Word: shrug
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Even before the murder, she is trapped and knows it - and does not care. Her response to hopelessness is a drink and a shrug. She lets herself be picked up by a rich young man. After they have slept together, it is clear that he expects to pay her; but with a fine gesture she takes some wadded franc notes from her purse, drops them on the bed and leaves...
Oddly enough, no qualms are expressed about the coed living, and the parents seem to have only a passing interest in drugs. Said one father with a shrug: "Oh, that stuff has run its course." Few bellyache about the tuition, either. Nor is there much audible concern about whether the kids' costly education will lead to a job. Today, school officials say, parents still seem to prefer a liberal education to a narrowly vocational one. "They are concerned that students not specialize too early," says Goldberg. "Many were caught in the vagaries of the job market themselves...
...enterprise. Recalled from the U.N. in 1973, he was offered no post that interested him. Giovannetti withdrew from the diplomatic service to the "more congenial" pursuit of writing books. Last week, at his retirement villa outside Rome, the author who came in from the cold said with a philosophic shrug: "I am no longer in the limelight, the airline no longer gives me free tickets, and many of my old friends don't know me any more. But I regret nothing...
Nowhere in the world are such defensive tactics so pervasive-or extreme. Although American executives would be appalled by the kind of precautions that Italians must take, the Italians themselves shrug off personal danger as just one more situation requiring the ancient art of arrangiarsi (literally, to make shift) -getting the upper hand on life's many minor irritations. Since the country's wave of kidnapings developed in the early 1970s, 241 Italians have been snatched for ransom. Top executives remain prime victims. Two weeks ago, Movie Producer Niccolo De Nora was released after a record 524 days...
...express or minds to grasp. By the standards of conventional fiction, his characters are little more than ciphers, but they arouse considerable interest and sympathy simply by facing up to the ominous atmosphere that pervades their lives. If something terrible has not already happened to them, it will. They shrug, say silly, inadequate things...