Word: vandalizes
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Simon Gray, 50, is the laureate of the intellectual as moral vandal. His best plays, from Butley (1971) and Otherwise Engaged (1975) to the witty and poignant The Common Pursuit, which opened off- Broadway last week, depict men of privilege and potential who, out of indifference or gleeful masochism, systematically degrade everything around them, not least their own bright promise. They are apt to view their intelligence either as a burden, leading people to expect things of them, or as an outright curse, lifting their vision just enough to comprehend genius but nowhere near enough to emulate it. Well into...
...English but is actually closer to Latin. Like Latin, it is primarily a written language, prized for its incantatory powers, and is best learned early, while the mind is still supple. Every cub reporter, for instance, knows that fires rage out of control, minor mischief is perpetrated by Vandals (never Visigoths, Franks or a single Vandal working alone) and key labor accords are hammered out by weary negotiators in marathon, round-the- clock bargaining sessions, thus narrowly averting threatened walkouts. The discipline required for a winter storm report is awesome. The first reference to seasonal precipitation is "snow," followed...
...episode in front of the Pudding and the Crimson articles make several points clear. When a Cambridge youth steals, he is a vandal; when a Harvard student steals, he is simply, high-spirited. The Cambridge youth is a threat and a menace, the Harvard student is a regular guy doing "wild and crazy" things. The Cambridge youth steals, we suppose, because he is in need, he is inherently bad, or he is bored; the Harvard student steals because he is in need of a challenge, he is inherently fun-loving, and he is also bored...
...sober light of morning, the boys began to wish they had never tried their puckish prank. Whenever Per put his rucksack down, the arm inside made such a resounding clunk that his companions took to teasing him. Per, they said, must be the vandal who had alarmed the city's police force. And so that very night, the sheepish boys aroused a drowsy policeman and placed the severed limb before him. Before Per and Mike can live happily ever after, they may have to pay for the mermaid's repair. And that is likely to cost them...
They are named Phantom Flasher, Lazarus, The Red Onion, Chiquita Vanana, Vandal and such. They ride high and graceless, as always, but now their boxy bodies cry out for attention with garish designs and obstreperous Pap art: frontier scenes, Hawaii schlock, seascapes, erotic mush. Even one-the specimen, say, that flashes nude girls in and out of view with Op-artful magic-can pop the eyeballs. When large numbers heave into sight, zooming along the road in a spaced-out phantasmagoria of a caravan, they can set the innocent motorist to gaping and muttering, "What is going on here...