Word: strains
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...little to enhance her words. Although she completely penetrates and bursts the peephole perspective of sexual resentment and idealistic angst, her from seems to lag behind. It is clear but uninspiring; perhaps beautiful but not in a way that fits. Allusive and chronically understated, her images betray a lingering strain of bitterness. True, Gluck does not embrace the world without mediation, but her style feels like an homage to an emptiness that doesn't befit a poet who believes "true happiness" can occur "within this deception...
...Candide, lovers who travel the world searching for each other. Keshet, with his naive expressions and constant smile is exactly the kind of optimist Candide should be--a character who believes that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds (Voltaire is parodying a certain strain of Leibniz). Keshet shows off his excellent voice in "It Must Be Me" and the last few numbers, while Little, as Cunegonde, displays the range and quality of her voice in the solo number "Glitter and Be Gay," in which she sings several impressive scales...
This dignified poetry avoids personal topicsand instead speaks to the "you" and the "we," asif the poet effaced himself in order to write foreveryone, a symptom of Herbert's interest inpolitics. Yet it does possess a strong strain ofhumor, even if it's found mainly on the backsidesof more depressing themes. In "What Our Dead Do,"Herbert hazards that the dead "hunt for jobs /whisper the numbers of lottery tickets," thensomberly notes that we imagine them "snug as theburrow of a mouse." Surely that comparison makesthe daily grind of errands and ambition seem likedeath. In one of his most priceless...
Over the past two years, this column has been host to many a topic, from the introduction of MMX in Intel's processors to the introduction of repetitive strain injury to my arms. It's been the best of times and the worst of times...
...idea that a less virulent strain of HIV might offer a path to immunity is only one of several options being considered, but it is unique because of the dangers involved...