Word: odd
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1990
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...light of these revelations, it seems odd that San Francisco, America's best-known earthquake center, has not taken the obvious course of compelling accordion players to register with the authorities. Instead, the board of supervisors has designated the accordion as the city's official instrument, thereby hastening the decline of San Francisco as we know it. Nothing more perverse has happened in that town since a woman collected $50,000 after claiming that a 1964 cable-car accident had transformed her into a nymphomaniac...
Moscow's current intransigence over German membership in NATO makes Gorbachev the odd man out. After meeting with Gorbachev in Moscow last week, East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere said that, despite Moscow's objections, his country would be interested in joining NATO, albeit one with a changed "structure and strategy." De Maiziere did not spell out what changes he had in mind, but West Germany is confident the East Germans will follow Bonn's lead...
...Vakhtangov Theater and of Ulyanov, its artistic director as well as its star. Although the bulky, brooding Ulyanov in no way resembles the vulpine Lenin, he and his troupe seem wholly at ease. Amid the symbolic flutters of cloth, abrupt bursts of music, caricatures of the old bourgeoisie and odd lighting shifts, they keep a tight focus on the most troubling aspect of politics anywhere, the need to compromise principle...
Also eliminated are some phrases that sound especially odd to modern ears, such as "I will accept no bull from your house" (referring to animal sacrifice in Psalm 50) and "once I was stoned" (St. Paul in II Corinthians 11, speaking of his stoning). Gone as well are some tongue twisters ("you who hew" in Isaiah 22) and ambiguities, like Zechariah 3's "Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed in filthy garments." (Joshua's garb was filthy, not the angel's.) The poetic exclamation "behold" has given way to the prosaic "look." Sex is bluntly called "intercourse...
...half-century ago. She never won an Oscar. She worked with few good directors, made fewer great films than any star of comparable magnitude. She appeared in 14 silent features, then 14 talkies beginning in 1930 -- but even in that era her fervid, hypnotic style of acting was an odd anachronism. Except in drag clubs, she inspired no real imitators. But Garbo was more than a camp goddess. She was just the most haunting beauty, and the finest actress, in movie history...