Word: pumpings
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Collages did not last as long as ordinary painted pictures, and their very impermanence was bound to appeal to George Grosz and other German Dadaists (who pretended to despise art) of post-World War I. One Grosz number: a brutish-looking portrait with a cut-out of a mechanical pump where the heart should be. Max Ernst (who has since gravitated logically to surrealism) attached a lady's legs to a bit of lace, pasted both on a cloudy sky and called his faintly sinister porridge Above the Clouds Walks the Midnight...
...Local Communist Boss Fabio Alimonti went to Rome. Dressed in his best shiny black suit, he faced Rome's prefect. Said he: "You take our water for your benefit and spill what you don't need. The people of Arsoli cannot be left to die. Find a pump to bring life back to our hills...
...they voted Demo-Christian last spring. When the electoral results became known, local Demo-Christians told them of the government's financial difficulties and the need for patience, so the people of Arsoli modified their request. Instead of begging for a pump which would cost 12 million lire (about $21,000), they declared themselves ready to wait, so as not to throw an excessive financial burden on the government...
...loudly emblazoned on his handkerchief, tie clasp, cuff links and gold ring) he patrols such spots as Chez Paree and the Shangri-La, slapping backs, sipping coffee, soaking up column items. His red-haired wife tags along, often wearing a blouse stenciled with his columns. He haunts the Pump Room of the swank Ambassador East Hotel, a telephone plugged in at his table. Even at home, where he keeps five phones jingling, his privacy has a public atmosphere: he is redecorating the dining room as a miniature Pump Room, doing over his den to resemble a bamboo-walled nightclub...
...Rules. Beau Nash changed all that. He made himself master of ceremonies, raised money for buildings, started the Pump Room Orchestra, organized balls and assemblies in a stately new hall, laid down and enforced a code of manners (sword-wearing and smoking in front of ladies were banned), ordered all the old ladies to sit in the back rows and all the shyest maidens to dance. The plump, dandiacal "King of Bath," whose crown was an enormous cream-colored beaver hat, ruled society like an autocrat.* Graceful new Georgian buildings transformed Bath into the handsomest of English towns...