Word: gallic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like the Romans before it, the empire of the Golden Arches has finally succumbed to the indomitable spirit of Asterix the Gaul. As of Wednesday, Ronald McDonald has been retired as the icon of McDonald's France, replaced by the Gallic nationalist comic-book hero. Ironies abound, of course, since Asterix had been something of an anti-Mcdonald's icon, appropriated by anti-globalization protestors such as Mac-basher Jose Bove to symbolize French resistance to foreign encroachment. Resentment of the perceived "McDonaldization" of their culture runs high in France - the influential daily Le Monde, for example, warns that Mcdonald...
...Balzac. Youthful passions reign, and the lovers and the narrator find themselves beset with the ultimate woe of literary teenage coupling: pregnancy. But after reading additional Balzac works such as Old Go, as Pere Goriot was titled in Chinese, and EugEnie Grandet?along with forbidden translations of the Gallic staples Jean-Christophe, Madame Bovary, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Count of Monte Cristo, also stolen from the same Western treasure trove?the worldly education of the beautiful seamstress and real re-education of both young men are completed with an ironic, movie-twist happy ending...
...afraid not. No excuse, no rationale will work - and especially not the foxy formulations some have attempted in Joe Ellis' defense, positively Gallic sleight-of-hand about the elusive interplay between truth and fantasy in the recounting of history...
...vacuum-equipped motorcycles driven by men no dog owner would dare look in the eye. The tab for cleaning up after dogs comes to $10 million annually, or $50 for each of Paris' 200,000 hounds. Ad campaigns urging owners to pick up after Fido have produced only Gallic shrugs, and municipal officials have shrunk from imposing the fines already on the books-ranging from $170 to $500-for fear of losing votes...
...think of PIERRE TRUDEAU as the first postmodern politician. He loved to repudiate conventional partisan ideologies, and if, in the end, that served his partisan goals, well, there would be just a little Gallic upturn at the corners of his mouth. He had a near perfect understanding of the possible uses of celebrity. If a photographer was close, he'd manage a jackknife off the low board, a rose in his buttonhole or a pretty woman on his arm. He knifed through dowdy Canadian politics like the classy skier he was--moving gracefully, radiating freedom, yet somehow making...