Word: tedium
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...dilemma of the thoughtful. What saves this book from the pseudo-philosophical platitudes such a theme might have spawned, however, is Alonzo's sense of the humorous and the bizarre, even in the midst of deadly sincerity. There may be moments when he speculates with great profundity and great tedium about every slimydeep secret in Muldoon's self-absorbed soul. Yet there is something appealing about a man who defines his condition thus: "The plumbing of my mind was suffering from a momentary backup and overflow of literary illuminations...
...Beattie develops her characters with enough skill to avoid most of the tedium that can set in when you describe boring lives. The first 100 pages of Chilly Scenes get a little hard to take--the characters lead such bleak lives, moving between depressions, neuroses and unemployment--and some of the stories in Distortions undermine the characters' reality in their tendency towards absurdism. Still, Beattie includes enough gentle humor in her presentation to keep you interested. You come to hope desperately for resolution, for an end to the emptiness and an advent of warmth. Beattie isn't liable to satisfy...
Later, when tedium set in, Gaddafi managed to arouse the assembly by signaling to Premier Abdul Salam Jalloud. who announced that any Libyan wanting to build a house would receive free land, along with a guaranteed bank loan for construction. The crowd came alive with cheers...
Toland is all too gullible about some of those witnesses. The book records without serious question things like the claim of Dr. Erwin Giesing that he tried to assassinate Hitler with an overdose of cocaine. Toland also relishes obscure detail to the point of tedium. He includes, for instance, a minute description of the shower facilities at the men's home in Vienna where a young and impoverished Hitler lived for three years just before World War I. Yet in larger matters Toland strays woefully from the record. He asserts that Hitler was "still a member in good standing...
...cope with the special problems of the elderly, New York police have set up senior citizen robbery units in all five boroughs. One of the units' main jobs is to persuade old people to bring charges against their attackers. The police make special arrangements to eliminate the tedium and confusion of court appearances. Detectives also lecture groups of old people on how to survive in the city (e.g., don't go home if you think you're being followed-find a cop). In addition, the police have created a few "safe corridors" for the elderly: thoroughfares...