Word: trivia
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...general preoccupation with trivia-I mean Coke-machines, launderettes . . . laxatives and baseball-I construed as the American attempt to exclude the bigger reality. If you have a lot of little gadgets to divert attention, the larger issues are unlikely to occur to you, and existence is less satisfying but a damn sight more comfortable...
...relaxed, resourceful wartime communications expert for General. Marshall, who winnowed thousands of messages from all over the world, boiled them down for Marshall, and set up the Chief of Staff's daily briefing session at 6:40 a.m. Within State, Humelsine had earned a reputation for mowing trivia and red tape out of Dean Acheson's path, leaving the Secretary freer than any of his predecessors to concentrate on the big issues. Like Peurifoy, hard-working Carl Humelsine had never taken time to be measured for striped pants...
...Smith left the U.S. to settle in England with a lump inheritance and a passion for foraging fine phrases from great writers who had created more than mere phrases. He would occasionally turn out such little books as Trivia and More Trivia, in which he rubbed his language to a fine sheen and tried to distill the essence of his new-found cultivation into concise paragraphs. Smith's lapidary phrases were admired by such tweedy literary folk as Christopher Morley, but, reread today, they seem rather cold and feeble...
Soon after their meeting Smith offered Gathorne-Hardy an allowance so that he could do his own writing and help compile more Trivia. Two strings were attached: "I was not to get married; and I must not attempt to write bestselling novels." Gathorne-Hardy was not the sort of man to flinch before either condition...
...example from All Trivia: "When by sips of champagne and a few oysters they can no longer keep me from fading away into the infinite azure, 'you cannot,' I shall whisper my faint last message to the world, 'be too fastidious...