Word: schlemiel
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...Written by Peter Stone from John Godey's novel and directed by Joseph Sargent, the movie mixed thriller elements with rancid comedy to create a tarnished time capsule of Gotham crime, sludge and cynicism. The mayor is a do-nothing schlemiel ("Don't tell me - I don't wanna know"), and the hijacked passengers aren't so scared that they can't give a lot of lip back to their captors. The transit hierarchy is clogged with wise guys. "What the hell do they expect for their lousy 35 cents?" one executive says of the subway hostages. "To live forever...
...schlemiel may be, must be, grievously acted upon by the always malevolent world. But he can never be permitted to act effectively against that world. At the end of his adventures he must, somehow, triumph over the forces of darkness that surround him - but only accidentally so. That's why we identify with him; if he is one of us, we know perfectly well that we wouldn't last a minute against all those men in black wielding highly advanced weaponry. In that spirit of genial fantasy, we permit out surrogate that utter self-confidence, that sublime sangfroid, with which...
...four leads brought these sad characters alive and hurting. Bouquets all around: to Donna Murphy, as glamorous, tough-as-crimson-painted-nails Phyllis; to Victor Garber, as her successful, empty spouse Ben; and to Michael McGrath, as Buddy, the philandering schlemiel who loves his wife Sally even as she is slipping away from him into Ben's arms. But the revelation was Victoria Clark as Sally. Clark, who had toiled in Broadway obscurity for decades before earning a Tony for her role as the mother in The Light in the Piazza two years ago, was the one true singer...
...book, Beyond Belief, detailed how nations that had converted to the Muslim faith—and suppressed their own traditions—had ravaged their own cultures. His best (and funniest) novel, A House for Mister Biswas, tells how an Indian-Trinidadian ascends from the pathetic life of a schlemiel to limited success as a newspaperman in colonial Port-of-Spain...
DIED. LEO ROSTEN, 88, author best known for his works celebrating Jewish culture; in New York City. His definitive reference work, The Joys of Yiddish, published in 1968, introduced readers to colorful and now common terms like schlemiel, schmaltz and chutzpah. A native of Poland, Rosten seasoned his scholarship with humor, which he called "one of the requirements for sanity...