April 2009
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"Physical pressure" is entirely too vague — goodness gracious, it could refer to something no more serious than a firm handshake — and as a result it's impossible even to guess what's being euphemized. "Abuse" is similarly hazy. Verbal abuse? Spousal abuse? Gosh, it's hard to say. "Harsh methods" and "harsh tactics" offer more of…
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William Dean Howells, editor of the Atlantic Monthly and one of the great, insightful novelists of Victorian America, visited the great Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. He toured the pavilion in which native American crafts were displayed. Howells' judgment: "the red man, as he appears in effigy and in photograph in this collection, is a hideous demon, whose…
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In The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, it is reported that Falstaff once boldly compared the King to a "singing man of Windsor" — and was assaulted for doing so. Who, then, is this controversial "singing man?" The evidence that might solve this mystery is buried in the dark backward and abysm of time.…
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Sylvia Plath's "Nick and the Candlestick," a scalpel of a poem, is exasperating in its details but crystal clear in "plot" and feeling. Here it is in its entirety. Read it through; don't be alarmed if it seems impenetrable or opaque; it's not. Or not entirely so. I am a miner. The light burns blue.Waxy stalactitesDrip…
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NBC NCAA announcer to MSU coach Tom Izzo at the end of last night's game: "This is one of the great atmospheres I've ever been able to watch."