Word: seriousness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...tyranny of the instant, in our accelerated, data-filled information culture, and the longing for those graces that belong to a more spacious time. Perhaps people crave, and are demanding, a return to something deeper, or less of the moment. The surprise best seller of two years ago--a serious literary novel by a first timer, no less--was a retelling of The Odyssey in the culture of the Civil War (with a flavor directly taken from the Taoist hermits of old China). It was replaced by another debut novel set, for nearly all its 428 pages, in the teahouses...
...like him in the annals of American art. What was so remarkable about him was not his genius as a cartoonist or his qualities as a "fine" artist, but the way he combined both within the same body of work. He didn't flip between a serious and a funny side. Both were intrinsic to the same images, which entranced his audience for decades. But this also delayed his recognition as a major American artist. Even now it's not as generally accepted as it ought to be. His friend, the late critic Harold Rosenberg, claimed that "in linking...
Next to James Thurber, she was probably the funniest serious person who ever lived. She was learned and scrupulous and very brave. She spent the past three years dying of cancer, yet so alive was she with ideas about world events, she made one forget the inevitable. Her small, frail body would shake with rage or laughter at Clinton and Monica, at Congress, at her beloved city of Washington, which she would ridicule in private and defend against outside assaults, as one would a foolish child...
...White House, meanwhile, detected more serious peace feelers from Belgrade. Milosevic made a public show of removing soldiers from Kosovo. Prominent Serb businessmen have also begun to grouse publicly about the bombing's economic impact--a sign that Milosevic's cronyocracy may be weakening. "People [in Belgrade] are beginning to look for a way out," says a senior Clinton Administration official. Now the White House hopes Chernomyrdin can show them the door...
...court decided that publishing or broadcasting pictures of people in their own homes without their consent is a serious invasion of privacy," says TIME Washington correspondent Viveca Novak. The problem is compounded by the fact that "some of the people caught on film may not even be accused of a crime," she adds. A subsequent case is likely to decide whether the media itself can be sued for such activity, though issues posed by the First Amendment right of free speech could result in a different outcome for journalists...