Word: walt
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Clem “Nickname” Wright, and Yours Truly. We were just runnin’ around soccering, or as the Europeans say, “footballing” when Walter and Clem accidentally collided knee-to knee in an unbridled explosion of full contact dude-ness.BAM! Walt was on the ground, obviously in a bunch of pain. His knee had gotten smacked pretty good. Now, at this point, a lesser man might have lashed out at Clem for his role in having facilitated the collision. But no. There was no blame to be placed here, no mud to sling...
...process of losing agency over his or her own life, and is desperate to regain it: Kathryn, the town’s musician-turned-music teacher, feels that she is slowly losing touch with her son Conor but doesn’t know how to help him; Walt Steckl, the town’s loitering electrician, can’t help drinking and falls into unruly lewdness when he does; Angela, a student at the local college, clings pathetically to her ever-elusive professor and lover Stuart, while he, in turn, struggles with his writing. As their lives intersect?...
...sold yet? Yeah, neither were we. Incredibly, though, this guy claims that companies from IBM to Walt Disney have paid him to drum up enthusiasm for their products. The Wall Street Journal even ran a piece (in 1998, ahem) about the pitchman's skills at addressing crowds with "just a whiff of cheerful megalomania." Sure, Bauer's probably living in a cardboard box made of $4 business cards (foil-stamped!) right now, but you have to admire the man's spirit. Or maybe just giggle at it. Because life is not about being liked. It's about being effective...
...Walt Disney knew this, and built his empire on it. His early, primal animated features mined infant emotions of fear, loss and reconciliation, and branded the Disney name on their receptive brains. On '50s TV, The Mickey Mouse Club and Disneyland sold young viewers not just a theme park but a sanitized ideal of childhood. Walt also sold them friends: cartoon characters you could pack your school lunch in, fall asleep with or wear on your wrist. (The marketing genius of the Mickey Mouse watch cannot be overstated...
...More than 40 years after Walt's death, his successors at the Disney Channel haven't forgotten how to fashion/manipulate/stoke/corrupt/enhance the young imagination. They've made culture-spanning franchises of High School Musical, Hannah Montana and the Jonases: on TV and CDs, in concert and on the movie screen. Early box office returns for the Jonas boys' movie indicate they're not yet in the Miley Cyrus empyrean. JB 3D, which analysts had said would gross $30-40 million, took in just $4.8 million on Friday, for a projected $15-18 million weekend total. Compare that with the Hannah Montana/Miley...