Word: salesman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...image of a salesman at the door conjures up a vision both sympathetic and imposing. Not a bad analogy for leaving college and washing up on the shores of the real world...
America has always had a fascination with the salesman and with good reason. He is the one member of society whose efforts are perfectly tailored to the society around him. The salesman's interactions run the gamut from complete alienation to perfect compatibility, as quickly as a turn-down becomes a sale. He is a modern social prototype as profound as the warrior of antiquity...
...ballplayer," he would later write, "a slump is a plague -- second only, perhaps, to the black death. And he is convinced that it is an evil designed just for him. I thought so too, until recently. After a game one night, an old friend -- a salesman -- dropped by for a visit. 'How's business?' I asked. 'Fine -- for everyone but me,' he moaned. 'I don't know what's wrong. I'm working just as hard as ever but selling nothing. It's gotten so bad that I'm convinced I won't make the sale even before I walk...
...computerized tackle. The history of fishing is a history of equipment, but with the advent of low-cost electronics, one of the world's most popular participatory sports has rapidly become its most high tech. "Fishermen are looking for every advantage they can get," says Robert Sullivan, a salesman at Larry Smith Electronics in Riviera Beach, Fla. "They are saying, 'Give us more, more, more...
...some sweet moments: Mick's casual rescue of a suicidal jumper from a skyscraper ledge; a momentary alliance with some Japanese tourists who prove to be funnily adept at karate; a friendship with a black man determined to project a menacing image, though he is actually a peaceable stationery salesman. But the film's many narrative obligations keep interrupting the consistent development of a lively comic-adventure pace and tone. John Cornell makes a diffident first-time director, unable to punch up a scene or a performance -- especially Hogan's. And Hogan is so determined to underplay his role that...