Word: unstrung
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Gorey has said, "I was probably fully formed by the time I was 21 or 22." Indeed, his work, beginning with The Unstrung Harp of 1953, has been remarkably consistent: anachronistic, morbid and arcane from the first. Besides illustrating his books, Gorey's drawings grace countless engagement calendars and postcards, the animated opening sequence of PBS's "Mystery!" series, the covers of paperback classics published by Anchor Books in the '50s and '60s, dorm-room posters, and so on. If you do not think you have seen his work, you are probably wrong...
...antipsychotic drugs, before the counselors can even get through to them. On a wall in the Rimrock recreation room hangs a homemade poster showing a medevac helicopter like those that land at nearby St. Vincent Hospital. The poster is intended to reassure paranoid recovering crankers, but many are so unstrung that they fear the helicopter is after them...
...essay's title refers to Mr. Earbrass, a character in "The Unstrung Harp." The first of Gorey's works to be published, "The Unstrung Harp" follows the literary troubles of an Edward Goreyesque figure. Whenever Gorey represents himself in one of his works, he does so as an author, not an artist. Wilkin, a staunch admirer of Gorey's art, concedes that his mastery of language is no less sophisticated and entertaining...
Which is where Sid's brothers--the Unstrung Heroes of this movie's title--come in. They live behind multilocked doors, surrounded by tons of old newspapers, in a downtown slum. Danny (Michael Richards of Seinfeld) is a wild-eyed, left-wing paranoid, certain that every knock on the door heralds the arrival of the FBI; Arthur (Maury Chaykin) is a soft-spoken collector of wedding-cake figures, snow domes and rubber balls that he teaches Steven to listen to, convinced the voices of the children who once bounced them still echo faintly inside...
...Richard LaGravenese's wonderfully modulated script. From The Fisher King through A Little Princess and The Bridges of Madison County, he has demonstrated a gift for conveying honest sentiment without permitting us to wallow in it, and he's at his craftsmanlike best here. The flaky charms of Unstrung Heroes will be lost on some hardened souls, and it does have its self-conscious, even slightly self-congratulatory moments. But don't listen to their braying. Listen instead for the minor-key melody of a very seductive movie...