend of ours clustered around our space heater and swilled hot water by the potful, but somehow it wasn't doing much to assuage the 39-degree weather. So at 11:30 p.m., we decided to do something to remedy the situation and called the heat hotline. No pun intended...
Although Orton is one of the subtlest of recent satirists, he cannot help hammering in some of his points. He uses this campy (excuse the pun) situation to mock post-World War political dynamics. Scenes smack with references to the French Revolution and the civil war in Ireland. While Erpingham views a crowd of insurgent campers, "La Marseillaise" can be heard from a distance. OK, Joe, I get the hint. The campers follow the typical revolutionary pattern: frustrated by their efforts at peaceful reform, the rabble are instigated to get violent to the point of complete overthrow of the "government...
...indicted to see you all here tonight," quipped Pat McBaine, an executive vice president of Hambrecht & Quist, the San Francisco investment firm. His pun had a certain appropriateness. By way of a theme party, McBaine's company had invited some 600 members of the financial community to share in the unique feeling of being an illegal insider trader. Or almost. The guests were transported by boat to Alcatraz, the inactive island penitentiary in San Francisco Bay. There, while 25 actors dressed as convicts and jail guards capered around them, the temporary inmates supped on roast quail with lime sauce...
...singing made-by-hand songs about how he should be working the second shift at the shoe factory, except that here he is in this bar and probably won't make it tonight. David Buskin and Robin Batteau are classically trained musicians, sophisticated enough to put across an intricate, pun-mad parody of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice ("He was a great musician, who finally learned decomposition . . .") Christine Lavin sings witty, wistful songs about shouldering your way through the big world when you are only five feet tall and not very fierce...