Word: sterner
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...predecessors were made of sterner stuff. Nor, despite his nickname, was Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-92) the biggest patron of the clan. That honor belongs to his great-grandson, Cosimo I de' Medici (1519-74), the linchpin of this show. He was installed as the first Grand Duke of Tuscany after his uncle Alessandro de' Medici was murdered. He had an obsessive desire for magnificenza and was determined to outdo his ancestor - which, in terms of cultural spending, he did. Never had art and secular politics been brought closer together than in late Medicean Florence. Cosimo's patronage dominated...
...slender to begin with from years of power walking, but now the weight was melting off her twiggy body. By December she had lost 29 lbs. In hopes that humor might defuse some of the pain, friends started calling her the "Incredible Shrinking Woman." Sanderson took a somewhat sterner approach. He paid a call one day during lunch and sat on the porch with Ginny. "You're just wasting away," he told her. "You have to take better care of yourself...
...Party... And I'll Cry If I Want To: The prospect of sitting through the annual convention of the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO, could make anyone weepy. But Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad is supposed to be made of sterner stuff, and anyway, he's UMNO's president. Nonetheless, at the convention's closing ceremony last Saturday, the normally steely Mahathir burst into tears, announced he was quitting all his posts and was escorted offstage. The 76-year-old had spent the convention bemoaning the laziness of the country's Malay population, which he's tried to bootstrap into...
Being the cleverest fellow in movies had its perks: six Oscars (out of 21 nominations), for writing, producing and directing. It also earned Wilder, from the sterner critics, the label of cynic. They said his films were long on wit and short on compassion. Pick up a rock, and Wilder's view of the human condition would crawl out from under it. Nearly 40 years ago, critic Andrew Sarris wrote, "Billy Wilder is too cynical to believe even his own cynicism." Today we can see that Wilder was less a cynic than a premature realist. An Austrian Jew who left...
This is because the U.S. has become the world's largest producer and distributor of enjoyments. Some of these are pleasures no more complicated than Britney Spears. Some are sterner stuff, made by artists working in subtler ways (or at least in more conservative wardrobes) and beyond the noise of the cash registers. But among the artists, whether they make rap songs or novellas, sitcoms or Cibachrome prints, dance steps or designer spike heels, there are increments of quality. They lead upward from the figures who are merely (though sometimes massively) popular to the ones who are truly accomplished...