Word: witnessing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...writer has swallowed all of Singapore, from its stately colonial bungalows to its once opium-infested slums, with the verve and wit of the late J.G. Farrell, whose 1978 saga The Singapore Grip remains the great Singapore novel. From its opening passages Farrell signals the vastness of his literary ambition - and then brilliantly brings it off in the ensuing 500-odd pages. "When you staggered outside into the sweltering night," he writes of Singapore, "you would have been able to inhale that incomparable smell of incense, of warm skin, of meat cooking in coconut oil, of money and frangipani...
...Farrell's characters survive in spirit, too. Misfits like Webb still wander into Singapore, and though firms like Blackett's have ceded to local conglomerates, his penchant for order and profit can still be witnessed within today's business élite. With his gentle wit Farrell captures the soul of Singapore: a polyglot Asian port, still partly under the sleepy sway of its British colonial past, and still lurching toward an uncertain future with a furious, irresistible energy...
Upon his return from a brief stint as a correspondent in Iraq (recounted in his previous book, War Reporting for Cowards), British journalist Chris Ayres takes up a job as a Hollywood correspondent for the London Times. There, he witnesses a less violent, but equally disturbing, scene - the rapacious, debt-funded and seemingly insatiable spending habits of upwardly mobile West Coast Americans. Assigned to cover this world, he is compelled to emulate it, purchasing gargantuan televisions, unnecessary beauty treatments, pricey meals, and shady real estate. With dry British wit, he skewers American greed, L.A. life, and his own endless romantic...
...nuanced performances, charming creative vision, and a healthy dose of lighthearted fun.Tolchinsky (Nate Johnson) must educate Sophia Zubritsky (Jamianne Devlin) in 24 hours or risk falling victim to the village’s curse of stupidity. Unfortunately for Tolchinsky, he falls in love with the beautiful, but extremely dim-witted, Sophia. The lack of chemistry between Johnson and Devlin makes the asinine love story feel even more implausible than originally written, but the individual performances of the two actors easily compensate for this weakness. Johnson is especially delightful, playing Tolchinsky with an endearing earnestness, a wry sense of humor...
...have become something of an encyclopedia of sandwich knowledge. I can tell the difference between a standard French Dip and a double-dipped. I can order a Philly Cheesesteak the right way: “wit” or “wit-out” (onions). I know where the po-boy was invented (New Orleans 1929), and the most popular sandwich in America (the hamburger). The bad news is that classes have started again, so I don’t have time to watch a whole PBS documentary about sandwiches. The good news is that...