Word: uptightness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...University Police Chief Saul L. Chafin said yesterday he was unsure whether or not the Department of Athletics wants him to pursue the culprits. "The response in the press box was that they weren't uptight. They thought it was an ingenious prank...
...written into the script, and there's little that he can do to overcome it. Joseph Bologna, Jessica Harper, Bill Macy, and Adolph Green are all fine character actors, but in this case, we've seen the characters too often before. Most of them are in the well-worn uptight-showbiz mold; the Yiddish momma schtick at Benjy's Brooklyn home is an excruciating parade of old cliches. Only one memorable move emerges from this stew of reheated vaudeville; when Benjy announces: "We Jews know about two things suffering, and where to get great Chinese food...
Inside the spa building, in a small windowless room, an uptight, burned-out, more-fat-than-fit East Coast Type A female is submitting to an herbal wrap. A cup of alfalfa-mint tea precedes mummification. She sweats to the faint chimes of "music to relax and meditate by." The East Coast Type A resents being told to relax. The ranch's resident psychotherapist, Richard ("Bud") Murphy, will later tell her, "Many people come here seeking withdrawal from something-food, a bad marriage, personal problems, smoking-but they feel ambivalent and resist change...
When Fenwick first came to Congress in 1975, she took Washingtonians by surprise. How could they know that the elegant, gracious Mrs. Fenwick was also an outspoken, steel-strapped pipe-smoker? As Bella Abzug told her, "Everyone expected you to be an uptight dowager." Perhaps Lacey Davenport, her caricature in the Doonesbury comic strip, explains best what Capitol Hill denizens really found. Charming and upbeat, she was unafraid to tangle with the personalities that might have had the power to end her career...
...when the uptight are continually exhorted to let it all hang out and be in touch with their feelings, it is curious that no one calls anyone else a Byzantine logothete any more. That is what Teddy Roosevelt called Woodrow Wilson; and, while a Byzantine logothete is not the worst thing you can say about someone-it means a glorified accountant-it does suggest a certain largesse of contempt that is missing from modern life. A government official is fired from a high post and he cites "personal differences" with his superior. An actress is savaged in a gossip column...