Word: slacker
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that less-prestigious alternatives wouldn't satisfy. Rather, the Rubin wannabes won't allow themselves to be satisfied with them. Satisfaction with anything less than what the conventional wisdom deems impressive raises fears of losing standing in the rat race. Contentment with less than the best might imply a slacker's complacency, a willingness to give up on the race. Or worse, it might reveal that you couldn't compete in the race...
This next class is a slacker's dream. There are no sections, six required books-of your choice. (The list is basically identical to the one compiled by the average high school English teacher.) The only assignments are a take-home quiz and a final. History 1407: "European Intellectual History, 1790-1900," even has a great reading list, including Tolstoy, Hugo, and Dickens, and meets Monday, Wednesday and Friday...
While everyone else forced an angle into their act, Hedberg stole the Montreal Festival by standing still and telling jokes. He drawls in a bizarre slacker cadence, delivering lines like "This shirt is dry-clean only. Which means it's still dirty" and "I think Bigfoot is blurry." He keeps his eyes closed and his long bangs flopped over his face. "I don't like to connect with the crowd," he says. "I find if you look at people's faces, you see a disappointed face." In fact, if he goes three or four jokes without a laugh, he starts...
...singing, dancing and yelling "Look at me!" is the brainiest physical comedy in a long time. Their performance skills are Cirque du Soleil quality (one of them, Michael Dahlen, is a member of the surreal mime troupe the Blue Man Group), and even they hope to bring their slacker vaudeville to TV. When clowns are having meetings with MTV and Castle Rock, you know TV has killed the stand-up star...
...middle-aged and childless, these titles, these "stars," may mean nothing to you. And if you go to teen movies, you may wonder why anyone else would. Disturbing Behavior, directed by The X-Files' David Nutter, has a Stepford-teens premise with slacker appeal (all the well-behaved kids with good grades have been lobotomized on the say-so of their evil parents), and Holmes looks terrif as a Draculette punkster (nose ring, bicep tattoo, a swath of bare midriff). But the film goes haywire with torture scenes reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. Which makes this a clockwork lemon. Halloween...