Word: raconteur
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...admitted sucker for these sorts of movies, I choose to believe that Americans devour them year after year because they continue to capture our imaginations in the same way a skilled raconteur could millennia ago. Doomsday prophecies are a part of nearly every society on the globe; whether they involve Mayan calendars, judgment days, or doctors named Strangelove, people love to speculate about how such a complex and diverse ecosystem as Earth could suddenly succumb to the powers that...
...Meanwhile, Bush was running his own traps. He called Jim Sharp, his personal attorney in the Plame case, who had been present when he was interviewed by Fitzgerald in 2004. Sharp was known in Washington as one of the best lawyers nobody knew. A savvy raconteur from Oklahoma who had represented a long list of colorful clients - from Nixon pal Charles G. (Bebe) Rebozo to Sammy Sosa - Sharp had worked quietly for the President for a while before anyone even knew about it. In the meantime, the two men had become friends, spending hours chatting over cigars and near beer...
...Remarkably, Fingleton, a raconteur of Irish stock, found fault not only with Bradman the man but with Bradman the cricketer - quite a feat considering The Don's record, which marks him as easily the best ever. Fingleton claimed that in a lead-up match to the Bodyline series of 1932-33, Bradman, suspecting he was to be the target of short-pitched bowling from England's fast men, beseeched the rookie Fingleton to shelter him when the pair were batting together. "These blighters are after me," Bradman is alleged to have said. "They intend to bowl at my head. Will...
...throughout his book to canonical authors and works - from Homer to Boccaccio to fellow French writers like Dumas and Molière - not have been familiar with Baudelaire's 19th century writings about drugs, hashish in particular? One can only speculate that De Monfreid's feigned innocence is a raconteur's device, making his descent into the netherworld of drug smuggling all the more delicious because it is happening to a drug...
Simon on first meeting seems more like an accountant than a comic wit. Although he can be a deft public performer, the private man is a thoughtful, earnest conversationalist, never a raconteur using companions as an audience. He realizes he is considered aloof even by those who know him best, and admits, "I'm always having to tell myself, 'Get back into the conversation.'" When he does get off a good line, it is a throwaway, almost sotto voce, and rarely with a stranger. Director Mike Nichols, who staged four of Simon's plays, recalls attending one in which...