Word: wanly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Oddly, Philby's comments on world politics and on his colorful past seem wan and trite. It is almost as if this supermole wanted to demystify his own legend, making double agentry seem as banal as bartending. The impression of ordinariness is reinforced by his chatty letters to Knightley, which are cited in extenso. Philby comes across as a slightly dotty old Brit, complaining about how hard it is to find "bilambees" (an Indian vegetable) in Moscow and fuming about the "preposterous" radio commentaries of "the BBC's own Smarty Cooke, Alistair of that...
Services? I really don't want any services, I just wan't a job to come simply and painlessly. I'm giving myself a time limit, too--I'm out of here...
...left him odd man out among friends, fellow authors and members of his children's generation: "Authority to these young people was Amerika, a bloodstained bugaboo to be crushed at any cost. To me, authority was the Shillington High School faculty, my father and his kindly and friendly, rather wan and punctilious colleagues, with whose problems and perspective I had had every opportunity to empathize...
...those shows would seem a godsend to the Wan White Way of the '80s. With three striking exceptions -- Dreamgirls, Big River and Into the Woods -- pretty much every noteworthy musical of the decade has been a revival, a recycling of old songs, an import (generally from Britain) or a critical smash but commercial also-ran. The current season, which by Broadway's calendar began in May, is more miserable than most. Its first American musical, Carrie, actually a slightly postponed holdover from last season, closed within five performances at a record loss of $7 million. The sole entry since, Legs...
Sometimes, alas, it is business as usual. This year's season opener, Giacomo Meyerbeer's hoary grand opera L'Africaine, typifies the ills that have afflicted the company. As Vasco da Gama, Tenor Placido Domingo sounds tired and wan, Maurizio Arena's conducting is enervated and Mansouri's own stage direction merely serviceable. Only veteran Soprano Shirley Verrett, as the regal Selika, captures the fiery spirit of Meyerbeer's diffuse and improbable last opera...