Word: witting
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...this is my last column for the glorious school year of 2004-2005, it’s time to prophesize. Or at least mindlessly throw more drivel on the page, which you have been so sadly hypnotized into reading by my consistently incisive, yet completely contrived, wit...
...earth” as well as “smart, funny, and attractive.” This should be combined with a “fearless but realistic” outlook towards her surroundings. Her male counterpart should be an “everyday guy” whose quick wit will be his “mental security blanket,” enabling the duo to plow through dangerous situations. His relationship with his co-host should be at a “safe best friend distance” while showing “the tiniest affection” towards...
Tickled to Death (Scribners; 231 pages; $13.95) is a collection of short stories, only one of them featuring Author Simon Brett's delightful amateur detective, the hammy and frequently out-of-work actor Charles Paris. Brett's ten Paris novels thrive on their bitchy wit and backstage authenticity. Outside those environs his writing can become fey and whimsical. But Brett is a specialist at sketching protagonists who are at once charming and palpably rotten, so that their ultimate escape or exposure remains a matter of genuine suspense...
...destructive hackers have some wit, albeit menacing. In a program called the Cookie Monster, the screen suddenly goes blank. Seconds later, the words "I want a cookie" appear. If the user types "cookie," the machine returns to normal. A few years ago, Richard Skrenta Jr., an 18-year-old Northwestern University student, wrote a virus program called Cloner. Every 30th time a disk containing the program is used, the virus harmlessly flashes a few verses across the screen; then the interrupted task resumes where it left off. "I wrote it as a joke to see how far it would spread...
...unhurried pace, and the amplitude with which it envisions the land, its alternation of the idyllic and the menacing, evokes one of that era's classic forms, the road movie. And then, in effect, reimagines it. Here the road movie's traditional protagonist, the wayfarer whose only resources are wit and courage, is transformed into a young girl. Enchantingly played by Meredith Salenger, 14, Natty is obviously more imperiled by the hobo life than a man would be. And her gumption flatters without fawning upon the modern young woman's sense of her sex's expanded capabilities...