Word: witting
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More often, Shales stings his victims with wit. Investigative reporters who pounce on their prey in ambush interviews are practicing "bonzo journalism," said Shales. "Naturally one is reminded of the old story about the dog chasing cars -what do they do if they catch one? Wrestle him to the ground? Drag him off to the hoosegow?" Shales ridiculed Dan Rather's histrionic foray into Afghanistan last year for 60 Minutes, dubbing him "Gunga Dan," and noting that Rather's peasant garb "made him look like an extra out of Dr. Zhivago." Some viewers still cannot tune...
Meantime, there is Superman II to consider, and a pleasant prospect it is. For it is that rarity of rarities, a sequel that readily surpasses the original. This is not, perhaps, a task requiring Kryptonic levels of wit and wisdom, because the initial effort was more than a little crude. The film makers suffered from a deep insecurity about what to take seriously, what they could afford to kid around with in updating the pop legend. Whether in derision or in a desperate desire to get laughs, the picture seemed to be running around with its tongue stuck...
...candle. The final confrontation with Superman is a barroom brawl on a delightfully gigantic scale. Instead of heaving furniture at one another, they toss a bus back and forth. And when one of the combatants gets thrown, the trajectory is measured in city blocks. In short, there is wit, even a sort of weird plausibility, in the action sequences that was not present in the first film. Since the major change in the credits is the substitution of Richard Lester for Richard Donner as director, it seems logical to single out the man who did A Hard...
Harvard also played a role in isolating the Class of '56 behind a wall of cliches and stereotypes. Relying on its inimitable wit, Cambridge's only breakfast table daily commented on the times with regular fashion features. A fall 1955 caption describes a photo of an attractive woman snoozing through a Sever Hall class: "If a girl intends to sleep during and after a lecture, she will look and feel more comfortable in this twin sweater with wool skirt... Contrast is recommended for government courses, harmony for social relations...
Throughout, Galbraith is as laconic as an Ontario plow jockey. He offers little about his private life; his wit is a bit too mechanical, as are mordant observations like "Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." Yet Galbraith's air of detachment is satisfying. It enables him to place himself in recent history without seeming more or less important than he was. He is one of the few contemporary memoirists who have held the line on inflation...