Word: vacuous
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Reaction at Temple Sinai, where Siegel is still rabbi, has varied from reserved agreement to outrage. "We had such a nice family-like congregation here," laments one congregant. "Now this." Siegel's critics among his fellow rabbis are not so much disturbed by his portrait of a vacuous congregation as his own passive performance. "A rabbi," argues young Orthodox Rabbi Steven Riskin of Manhattan, "is foremost the educator of his community. He must impart values and represent them in his own life." Yet Siegel confesses that he "doesn't know" why he is a rabbi: he chooses...
...kind of man who spindles and mutilates his phone bills as a matter of principle, has come forth with Sons and Daughters of Mom. Wylie turns his venom from Mom to Mom's long-haired Woodstock children: "second generation vipers" or "arrogant pipsqueaks" given to "self-pity and vacuous dreams." Are the young correct that no one listens to them? Says Wylie: "Too Goddamn many people listen to them...
...characters in Village Wooing are both well played. Natalie Lombard as the vacuous showgirl gives a good rendering of a cardboard role, and Martin Andrucki is sufficiently pompous as the guidebook writer. The acting in Fables, on the other hand, is an almost unmitigated disaster. Delia Sang gave a good performance in the first and third fables, but almost everybody else was uniformly awful. As bad as the script was, there were places, like the fourth fable, where the acting made it worse. But by then, no one gave a damn...
...earlier biography, Jack Newfield's Robert Kennedy: A Memoir, is without doubt the best of the Kennedy books; in comparison to it, On His Own seems especially vacuous. Newfield does not try to defend Kennedy's mistakes, but rather makes them understandable-and forgivable-within the context of his character. Writing largely from his personal contact with Kennedy, Newfield succeeds in developing a comprehensive view of him and his political development. His Robert Kennedy is outstanding. There is no reason to read On His Own: RFK 1964-68 in addition...