Word: yawns
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...present has grown much too blase to do anything but yawn when confronted with the wonders of science. Even hideous gases and death-dealing ultra-what rays have lost their power to amuse us. We smile at chemistry, and, save when we experiment with the fuse-box in the dark, ignore the extraordinary possibilities of electricity. Complex machinery is to us as an open primer, and we positively gape when someone mentions advanced physics...
...York Times of yesterday contained the startling headline "Follies Girls Teach Columbia's Crew". News of this sort can't be passed by with the yawn one gives the stock quotations or the latest revolution in Guatemala. Such a headline has all the marks of the advertising man's handiwork. The attention-compelling novelty of the idea makes one read on and on--to see just what it is the Follies girls teach Columbia's crew...
...musical show has been staged with the requisite regard for pace and variety, gives no opportunity for a yawn to get started. Thus, the Williams Sisters perkily berate the audience in a chanted number for being late and missing the opening chorus?which does not exist. Then comes a series of skits wherein the mortifying consequences of being tardy are revealed, generally with a sly double entendre sneaking...
...preliminary inspection will bring complete approval. As the play proceeds and the visitor begins to poke around behind the gaily decorated boughs he finds to his dismay that the picture tree has no roots of plot. It teeters badly and threatens to collapse at the first breath of a yawn. When the heroine is growing up as a tomboy in the country there is entertainment. When she moves up to London a great calm suddenly comes up. She murders her early, faithless lover to stimulate the ending and marries Milton Sills. "She" is Virginia Valli and an exceptionally soothing performance...
...Significance. Few average readers will be able to summon up any sort of a yawn over North of 36, It has the usual appurtenances of "Western" fiction?but it has something more. The man who wrote it knew the country and people he wrote about as most "Western" writers do not;?conscientiousness, craftmanship and sincerity are evident throughout the novel. What faults there are are faults neither of intention nor laziness?you have the constant feeling that here is a book written as well as the particular author concerned could write...