Word: sunnier
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...principal settings are those favorite corners of Greeneland, grimy London and a sunnier Third World capital, both pregnant with menace. The story lurches, sometimes comically, toward a classic Greene ending, which combines plausible irony with amazing grace. And the Captain is a typical Greene figure: a man of several names and many shadowy occupations and absences. His enemies are, of course, corrupt officialdom and bourgeois smugness. His story is told by Victor, the boy he says he won at backgammon, or maybe chess -- the tale shifts with the passing years. Along with the wraithlike woman who is the Captain...
...find these shortcomings decisive. Dukakis, meanwhile, has been unable to change the negative image of him created by Bush's harsh attacks throughout the summer: 36% of probable voters have an unfavorable impression of him (vs. 48% favorable), a slightly worse number than a month earlier. Bush gets a sunnier score of 56% favorable, 34% unfavorable. On critical questions such as which candidate can better manage the economy or deal with the Soviet Union, Bush bests Dukakis by margins as large as he held immediately after the Republican Convention. Even on matters of style, Bush does well. Although voters judged...
...televised debate before last June's primary, Dukakis was asked what he found distinctive about the Golden State. He replied by expounding on the universal applicability of the "Massachusetts miracle," as if he discerned little that was special about California. He seems to see it as a bigger and sunnier version of Massachusetts -- more eccentric, perhaps, but still a coastal industrial state, strong on high tech and higher education, prosperous but pocked with poverty and anxious about the future...
...something to be said for Alcatraz, which shut down its penitentiary 23 years ago. It is secure. The decorators responsible for Caesar's Palace might redo the prison in red velvet flocking and gilt. Still, the island is small, the night air chilly and the foghorns mournful. Strongmen from sunnier latitudes might find themselves depressed...
...world view is considerably sunnier on Amazing Stories. Creator Spielberg sees the supernatural as an object of wonderment and a source of fun: in one clever installment, an actor portraying a mummy wanders off a movie set and encounters a real mummy. Too many episodes have strained for comic-book laughs revolving around TV in-jokes (some teenagers contact an outer-space civilization that is reproducing old TV sitcoms). Yet even the worst shows have had moments of wit and a let's-try-anything charm...