Word: present-day
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...discovery in 1918 of Franklin's affair with her social secretary. Today we would call the Roosevelts a dysfunctional couple. Yet they constructed rich and varied lives for themselves, filling the void in their marriage with other relationships. But such a union would not be possible today. No present-day occupants of the White House could live as freely and creatively as the Roosevelts did during their 12-year tenure and keep their private life--and wounds--private until years after their death...
Burnett's thinking has come to define much of our mental environment beyond advertising. He saw advertising as the "fun" side of business, but the historical repercussions of his wisdom can be disquieting. Amid the present-day flood of images--each designed to rally emotions for a social, political or commercial goal--the notion of an informed public, once a cherished cornerstone of democracy, may be passing into oblivion...
...vengeful, violent Jean--who in her viciousness somewhat resembles the protagonist of Bastard, Ruth Anne Boatwright--as the narrator, instead picking her ineffectual brother Ray. This could have been an interesting switch in points of view, and the structure of the novel, as a series of flashbacks illuminating the present-day situation, could have worked...
Museums, it has been said, are the modern cathedrals. Richard Meier's Los Angeles Getty Musuem, Frank Gehry's Bilboa Guggenheim--these are the seats of present-day architectural spectacle and wonder. This year's winner of the Pritzker Prize (architecture's highest award) demonstrated his own ability to generate that sense of wonder. It was, indeed, a grand Piano performance...
...there's more going on here than a critique of My Three Sons, The Brady Bunch and the like. The movie starts out with a montage of sounds and images from present-day TV, an unappealing hodgepodge; by contrast, the landscape of Pleasantville, however artificial and hokey, is cute, and at times beautiful. There's a deep affection for the old golly-gee school of American television, even though the film sets out to make the point that reality, however ugly, is better than the monotonous trap of sitcom life. Freedom and color, we learn, are better than Pleasantville...