Word: houdini
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...from a newsreel of the American soul circa 1910. Archetypes are intercut with tintypes; a panorama of mass or class dissolves into a closeup of an agitated bourgeois mind; fable is superimposed on history. And they all run like hell to the D.W. Griffith finish line. Long shot: Harry Houdini performs thrilling escapes, restaging his own birth trauma for a country just then emerging from isolationism into imperialism. Closeup: Emma Goldman, anarchist spellbinder, woos Evelyn Nesbit out of her petticoats and prejudices. Two-shot: Henry Ford and John Pierpont Morgan discuss reincarnation in the Morgan Library. A few chapters later...
...nation. Acts like the Back Alley troupe pass through Cambridge on cross-country jaunts "just to be able to say we've played the Square--it's quite a big deal," says Van Alstyne. Magician Peter Sosna, who insists he's the only guy in town who can perform Houdini's identity-switching act on the street, points out that some people rank New York's Washington Square Park ahead of Cambridge. "No way. They don't know what they're talking about, and you can tell because they all want to come here," he explains with a wink...
...reading ads for Screw in The Crimson today, tomorrow, or anytime in the near future. With a slight-of-hand worthy of Houdini himself, a majority of The Crimson has managed to begin to dismantle the First Amendment--all in the name of a greater good...
...awkward way. Doctorow's skill nearly carries it off, but it is a charade. Like his subject, it shows more form than content: mystical images without context, crackling plot without mystery. He manipulated us with Ragtime, made us believe what we saw. In reality, Doctorow is just another Houdini, a conjurer of words...
...verse on what programs he will cut and by how much, his balanced-budget pledge is no more than a pious hope. It's a little cruel to call this voodoo economics, as George Bush apparently did. I'd call it Indian-rope-trick economics or Houdini economics...