Word: odd
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...Working the Borderlands I read Aryn Baker's article on Talibanistan [April 2] with interest, since I spent time working in the borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the early 1980s and '90s. It isn't in the least odd that a Waziri elder in Pakistan should look to Afghan President Hamid Karzai as his leader. When I first went to Peshawar, I discovered that Pashtuns had contempt for Punjabis, that they speak a different language and have very different customs. Lieut. General Hamid Gul may be a former director general of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, but old soldiers...
...leaves bloody anarchy in the Niger Delta, which produces most of Nigeria's 2.5 million bbl. of oil a day and increasing volumes of gas. At least 1,000 people a year are killed in battles on land and sea between the 50-odd militias who fight the authorities as well as each other for opportunities to steal oil and kidnap oil workers for ransom...
...What's odd about Death Proof is that it's equally indebted to the chatty, girl-obsessed, no-action comedies of the Frenchman Eric Rohmer. In such films as Chloe in the Afternoon and Pauline at the Beach, Rohmer fondly presents the extensive conversations of young women. Even more fully than Rohmer, Tarantino is beguiled by putting dialogue in the cute, potty mouths of two trios of girls who just wanna have fun. They talk and talk, and it ain't Shakespeare. Sure, most the actresses, especially in the first batch (Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Vanessa Ferlito), are pretty, but pretty...
...Greif.Among the most prominent responders is James Wood, senior editor of The New Republic and Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard. In the initial issue of n+1, the editors wrote, “Poor James Wood! Now here was a talent—but an odd one, with a narrow, aesthetician’s interests and idiosyncratic tastes.”The essay further accused The New Republic of employing “wholly negative methods” in its book reviews. Wood responded with an 11-page letter (later published in the third issue), which...
Eavesdrop on a tour of Harvard Yard and you might overhear an oddly perky undergrad telling a swarm of tourists that all of the buildings surrounding the Old Yard are freshman dorms—with two-and-a-half exceptions. Come next fall, however, that number may jump to three. The quirky half—better known as Massachusetts Hall—will join University Hall and Harvard Hall and, unfortunately, may cease to house first-year Harvard students. Following last summer’s transfer of control of Mass. Hall from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences...