Word: scribbler
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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What a brilliant subject for a Fellini movie-and what a disappointing treatment of it. Seducer, charlatan, scribbler, dabbler in black magic, Giacomo Casanova was that most magnetic of figures, the legend with nothing lofty about him. Born in a glittering Venice that was rife with disease and intrigue, he was equally at home in scenes of Watteau-like elegance or Hogarthian stench. He roamed the capitals of Europe, living by his wits, his nerve and a nice instinct for when to get out of town. He dreamed up mining schemes and lotteries, supported himself at the card table, survived...
...operates the Combat Zone just by looking around, so I take Ralph's word for it that sharpers have the upper hand. The scribbler putting the white space on the publicity posters at the Colonial Theatre to more efficient use is without a doubt near the bottom of the hierarchy. He favors light blue ink for his graffiti. There's barely enough room left for the note that he's carefully marking in tonight: "ChRiStiANS G.Green SAYS The OnLy Good 1 SA DEAd ONE. MASTER of CEREMONIES OF MONIES $ OR MASTERS OF DECEIT The ANGLOS." He shuffles to one side...
...alter ego Watson annexed so as to fictionalize his accounts. Fantasy perhaps, but with the publication of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, we have at last some substantiation that Watson, at least, actually lived--and died in 1940--and that Doyle was only the distracted doctor and inoffensive scribbler we'd like him to be. We owe these revelations to Nicholas Meyer (evidently a hack on the rise, he wrote 400 film reviews for his college paper) who had the good fortune to be in the right place when Watson's last manuscript surfaced in a London attic 31 years...
...company, if it has not quite triumphed, has brought its subject matter to a worthy draw. It has avoided embarrassment - a small miracle in itself. The cast is good-looking in its various bathing costumes. A certain epic dash fills the air. What more could Shakespeare and that other scribbler...
...words-those of Tom Paine in the "times that try men's souls." Even less persuasive and more recondite words can have an impact that dramatic acts do not. Wrote Lord Keynes: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas...