Word: witting
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Even the law's drafters were sheepish about what amounted to an admission that Government lacked the wit or the courage or both to make its own decisions on spending. "It's a bad idea whose time has come," admitted New Hampshire Republican Senator Warren Rudman, one of the bill's co-authors (the others: Texas Republican Senator Phil Gramm and South Carolina Democratic Senator Ernest Hollings). New Jersey Democrat Peter Rodino, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called it a "flagrant abdication of congressional responsibility." Last week the Supreme Court leveled the ultimate criticism, ruling that a key provision...
Like many performers-to-be, Danny deflected attacks on his shortcomings (he was always small for his age) with wit and bravado: "Ever since I was born, I've thought of myself as a romantic lead." But not, initially, as an actor. There was the vagrant lead part in a high school play about St. Francis of Assisi. "I was in a brown robe," he remembers. "No shoes, no socks. The curtain wasn't all the way down, and just before we were about to begin, I heard my mother say, 'I think those are his feet.' " Still...
...excavation has provided ample proof of Kovacs' prodigious achievement. Not that all of it is funny. Much of Kovacs' comedy strikes a viewer today as rather obvious and crudely executed. Steve Allen, another pioneer of live TV comedy, was a more dexterous verbal wit; Sid Caesar a more inspired sketch comic. Kovacs' contribution lay elsewhere. No performer, for one thing, was more at ease in front of the TV camera or treated it with such relaxed irreverence. Kovacs' live shows were an engaging mix of scripted bits (with such recurring characters as the lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils) and raucous improvisation...
Sentiment scotches the wit in "About Last Night," an expansion and dilution of David Mamet's 1974 one-acter Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Written as a series of blackout scenes involving two working-class pals and the two young women they fancy, the play was rancid, funny and dead-on-target. So why would Screenwriters Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClue want to turn it into a Pillow Talk for the nouveau quiche set? Now the story is about a nice girl (the exemplary Demi Moore) and a pretty guy (Rob Lowe) who triumph over their busybody buddies (Elizabeth Perkins...
When writing his steely, intensely violent mysteries, the novelist who is otherwise known as Evan Hunter (The Blackboard Jungle, Last Summer) calls himself Ed McBain. Fans have learned that the McBain byline promises wit, shrewd plotting and downbeat realism, but also allows for great variety. His 47th and 48th books demonstrate that range. Cinderella is a gem of sting and countersting among a prostitute, a gay hairdresser, a Latin American drug king, a Mafioso, his brutal brother, and assorted innocents who get hurt. The action keeps up until the final sentence. Another Part of the City is a thriller about...