Word: wits
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that academic exoticus, a professor without a Ph.D.; he has said, "All I want to do is share the past." Like his earlier masterworks, Landscape and Memory is studded with apt illustrations from art and literature, and its pages crackle with epigram and, at times, a dry Gibbonian wit. The book also has a message of rebuke for those multiculturalists who despise Western civilization as the archenemy of nature and the world's primary despoiler of pristine wilds. "Even the landscapes that we suppose to be most free of our culture," Schama writes, "may turn out, on closer inspection...
...gone, replaced by a Monet ... If someone were trying to send a message to me, they were being incredibly subtle. In fact they were. The next day, the Monet was gone and a Vuillard was in its place ... It was clear that all was not well." Wit at this level balances almost any degree of obsession, and yes, thanks, another cup-black, no sugar...
...Newt, Wit of Farley...
...fears, particularly of women, whom Crumb feels are so inaccessible "they won't even let me draw them," are chronicled here, as well as the frustration shown in comics with titles like "Words fail me (Pictures Aren't Much Better)." Of Crumb's work Corliss says "With care and wit, he draws his own demons and goddesses. One thing he never draws is conclusions. That is for the viewer to do, and be horrified or edified."MONEYWATCH...
...equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell," we might have stepped into an Auden poem. When a formidable lady silences her brother by snapping, "Do not dabble in paradox, Edward, it puts you in danger of fortuitous wit," we can hear Wilde whispering, "I wish I'd said that." And for concentrated lyricism, the scene in which Thomasina bewails the burning of the classical library of Alexandria--a doomed girl genius lamenting the conflagration of ancient genius--is absolutely stunning...