Word: vernacular
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...mainstream churches have tried in various ways to adapt themselves to a secular age. The Roman Catholic Church made its liturgy accessible in the vernacular and turned increasingly from saving souls to saving society. The major Protestant denominations also increasingly emphasized social activism and tried to dilute dogma to accommodate 20th century rationality and diversity. Churches not only permitted the ordination of women -- long overdue -- but are seriously debating the ordination of homosexuals and the sanctioning of homosexual marriages. Fin de siecle...
...Italian or Spanish, and the Catalan empire had consulates in 126 places; later Barcelona was the home of the first submarine and the world capital of anarchism. Discoursing with authority on such arcana as bourgeois hairstyles of the 19th century, and spicing up his narrative with his own juicily vernacular translations of Catalan poetry, Hughes lights up even the structure of Catalan fishing nets with indelibly vivid descriptions ("gauzy forecourts and inner rooms hanging in the sea, into which whole schools of tuna would stray and be compressed to a frenzy of foam and chunky thrashing bodies...
Behind Puryear's work one also sees, as a pervasive presence to whom constant homages are paid, Constantin Brancusi. Of all 20th century sculptors, Brancusi did the most to combine a reductive, Modernist sensibility with the language and techniques of vernacular carpentry. There are echoes of the great Romanian right through this show, from the roughly notched beam like a huge crosscut-saw blade in Some Tales, 1975-77, to the somber egglike or coffin- shaped forms of Maroon, 1987-88, or Lever...
...political vernacular, it's called a boondoggle, similar to the U.S. Congress' allocating taxpayer money for, say, Sen. Jesse A. Helms's next birthday party--and then telling taxpayers they are invited, if they can afford it. Playing favorites with endorsements and cash simply does not serve the larger community...
...story in 25 different voices, with each short chapter written in the first person. The author's attempt at so many voices when she is not sure of even one seems utter folly. While they are meant to sound distinct, the characters sound curiously similar. Despite their blue-collar vernacular, each remains somehow knowing and clever...