Word: rote
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After some historical ups and downs, homework in this country is at a high-water mark. In the early decades of the century progressive educators in many school districts banned homework in primary school in an effort to discourage rote learning. The cold war--specifically, the launch of Sputnik in 1957--put an end to that, as lawmakers scrambled to bolster math and science education in the U.S. to counter the threat of Soviet whiz kids. Students frolicked in the late 1960s and '70s, as homework declined to near World War II levels. But fears about U.S. economic competitiveness...
...facilities to prevent management from talking directly to players before Jan. 18, the first official practice day. The Bulls' war room, a large conference space with six phones and a fax machine overlooking the practice court, is empty. From his house, outside Chicago, Krause calls Pippen's agent, Kyle Rote--because he's not yet allowed to talk to Pippen directly and also because Pippen despises Krause and hardly speaks to him. Krause then makes cursory calls to express interest in every player on the 1998 roster, including Dennis Rodman, whom he does not want if Jordan doesn't return...
...Yank '02) is asked to hold a doll for a woman as they get off an airplane. The woman promptly disappears--until small-time hoods Mike Talman (Joseph Nuccio '00) and Carlino (Jerry Ruiz '00) find her body in Suzy Hendrix' apartment, placed there by their new employer, Harry Rote (Paul Monteleoni '01). Suzy's blindness allows them to search the apartment for the doll, which contains smuggled heroin. Mike manages to gain Suzy's confidence by pretending he is an old friend of her husband; while her husband is away, the crooks invent a story of a police investigation...
Monteleoni has to deal with the most under-written part of Frederick Knott's stage play. Because Rote's cold-blooded instincts are reigned in for so much of the play and only occasionally burst into flame, the trick is to maintain consistency without flattening the role (Tarantino, in his Broadway role, completely overplayed the part, turning Rote into a caricature doomed from the outset). Monteleoni makes Rote a smarmy, slinky villain--an interpretation which occasionally becomes awkward but ultimately gels. He explodes in the final scenes with Suzy in the dark, convincing us that he has no mercy...
...mile framework probably demands, but which nonetheless threatens the totality of the record's spell. "The River" in particular suffers from an inertia rare for Harvey. Its loping murmur is appropriate to the title image, and it's fun to hear her tinkering with brass, but a rather rote delivery ("And they came from the river/and they came to the road") and subjective vagueness (who is "they," and why does it become "we"?) make the song tiresome and opaque...