Word: wand
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This voice-controlled engine is one of the new applications in the rapidly emerging technology that allows machines, in a primitive fashion, to use human language. Dallas-based Texas Instruments, which pioneered low-cost talking computers with its Speak & Spell learning aid, last week unveiled Magic Wand, a machine that can read to children. It is disc-shaped like an LP record album. A youngster passes a wand attached to the disc over books that contain not only pictures and words but also bar codes on pages similar to those that now appear on grocery items, magazines and other goods...
...occasion sparks a brief romance between Enid and the manager, Jerry Wexler. The moment doesn't last, of course; it only brings the tired and confused characters deeper into disillusion. In the end, Allen hardly even resolves their plight, instead he fumbles into symbolism, as Paul's magic wand turns to flowers in a strange ending which ought to resonate but doesn...
...terribly true. What they fail to say is that unlike Caliban, Bernard is a monster of sly and surpassing charm, and, like Prospero, his magic wand is the English tongue. He ends a characteristic diatribe on the erosion of the English class structure with the observation that "soon there'll be more photographers than people to be photographed." On the effects of alimony, he reflects bitterly: "Idle men produced an age of elegance. Idle women merely multiply hairdressers...
...seemed, in fact, that the universities had timed their efforts to coincide with the Reagan revolution. Paring federal subsidies and waving his magic wand over the private sector, the new president called upon corporations to fill the gaps his budget cuts would leave. But stop-gap efforts to shore up eroding endowments are not the cure-all the prophets of creative altruism might suppose...
...times, it seems as if Michael Bennett, the show's sorcerer, has borrowed Prospero's wand. He conjures up scenes of potent magic that prove as evanescent as dreams. What is palpably dazzling merges imperceptibly with razzle-dazzle. The sheer richness of the surrounding technique and texture blanches the text. Robin Wagner's scenic design consists of stark metal, light-crammed towers that move and revolve to form a kaleidoscope of geometric patterns. Costumer Theoni V. Aldredge must have purchased her swatches from a rainbow merchant to fashion the slinky, sequined gowns, and Tharon Musser...