Word: raffish
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Musicians great & small, obscure impresarios, shabby maestros, raffish editors, theatrical agents, garrulous critics: these compose a group which congregates in the Caffè Biffi in the great Galleria (Arcade) Vittorio Emanuele near Milan's La Scala Opera. Drinking vermouth con seltz by the hour, the clique finds much to gossip about. In July 1930, its conversation might have run like this: "So! So! A woman in La Scala. . . . Our Colombo, per l'amor di dio, our dove! What will become of the opera, with her in charge? That professoressa? Shocking...
...Downs. It is a festival touched by ceremonious mania, causing juniors to add to the gaiety of fraternity houseparties the absurd and jovial dignity of top-hats, frock-coats and waistcoats with pearl buttons. Seniors rig themselves on Derby Day in the clownish regalia of sailors, goat-bearded farmers, raffish monks or intoxicated nuns. When, four years ago, this mood of conviviality caused an undergraduate to establish a bar in the bottom of a two-story charabanc, efforts were made to modify the diversions of Yale's Derby Day. It remained, last week, the chief holiday week...
...Greco's portrait of the Grand Inquisitor Cardinal Fernando Nino de Guevara, a crafty-eyed prelate in thick horn-rimmed spectacles, painted over 300 years ago, just before Inquisitor Fernando burned alive half a hundred heretics in the Toledo market place; Manet's portrait of the redhaired, raffish George Moore; the superb example of Rembrandt's engraving: "Christ Healing the Sick...