Word: swiftian
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...about the clash between Achilles and the Queen of the Amazons on the plain of Troy, does not, as he suggests, combine the best features of Greek tragedy and Shakespeare. It is Kleist's tart little fragments that most charm a reader today. There is, for example, the Swiftian modest proposal for sending messages by artillery and cannon ball, if speed is what everybody wants. There is the marvelously straight-faced account of an ascension in the balloon of Professor J. There is the wonderful little parody of The Sorrows of Young Werther: instead of killing himself, boy gets...
With this film, the Pythons have gone beyond the customary limits of satire, beyond their own original premises. In their assaults on conventional morality, they generate a ferocious and near Swiftian moral gravity of their own. It is this quality that distinguishes their humor from the competition, rescues it from its own excesses and makes braving it an exhilarating experience...
Steve Tesich's love for America is an intoxicating passion. In his plays (Division Street) and screenplays (Breaking Away), this Yugoslav immigrant envisions an America that is a goad to greatness, an impossible ideal, a reconciler of a thousand contradictions, a Swiftian kick in the pants. Director Arthur Penn is fascinated with America too, but critically. He has upended myths of the Old West (The Left-Handed Gun, Little Big Man) and found desperate excitement on the fringes of 20th century Americana (Bonnie and Clyde, Alice's Restaurant). As collaborators, these two artists might produce high-arcing dramatic...
...would join one sponsored by Senator Gaylord Nelson, who favors a moratorium on implementing Thor. In the meantime, publishers searching for loopholes might consider the tax credits available for energy conservation. Books stacked against the walls of warehouses might be considered insulation. For the more literary, who prefer a Swiftian modest proposal, there is always the book-burning stove...
...show of force seems unlikely this time. Police and National Guard from around New England met them in numbers large enough to present convincing force. The police arsenal included tear gas, high-pressure hoses, mace, and dogs. More organized, more ruthless, and better equipped even than the most Tom Swiftian of the anti-nukers, they held all the cards, and they only played a few. If the protestors had been more numerous or more successful at any point, police could easily have turned an organized rout into a total massacre...