Word: zap
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...Zap! The direct mailer can then aim a solicitation at a letter box with a precision bordering on the scientific. While some people find the attention flattering, others consider it insidious. "There's something kind of creepy about companies knowing more about you than your own family, and compiling and trading information about you behind your back," says Robert Ellis Smith, editor of the watchdog newsletter Privacy Journal. Direct marketers strongly deny that they are intruders. "Nobody wants dossiers compiled about them," says Michael Manzari, president of Kleid Co., a New York City concern that brokers and manages lists...
...using drugs; he denies it. What to do? The question now has a chemical answer: slip into his bedroom when he is away, brandishing a spray can of Drug Alert. Wipe off his study desk, dresser top or doorknob with a clean white cloth or paper towel. Then zap the cloth or paper with spray. If a reddish- brown or turquoise stain appears, your son may be a liar...
They have trouble making decisions. They would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb a corporate ladder. They have few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention span is as short as one zap of a TV dial. They hate yuppies, hippies and druggies. They postpone marriage because they dread divorce. They sneer at Range Rovers, Rolexes and red suspenders. What they hold dear are family life, local activism, national parks, penny loafers and mountain bikes. They possess only a hazy sense of their own identity but a monumental preoccupation with...
...largely true. As the world has accelerated to the fax and satellite speed of light, attention spans have shortened, and dimension has given way to speed. A whole new aesthetic -- the catchy, rapid-fire flash of images -- is being born. Advertising, the language of the quick cut and the zap, has quite literally set the pace, but Presidents, preachers, even teachers have not been slow to get the message. Thus ideas become slogans, and issues sound bites. Op-ed turns into photo op. Politics becomes telegenics. And all of us find that we are creatures of the screen. The average...
This production of A Midsummer Night's Dream's greatest flaw, however, is that it sometimes overdoes its interpretative staging. The comic-book touches, such as the "zap" that fairies cry after magic mutterings, are almost too cute. The result is funny but cheap...