Word: witnesses
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...have survived with such vigor and freshness. Porter was perhaps the greatest songwriter of all time, and certainly the most versatile. Critics are indeed hard-pressed to name anyone as consistently good, before or since. And his lyrics--few writers, much less songwriters, could ever match his wit and style. He not only reflected his times; he put a patina on them that will not fade...
Already MacArthur has found half a dozen converts, a tiny band of practical-minded natives. Paul Atkinson, dry and leather-lean, with a wit to match, is in the process of setting up a cabinet shop. He plans to beat the high cost of lumber and control the quality of his product by sawing and milling his own wood. An old chicken incubator stands by for ingenious use as his kiln...
...past couple of records have found him hitting, missing, mostly flailing, but Street-Legal lands home pretty clean. Among jugular reveries and cyclonic voyages to the end of the night, it is the love songs that stand out. Dylan sings them in a variety of moods: surly wit ("Do you love me/ Or are you just extending good will?"); sidelong irony ("Betrayed by a kiss/ On a cool night of bliss/ In the valley of the missing link"); even a certain smarmy desperation ("I'm lost in the haze of your delicate ways"). In live appearances, Dylan has lately...
Harold Rome's music has an infectious amiability and moves the show along on dancing feet, though the level of choreography is primitive. Rome's lyrics achieve something that is perhaps rarer than wit, a good humor that arises from compassionate fellow feeling...
...advice to writers contains both wit and sober utility: "Avoid haphazard writing materials. A pedantic adherence to certain papers, pens, inks is beneficial . The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself. Speech conquers thought, but writing commands it ... Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Literary honor requires that one break off only at an appointed moment . . . Avoid everyday mediocrity. Semirelaxation, to a background of insipid sounds, is degrading." Benjamin ends his list with "The work is the death mask of its conception...