Word: woode
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...chips of concrete scattered throughout your bluebook will have you up for sainthood. Or at least Dean's List. Name at least the titles of every other book Hume wrote; don't just say Medieval cathedrals, name nine. Think up a few specific examples of "contemporary decadence," like Natalie Wood. If you can't come up with titles, try a few sharp metaphors of your own; they at least have the solid clink of pseudo-facts...
FINLAND'S MOST DISTINGUISHED WRITER-director is named Aki Kaurismaki. That statement is true and probably funny -- like his THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL, a comedy so dark that some viewers take it for tragedy. This sly parable starts with a brisk documentary on the transformation of a stick of wood in a box of matches, then spends the rest of its 70 minutes on the transformation of Iris (Kati Outinen), the stolid young woman on the assembly line, into a keg of emotional dynamite. Kaurismaki's almost-silent movie features a cast of rats -- mother, stepfather, brutal beau -- for whom...
...talking of the way ever brighter urban lights have caused a "loss of the night" -- the fading of the stars he knew as a boy and of the dark waters on Long Island Sound that used to terrify him. "I used to be able to record 16 species of wood warblers on my property, all in a very short time," he says. "Now I'm lucky to see eight or 10 warblers all spring -- of any species...
...countryside respond to this demand by planting a narrower range of crops, which in turn increases the likelihood of major disruptions of the food supply by pests and droughts. Particularly in the developing world, cities act as destructive parasites on the surrounding countryside. Urban thirst for fuel wood and building materials leads to deforestation, which can destroy an area's watershed and thus cause flooding and soil erosion. In many cases, the impact of urban centers extends across the seas. Demand for plywood building materials in Japanese cities drives the decimation of Borneo's forests...
This is hard on journalists, who are trained to spot trendlets in their infancy and hype them into vast cultural sea changes. Not too long ago, for instance, this magazine announced a "new-simplicity" trend involving antimaterialism and wood-burning stoves -- and then the new simplicity turned out to be only the old recession. Or there was CBS News's pitiful attempt a few weeks ago to claim alternative healing as a newsworthy trend. Healing with crystals and chamomile may have been trendy and exciting in '74. Today, among the 37 million uninsured, chamomile has long since replaced penicillin...