Word: stolid
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...richness of brocade and the smoothness of shot silk, Schama's prose unfurls the life of Rembrandt in all its pathos. From prodigy to pauper, the troubled genius of 17th century Dutch painting is intricately conceived as he rises and falls in a world of war, plague and stolid bourgeois comfort. A galvanic force--ambitious, hugely inventive, avaricious--he is the portraitist of the poshest plutocrats, nobly aglitter, and the allegorist of human wreckage. Schama's book is a marvel of storytelling: sometimes heart pounding, always sympathetic and coolly reasoned. Seamlessly joining social history and art, what a triumph...
...computer screen. The ASCII characters on my screen don't look nearly as cool as the ones created by Warner Brothers. Nor do these characters represent anything close to an elaborate human prison designed by intelligent robots gone sour. But Keanu's Matrix is my Unix, and like my stolid friend, I can see what people are up to. Sort...
...Malkovich is, fundamentally, creepy. (This isn't just my opinion; I have taken a poll of eight people, and seven agree. The eighth has a crush on him.) John Malkovich doesn't have any of the usual qualities of Hollywood stardom - the symmetrical, chiseled looks, the measured voice, the stolid evenness. Malkovich is bizarre by comparison, with beady eyes at inappropriate moments and a sneer of a voice which sounds more like somebody choking than talking. You can imagine this movie being born out of a stoned conversation about the weirdness of John Malkovich's success, and the weirdness...
Avant-garde writer and culture impresario Gertrude Stein was a stolid, heavy presence, monolithic, unladylike. She liked to gossip and had a great laugh. She boxed with welterweights for exercise. Art expert Bernard Berenson described her as looking "like a statue from Ur of the Chaldees." Alice B. Toklas was a chain smoker with a slight mustache, given to exotic dress, Gypsy earrings and manicured nails. They met in Paris in 1907. Alice, 29, found Gertrude, 33, "a golden brown presence." Gertrude insisted that Alice had heard bells heralding Stein's "greatness." Alice said Gertrude was simply struck by love...
Death of A Salesman got plenty of attention right from the start. When it opened on Broadway in February 1949, the advance buzz was intense, the critics mostly raved (though TIME's Louis Kronenberger complained about its "inadequate artistry" and "sometimes stolid prose"), and the play went on to win both a Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. It catapulted Arthur Miller to the top rank of American playwrights and has made perhaps a firmer dent in our consciousness than any other drama written for the American stage. So when the play celebrates its 50th anniversary this week with...