Word: cryptically
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...work is cryptic, devoted to nuance and practically impossible to reproduce. No color plate conveys the way those little scribbles and blots can keep the whitish-blond surface of a big Twombly in coherent tension. Since reproduction creates reputation, this put his work at a disadvantage. Besides, Twombly could not have had less to do with the direction American art in the '60s took toward Minimalism and the iconic blare of Pop Art; being an expatriate counted against him in a New York art world saturated with cultural chauvinism. He had sided with the beautiful Italian losers, against history...
...story, I tried to illustrate the utter badness of the day for Harvard. I mentioned the gridders' anemic offensive performance and its lame defensive effort. I then tried to square off the paragraph with this wisecrack: "Even the band's performance was more cryptic than usual...
First, my comment had nothing to do with my own perceptions. The window in the pressbox on that fated afternoon was closed. I couldn't hear a damn thing--neither the band nor its loudspeaker, nothing. So no matter how cryptic the band's performance might have been, I wouldn't have known...
...second, even if I did hear that it was more cryptic than usual from friends, my comment violated the sacred "balanced-coverage rule." For the years that I have been here, the band has always been good and entertaining--a veritable source of pride to the university. We've never mentioned its accomplishments on these pages before, so it hardly seems fair that I would so flippantly degrade...
Murphy's gridders were destoyed by Bucknell Saturday, 42-23. The Crimson offense was off, committing four turnovers. Its defense was worse, allowing 504 yards total offense. And just about everyone else on the Harvard side had a bad day, too: even the band's halftime show was show cryptic than usual...