Word: solemn
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Television taboos are made to be broken. Violating them is a venerated tradition, a familiar ritual preceded by elaborate puffery: solemn sermons or titillating teasers aimed at increasing curiosity and ratings. Though often a mindless come-on rather than a thoughtful coming out, the "breakthrough" can sometimes mirror changing cultural mores and set the stage for bolder TV sequels...
Walesa's wife Danuta made the trip, however, and after Aarvik spoke, she rose to deliver a 15-minute speech written by her husband. "On this solemn day, my place is among those with whom I have grown and to whom I belong, the workers of Gdansk," she read. "We crave for justice, and that is why we are so persistent in the struggle for our rights." After listening to a radio broadcast of the ceremony, Walesa declared, "We should use peaceful means to solve our problems...
...better in his speculations about the imaginary cave where prisoners see life as a series of shadows flickering on the walls? Wasn't that what Shakespeare meant when he had Prospero conclude his pageant by declaring that "the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples" would all dissolve, for "we are such stuff as dreams are made on"? Trompe l'oeil (trickery of the eye) is the artistic term for it, and Italy is full of palaces with flat ceilings painted to look vaulted and plaster made to resemble marble. Even Renaissance landlords liked...
...civil rights leaders who gathered on the South Lawn of the White House last week greeted one another boisterously. But the mood was much more restrained and solemn when President Reagan appeared to sign a bill making the third Monday in January a national holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Among those present were King's widow Coretta, 56, and their four children: Yolanda, 27, a New York City actress; Martin III, 25, a lobbyist in Washington who worked for passage of the King holiday; Dexter, 22, a corrections officer in Atlanta, and Bemice, 20, a junior...
Roth has expressed similar sentiments, more suitably phrased for literary debate, in Reading Myself and Others (1975). In this collection of essays and interviews he answered his critics, among them Irving Howe. In the pages of Commentary, the monthly magazine of the American Jewish Committee, Howe rendered the solemn judgment that Portnoy's Complaint degraded American Jews. Roth saw the roots of such attacks in history. Wrote the embattled author: "He [the Jew] is not expected to make a spectacle of himself, either by shooting off his mouth or shooting off his semen, and certainly not by shooting...