Word: sleight
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Since 1981, recipients of MacArthur Foundation grants, the "genius awards" that permit five years of financial freedom, have included poets and composers, scientists and even a mime. But a prestidigitator? Last week James Randi, a.k.a. "the Amazing Randi," whose sleight of hand has exposed psychic gimmicks, hoaxes and claims of the paranormal, was among this year's 25 winners, picking up $272,000 for his crusade to protect sick people from unscrupulous faith healers. The award came as a total surprise. "You can bang your head against the wall, call Sophia Loren or take it soberly," he notes. "It takes...
...mind. His principles give him a certain serenity, and possibly the luck that comes to the optimist. Reagan keeps finding the pony. He proceeds, amiably and formidably, from success to success. His life is a sort of fairy tale of American power. The business of magic is sleight of hand: now you see it, now you don't. Ronald Reagan is a sort of masterpiece of American magic--apparently one of the simplest, most uncomplicated creatures alive, and yet a character of rich meanings, of complexities that connect him with the myths and powers of his country in an unprecedented...
...Sleight of hand: during a meeting of the Economic Policy Council last year, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Agriculture started lobbing grenades at each other over a proposal to sell grain to the Soviet Union. Others entered the argument. Voices rose, arms waved. Through it all, Ronald Reagan sat silently, apparently concentrating on picking the black licorice jelly beans from the crystal jar on the table in front of him. Occasionally, he would look up. Once, as he did so, he caught the eye of an aide sitting opposite him at the back of the room...
...Sleight of hand: Reagan is the first complete television President. The implications of that mastery are unsettling. Says Political Scientist James David Barber of Duke University: "Television news is very heavy on feelings. There is always a temptation to reduce the question to sentiment. Reagan's criterion of validity is theatrical rather than empirical...
Stranded at the eleventh hour without their star, the producers scoured a London actors' directory and picked Denis De Marne to serve as a stand-in for Peter's remaining scenes. After first balking, Schell later dubbed in De Marne's dialogue. The cinematic sleight of hand is deft but damaging: Peter retreats into shadows and long shots for several crucial scenes in the movie's final segment...