Word: speaking
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...start, everything seemed shipshape. Evita Perón planned to stage-manage the convention as if it were a Peronista rally. Inspecting the high-domed Congreso a few days before the convention opened, imperious Evita acted as if she owned the place. She announced when she would speak, decided where she would sit. She had already proclaimed that she would furnish some of the convention props. Among them: a portrait of Argentina's Liberator José de San Martin, a crucifix, a vellum-bound copy of the Gospels, and most important, a chair of native pipiribi wood with President...
...wore a childlike smile when something pleased him, a chilling sneer when something did not. Sometimes he gesticulated wildly, once seemed near tears. Often he seemed merely bored ("Bah, I speak baby stuff!"). But whatever his crotchets, students and professors at Yale last week were flocking to the special seminar of Polish-born Count Alfred Korzybski...
...Anderson's play though the similarity is only in the names of some of the principal characters. Mr. Anderson, along with another fellow, has written the dialogue. He has employed that old device of his to give his characters and his lines a child-like and pristine quality: they speak in the indicative tense (after all, in Those Days had they yet discovered the other tenses?) and without contractions. This sometimes gives the false impression of wisdom to lines that would otherwise seem ordinary...
...College, however, has "guaranteed to be hardboiled" about admission requirements, according to LaCroix. Each DP must be able to speak English well and must pass aptitude tests before he can be admitted. He also must be proved psychologically sound. Various relief organizations will screen the DPs for the NSA program...
Perhaps the finest point of "Grand Illusion" is the way in which it captures that nebulous quality called "atmosphere." The Frenchmen speak French, the Germans speak German, and the Englishmen speak English; the landscape and the dismal PW camps couldn't be more authentic, and the snatches of old songs ring absolutely true. There are no heroes and no villains-only individuals caught in the hopeless drama of their generation and accepting their roles quite philosophically...