Word: masterful
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...longer shocking in the way she was 30 years ago. To begin with, the world has changed. (A man with tattoos on his face? Take any bus.) More than that, we've absorbed the lessons that Arbus taught. If she still appears to us in part as the old master of our near universal taste for the perverse and marginal--the Norman Rockwell of our dark side--we understand better now not to think of her as tour guide to the human freak show...
...lobby.") But why isn't it more fun? Partly because Morrison is so interested in the play of memory and time and point of view that readers have to do a lot of homework just to figure out what's going on. Partly because, like so many master portraitists, Morrison is drawn to ugly people, so readers spend a lot of time in the company of some very bitter, bitchy old biddies. But mostly because, for a book that comes on all hard-boiled, it gives way to some embarrassingly maudlin emotions. Let's face it: love is all fine...
...drink." His life becomes a struggle to hang on to the norms of civilized behavior. Wrestling with shadows, Xan reels and staggers through some paralyzingly funny satirical subplots involving Henry IX, the baffled and ineffectual king of England; a shameless tabloid hack named Clint Smoker; and Joseph Andrews, a master criminal so hardened he finds himself committing felonies even in his alibis...
...perfect photo-op has flopped. Engineered by the most image-conscious White House in history, the carrier landing portrayed Bush as master and commander, an ideal bookend to his spontaneous performance with a bullhorn in the rubble of the World Trade Center after 9/11. Instead, the hothouse tableau already sharply at odds with the reality in Iraq did even more damage to White House credibility last week. Asked at a news conference whether the "Mission Accomplished" banner had been prematurely boastful, the president backed away from it, saying it had been put up by the sailors and airmen...
...Roxy Theatre downtown, Spear seems almost tentative in his singing at times, but the effect is deceptive. Old-school reggae highlights a singer’s phrasing and timing like old jazz standards, and Spear is a master of the technique...