Word: exceptional
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Except for his race, the former Manhattan borough president was hardly a bold choice for a city accustomed to setting trends. Courtly, cautious and unfailingly polite, Dinkins, 62, is a classic clubhouse politician who spent 35 years loyally trudging up the Democratic Party ladder while more dynamic black leaders overshadowed him. Seemingly content to forge a career based more on amiability than activism, he had never displayed the ruthless ambition and toughness most New Yorkers thought it took to reach the top. Says his old friend and former Deputy Mayor Basil Patterson: "David was always showing...
Reports about the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease seem almost as inexorable as the illness. Each new survey appears to uncover a higher incidence of this wasting affliction of the mind. One reason is the difficulty of diagnosis. Since there is no perfect test for the disease -- except upon autopsy -- doctors' estimates of who does or does not have it must rely on subjective assessments. As these methods improve, the number of people with the disease appears to increase...
...good metaphor for The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail is the scenery used: sparse and effective, but a little empty. The play takes place on a stage bare except for the two beds in the prison cell, which sometimes turn into benches, and a chair or two, which are sometimes used as a boat. And these are sufficient...
...play is slickly produced, with the music--a flute and a drum--well integrated into the performance. The production does a good job of evoking an aura of the surreal, except when it tries too hard and overdoes it during the dream sequence, making the scene seem cliched...
...over, and no new twists are added here. Thoreau's treatment of Williams (Karl Lampley), a runaway slave, even seems a little paternalistic, undercutting its supposed morality. Because the play's idealism is old and worn out, it does not affect one as it might have. Thoreau's story--except the sequence about the death of his brother, which is affecting--is not emotionally powerful. The play lacks the emotional or intellectual weight to make it anything more than well done and funny...