Word: victorian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...more pitiful existence than that lived by John Merrick, the Elephant Man, could not be imagined. Born with a deteriorating disease that infected his body with gruesome deformities, he was treated by Victorian England first as a freak show amusement and then as a society oddity. His story is currently the basis for a first rate complex play about conflicting motivations, and this rather simple-minded black-and-white (in more ways than one) movie...
...Musicians by Eminent Writers, English and Foreign. The word "foreign" was a bit patronizing; of the 118 contributors listed in that four-volume edition, 102 were British. This reflected the insular judgment of the founding editor, a nonmusician named George Grove, one of those versatile achievers of whom the Victorian Age was justly proud. Sir George, a civil engineer, built lighthouses in Jamaica and Bermuda and worked on the British railway system. He was a self-taught Bible and music scholar who in 1852 became secretary of the Crystal Palace, a concert and exhibition hall. He wrote program notes...
...that sudden growth has not marred the temperate beauty of the city. To be sure, the office buildings housing lawyers and lobbyists on K Street look like toasters with windows, but on the residential streets of the city there are probably more attractive homes (Federal, Victorian, stark modern) than anywhere else in the country. This makes for some astonishingly boring discussions of real estate deals but also for some very pleasant living. So do the parks, like Montrose and Rock Creek. So do the ball fields and tennis courts (available). The city's most famous structures have always held...
...community went about their business, no radio or television could be heard. At Millie Walsh's Mobil station on Route 23 just past the center of town, the electric clock had stopped and the giant soft-drink cooler was turned off. At Arthur and Alice Somers' huge Victorian manse on the edge of nearby Lake Garfield, the cavernous, antiquated kitchen was bathed in the soft glow of kerosene lamps and candles. Alice Somers heated corn chowder on an 1887 Rollhaus wood stove, meanwhile keeping her eye on the mulled cider that simmered near by. In the barn behind...
...slimy and sinister persecutors flirt with melodrama. Rather than concentrating their fire on these caricatured villains, the writers might have more thoroughly examined the subtler exploitation that Merrick suffers under Treves' care. The doctor worries that the hospital has replaced the carnival as Merrick's freak show, that the Victorian socialites come to have tea with the Elephant Man only to stare at him and "to impress their friends." He begins to question his own motives in taking care of Merrick, wondering if he sought only recognition and not social justice. It's an intriguing idea that's just left...