Word: smacks
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...yawning rerun where R.D. Laing--that tired old intellectual straw man--is propped up only to be laid flat. Going on nothing more concrete than the fact that "The theories of R.D. Laing, the poet of schizophrenic despair, have such theatrical flash that they must hit John Cassavetes smack in the eye," she proclaims his movie "the work of a disciple." She then criticizes the film for straying from a strict Laingian analysis and plunges in the final stake by rejecting the movie because she rejects Laing's view of society. Kael has simply missed the point. She tries...
Many of the pieces in this exhibit were made at the artists' whim, outside of class, and the collection is lively and multiform. Occasionally someone seems to balk at imagination, although nobody is short on skill, and these pieces smack of exercises. A deftly penciled sketch in one corner, for example, depicts a male nude from the rear, familiarly postured with one hand on his hip and his body's weight shifted to one foot. A canvas in variegated blue with purplish undertones, of a bedroom swathed in yellow light, reflects the dappled brush-work and impressionistic style of Monet...
That's why I adored the idea in your new book about batacas-the plastic-foam bats that sexual partners can smack each other with. I rushed out and bought a pair, and while George was taking off his shoes, I crept up behind him (nude, of course) and gave him a loving bataca shot behind the right ear. As he got up off the floor, he shrieked, "Don't tell me that dingbat has written another book!" and ran right downstairs to our coffee table. He found it there, of course, and kept howling and slapping...
...lack of interesting subject matter, composition or concept. James Hajicek's cyanotype triptychs of boring, lifeless western scrubland are boring, lifeless photographs, and Mark Harper, who obviously worked very hard at making three-dimensional constructions of fabric, etched silver and silkscreened glass etchings, achieves results that smack too much of kitsch and too little of real conceptual innovation. Happily, only a few works in the show share these flaws...
...begins with Mill's revealing vocabulary. His approved words-originality, spontaneity, diversity, choice -smack of today's obsession with individual expression for its own sake in ways she scarcely needs to emphasize. So do the proposals the words support. Mill's gospel was that the individual could fulfill himself only in a climate of maximum freedom, and that the fulfillment of the individual was the supreme purpose in life. Could anything sound more contemporary? Indeed, Professor Himmelfarb dares to say that On Liberty has "far more" in common with our times than with Mill...