Word: soaped
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...artful dissembler. He appears to have taken the defensible position that since most autobiographies are figments of self-serving imaginations, one might as well accept memory as a fiction machine and get on with it. Mercifully he lightens this intellectual load by turning his life into a soap opera and putting its popular conventions to higher literary uses. Banalities become oddly resonant and trivialities bristle with jeopardy. Episodes of scandal, lunacy and mayhem are drawn together by the two main story lines. A romance between Mario, 18, and Julia, 32, is a mock cliffhanger; the rise and fall of Pedro...
...advertised. She is the former sister-in-law of Mario's uncle and so no blood relative. But by constantly referring to her as Aunt Julia, Mario keeps the tingle of a semi-scandalous relationship in his narrative. Paralleling this "real-life" romance are Camacho's soap operas. Dwarfish but with a melodious voice that has listeners imagining a movie idol, Camacho spends all his waking hours writing, directing and acting in his creations. He considers them works of genius, but eventually he can no longer distinguish between fact and fiction. Real names creep into his serials...
...price hikes have helped to raise the cost of living 108% over the past year. All-night queues in front of butcher shops have largely disap peared, because many people cannot afford to buy meat at the new prices. Virtu ally all necessities are rationed: one bar of soap, a half-liter of vodka and 3 lbs. of sugar per person per month. This fall, pre schoolers will be allotted one pencil, one eraser and one paintbrush for the entire year...
...students: "There are more than 20 bodily fluids, and I am proud to say I have tasted every one of them." A poodle and a boxer, both wearing yarmulkes, sit mournfully by the graveside of one Spot Moskowitz. Steven Ford, once a President's son, now a soap-opera regular, gets bopped on the head with a food tray. "Attention," a metallic voice announces over the hospital speaker system, "E.T., phone home...
...just gross and artless (and canny) enough in its flat, untextured sitcom way to attract millions of eleven-year-olds who have left their brains in their classrooms. Its humor is based on brand-name recognition: if you're aware of the particular movie, video game or soap being burlesqued, you will respond. Audiences, even young ones, should show some self-control and boycott Young Doctors. That way, we may at least be spared a sequel...