Word: self
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...kids, they are a study in contrasts. In their spartan Beverly Hills office, the reed-thin Alexander works at his neatly organized desk while the beefy Karaszewski lies on a nearby sofa, surrounded by a mess of scattered papers, barking out lines of brash dialogue. Both are cocky yet self-deprecating and say that writing about offbeat subjects gives them a sense of creative liberation and inspiration. "We've embraced all these weird true stories because they've allowed us so much freedom," says Karaszewski...
...Anderson Windshield wipers, 1903 Hugh Moore Paper cup, 1908 Jacques Brandenberger Cellophane, 1908 Arthur Wynne Crossword puzzle, 1913 Joseph Block Whistling kettle, 1921 Andrew Olsen Pop-up tissue box, 1921 George Squier Muzak, 1922 Garrett A. Morgan Traffic light, 1923 Francis W. Davis Power steering, 1926 R. Stanton Avery Self-adhesive label, 1935 Edwin L. Peterson Answering machine, 1945 Earl John Hilton Credit card, 1950 Clinton Riggs Yield sign, 1950 Chavannes & Fielding Bubble wrap, 1957 Luther Simjian ATM, 1960 Herb Peterson Egg McMuffin...
...short, weird career of Andy Kaufman poses a single, overriding issue: Was he a self-conscious genius of the put-on, cleverly calculating his effects, which were ever poised on the thin line that separates childish innocence from transgression? Or was he just another of those sociopaths, unable to tell right from wrong, funny from unfunny, whom the popular culture occasionally dredges up to amuse and confuse...
Kaufman rightly objected to being called a comedian. But he was, perhaps, a mordant self-satirist, perpetually in touch with, loving and loathing, his inner child, the lonely little Long Island boy, consoled by his obsessive interest in the trashiest manifestations of pop culture. It was his luck to come on the scene in the '70s, just as a generation that had been shaped--blighted--by the same pop materials was arriving at self-consciousness. The natural impulse of the members of that generation was to nostalgize pop culture and their own innocent response to it. On the other hand...
According to a recent profile of Kaufman in the New Yorker by Julie Hecht, who hung out with him in those days, he spoke about killing himself on television, which would have been, for him, the perfect summarizing gesture. Probably he was kidding. But his self-destructive and endlessly confrontational relationship with networks, concert managers and audiences was the great theme of his career. He was always disconcertingly catching everyone between laughter and outrage. And the cookies-and-milk treat he sometimes offered later never quite healed that ambiguity. Man on the Moon doesn't either. It just gives...