Word: reet
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...quite knew what to make of the other. Painter Boris Chaliapin, son of the late, famed Russian basso, is somewhat more at home in the hot world of opera than in the cool domains of latter-day bop. In answer to requests, Jazz Pianist Thelonious Monk would mutter, "All reet," greatly confusing Chaliapin. When he finally caught on, Chaliapin replied in Russian-accented retaliation: "All root." During four sittings Thelonious had a disconcerting habit of dropping off to sleep. Chaliapin would yell at him, "Monk, Monk, wake up!", then prod him out of his armchair and walk him around...
Pretty Butterfly. At the piano, Monk is clearly tending to business, but once he steps away from it, people begin to wonder. Aside from his hat and the incessant shuffle of his feet, he looks like a perfectly normal neurotic. "Solid!" and "All reet!" are about all he will say in the gravelly sigh that serves as his voice, but his friends attribute great spiritual strength to him. Aware of his power over people, Monk is enormously selfish in the use of it. Passive, poutish moods sweep over him as he shuffles about, looking away, a member of the race...
...Wild Party (Security; United Artists) is a crude thriller that pretends, when it has nothing worse to do, to be a bloody study of juvenile delinquency. The actors all try desperately to talk reet, but somehow it comes out wrong. Actor Quinn is "Big Tom . . . ex-football player, ex-hero, ex-person," who now has nothing to do but "just kind of pleasure myself around." On the night of the wild party he is "coal-mine low," and snarls, "1 gotta tear the world...
Brando in this show is one glorious meathead. The gone look, the reet vocabulary and the sexual arrogance are still the Brando brand of behavior. But for once the mannerisms converge, like symptoms, to point out the nature of the man who has them. The audience may never forget that Brando is acting, but it will know that he is doing a powerful acting...
Zoot suitists deprived of drape shapes, reet pleats and stuff cuffs by WPB edict have a new decorative theme with which to express themselves in San Francisco and Oakland. War-working jalopy jerks find love stripes, painted diagonally across the doors of their hot irons,† the quickest way to let hep twists know what kind of wolf is giving them a gander. One stripe indicates single male on the scout. Two stripes-going steady but still stuff seeking. Three stripes-practically engaged, looking for no pickups. Four stripes-in the saddle, all soaped up, or married...
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