Word: sharpness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When Roy Jenkins was Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer a decade ago, he boasted about his record of bringing "public expenditure under very sharp control." He has been less successful in his tenure as president of the European Commission, a job he has held for the past 2½ years. During his stewardship in the European Community's top administrative post, a recent audit has revealed, many of the E.C.'s 13 commissioners went on an expense account binge that was anything but controlled...
...term f/64 designates the smallest lens opening on cameras then used, the one that gave the greatest depth of focus and hence produced images that were sharp from foreground to background. To these photographers, f/64 also stood for "straight" photography, as against pictorialist fuzz. Instead of continuous tone, they went for high contrast. They also cropped and isolated their subjects: driftwood, seashells, worn rocks at Point Lobos, or the polished interior of Weston's Mexican toilet bowl...
...Even now, studies show that consumer "confidence" is near its lowest level in 30 years. Because spending by individuals on all sorts of goods and services accounts for fully two-thirds of the nation's gross national product-far more than spending by Government and business combined-a sharp retrenchment in purchases of autos, houses and other big-ticket items would surely deepen the shallow recession that many economists believe has already begun...
...such a retrenchment has yet to appear. While the automakers are currently suffering through a sharp slump, retailers are reasonably happy. In fact, retail sales in July were actually 11% above what they had been in the same month last year, though much of that increase simply reflected higher prices. Moreover, Americans are still piling on installment debt at the brisk rate of $5 billion a month. Indeed, by the end of June they were in the hole for a record total of $292.5 billion, which is hardly a sign of consumer panic...
...media-play of Pop. They resemble, as the late Mark Rothko once said, "walk-in Hoppers," sculptural equivalents to the world of that American master, with its nocturnal bars and waiting figures. Segal's tableaux have a flavor of the '30s-overlaid, now and then, with a sharp erotic curiosity. Instead of the irony of a '60s Warhol or Lichtenstein, one is treated to an unremitting earnestness, a moral concern with the voids between people and the circumspectness of their gestures. It is a somber sight, this "populist art," as one of Segal's admirers dubbed...