Word: spits
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...taboo" food to be the only way to stay thin, yet still enjoy the taste of high-calorie foods. After eating a low-calorie meal, "napkinics" will indulge in breads, pies, casseroles, cakes--in short, anything solid that can be chomped on and not swallowed--and then surreptitiously spit the food into a napkin when they think no one is looking. They will then either drop the napkins onto the floor, make frequent trips to the garbage to throw them out, or stuff them into their pockets or purses...
...joke," Higgins says. Obviously, prospective munchers can't buy if they're broke, but "after you've given change for four new, crisp twenties in a row, what are you supposed to do with the fifth?" Higgins laments. "People can't seem to grasp that: we've had people spit in our faces, throw coffee at us, when we refused a sale or wouldn't give change." The 400 or so customers who pass through daily and want coins for the T or laundry don't help matters...
Nevertheless, Pythonic curveballs keep the movie accessible for adults. Sherwood Forest teems with spit, snot, and dismembered limbs. John Cleese is a lively, simpleton "Hood," distributing art treasures to the downtrodden. "Do you know the poor? I'm sure you'd like them!" he insists with comic-book eyebrows. Michael Palin and Shelley Duvall, in dual roles as lovers across two eras, provide additional satire on old movies, with a touch of the absurd: Palin, in desperate search for a cure to his vague sexual problem, blurts out, "I must have fruit!" This can mean anything; Python at its best...
Each of the actresses presents her character in an individual style impeccably suited to that character's function. Daphne de Marneffe gives Polly Peachum just enough soiled innocence. With a simple shrug, de Marneffe gives over Polly Peachum for the spectator to study, to chew up and to spit right back. Martha Hackett gives the strongest female presence of the production Artfully establishing the distance between herself, the character, and the audience, Hackett states clearly that most human conflict between fantasy and reality, between love and money. Her husky voice capturing the harsh sweetness of Weill's music evokes...
...interest and entertainment of it. At certain dinner parties in Georgetown and Beverly Hills and East Hampton (cannibals' picnics, nights of the long knives), the gossip is a combination of dispassionate vivisection and blood sport: reputations are expertly filleted and the small brown pits of egos are spit out decorously into spoons and laid at the edge of the plate...