Word: closet
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Whatever the merits of Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint as a novel, it is certainly the greatest closet nightclub act of our time. In sketch after sketch, Roth cuts into the family and sex life of a Jewish neurotic until funny bone and inflamed nerve ending become indistinguishable. "I'm caught in the middle of a Jewish joke," cries Alexander Portnoy to his psychoanalyst, "and it isn't funny...
...significantly helped with the application of present knowledge. The past decade has witnessed the beginning of a revolution in this field. Public attitudes toward retardation have never been more understanding, thanks largely to the efforts of the parents of the retarded to bring the problem out of the closet, and the support of the late John Kennedy. He and his family gave the cause respectability by publicly acknowledging that his sister Rosemary, now 53, is retarded. J.F.K. also pushed through legislation for research and training in the field. Scientific advances in diagnosis, treatment and prevention have kept pace with evolving...
...estimated 1,000,000 Algerians between 1954 and 1962. French memories of the war are still bitter, but passions have recently cooled enough to permit a few uncensored examinations of a conflict that brought France perilously close to civil war. First to "bring the skeleton out of the closet," as one reviewer put it, was General Jacques Massu, whose book La Vraie Balaille d'Alger (The Real Battle of Algiers) describes in chilling detail the tortures carried out by French paratroopers while he was military commander of the city-atrocities that had been officially denied by the French government...
...sight calculated to make a revenue agent cry. The Roman nobleman, due to be tapped for several years' back taxes, welcomed the man from il Fisco to a scene of genteel poverty. Instead of valuable paintings on the apartment walls, there were only pale squares. The closet held a couple of threadbare suits. The prince offered the agent a Nazionale cigarette from a Marlboro package, explaining that he could no longer afford the real thing but had to keep up appearances...
...mile of atrocious magnificence. Each resident reflects the Montana character: a cussed inconsistency that some people call rugged individualism. It is a trait bestowed by birthright ("You're not a Montanan until you've weathered 40 winters," the saying goes) and steeped in frontier nostalgia. Montanans are closet cowboys in haunting pursuit of the roundup, even while struggling with realities. Democrats vote Republican, Republicans vote Democrat. The naive are suspicious, the shrewd trusting. Together they brew 100-proof populism and partake of it as effortlessly as they drink their bourbon...