Word: gripping
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Collectionitis is as pervasive as inflation, as euphoric as a drug high. Its grip reaches far beyond the roseate world of Rembrandts, Sèvres porcelain and Georgian silver. A vast subculture of acquisition is feeding on scarce objects of every conceivable description. Britons are busily unearthing-and auctioneers as busily selling-such objects of dubious virtue as antique typewriters, gramophones and biscuit tins. Americans, with more catholic taste for trivia, have enshrined such unlovely objets trouvés as old flyswatters, orange reamers, apple parers, Kraft cheese jars (a.k.a. "swanky swigs"), Mickey Mousiana, player pianos, Coke bottle tops, beer...
...what, exactly, does it mean? On the most obvious level, it means what everyone knows: that money is losing value. But it also means that we are in the grip of a wave similar to what, in 17th century Holland, was known as the Tulip Mania. The tulip was then a comparatively new import from the Near East, and mutant specimens, with irregular stripes, were prized as rarities-so prized that men would mortgage their villas and their fields. The tulips had little intrinsic value. Their worth as commodities was a function of pure, irrational desire, and their economic fate...
Meanwhile, the air was suddenly filled with falling gymnasts. Three Soviet women in a row lost their grip and crashed to the mats while competing on the uneven bars. From then on, they played it conservatively, eliminating some of the more difficult tricks in the floor exercises in hopes of staying on their feet. The Rumanians charged ahead. Emilia Eberle, 15, heiress-apparent to Nadia's throne, reeled off a dazzling floor exercise; Melita Ruhn whistled through a difficult and risky performance on the uneven parallel bars. When the totals were in, the Rumanians had edged out the Soviets...
Crimson coach Jack Barnaby said he recommended the change early last week. "There's a certain level of player Lisa will not be able to beat consistenly without a new grip," he said...
...thing about Suckerman, the clinging vinyl critter, is that he doesn't stick. Don't believe the box. He simply doesn't grip most surfaces. Despite the suction cups that bulge from his body, he makes but the feeblest attempt to cling to the wall of the Jordan Marsh toy department, bouncing off again and again with his shallow vinyl grin intact...