Word: saturnalia
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...invited to come in fancy undress had decided to stay home because of the bad weather. Those that came, despite their Neanderthal getup, behaved as circumspectly and with the same dogged gaiety as any like group in Sacramento or Scarsdale. But to the zealous guardsmen the party was saturnalia run amuck, and so they reported to their commanding officer, who alerted the military at Malaga. But the military could find no law against private gatherings of cave men and their women, and unaware of the commotion they had caused, the party guests went home...
Jean Simmons sings sharp, in a voice that is not much better, but she flings herself into Sarah's saturnalia with a pelvic hullabaloo that should make the public forget about her upper register. Vivian Elaine, the only big name held over from the Broadway cast, is just right as the blonde who celebrates her anniversary (14 years engaged) by catching a cold in her Bronxial tubes; and when she screeches Take Back Your Mink ("to from whence it came"), the evening is made. Frank Sinatra, as Nathan Detroit, not only acts as if he can't tell...
...dark of the year-the winter solstice-is the feast of light. Long ago men lit bonfires to strengthen the expiring sun; the Romans celebrated the seven-day Saturnalia with outdoor illuminations and gifts of candles; the Christians came to honor Christmas with a light-decked tree. For the Jews, the feast of light is Hanukkah...
This book has about as much in common with the run of historical novels as a Roman bust with Marilyn Monroe's. The novel deals with the turbulent second century, but French Author Yourcenar shuns sex and sadism, keeps the defenseless slave maidens in the background and the Saturnalia under control. She allows the sick and aging Emperor Hadrian, ruler of the Western world, to tell his own story in a letter to his 17-year-old adopted grandson, Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian enjoys a good orgy from time to time as much as the next Roman, and he practices...
...Alumni Bulletin, is an illustration not only of his good-humored sarcasm, but also of the strange uses to which he occasionally puts history. Castigating the commercialism of Christmas, and defending Scrooge to the last, he wrote; "'Humbug' was a less than adequate comment on the Christmas saturnalia.... What, one may ask, but a sense of social responsibility could have inspired Scrooge to question the cult of Christmas when there were such goodies for manufacturer and tradesman and banker in Santa's pack...