Word: stand-up
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...unexpectedly, of course-at a press briefing conducted by Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman. Seating himself next to New York Timesman Felix Belair Jr., the President began fidgeting when he noticed that the ash on Belair's cigarette was lengthening inexorably. Ostentatiously, he reached over and dragged a stand-up ashtray to the reporter's side. Too late; the offending ash broke loose and rained onto the green carpet. Mortified, Belair quickly followed it down, kneeling to scoop it up with his notebook. As the ash disappeared into the ashtray, the President of the U.S. appeared quietly pleased...
...driven. New skyscrapers go up at the drop of a mortgage and are torn down almost as fast. Cars, houses, jobs and spouses are changed with an ease and rapidity that shocks the rest of the world. There is the ten-city tour of Europe in two weeks, the stand-up lunch, the precooked frozen dinner, the disposable dress, the phone call instead of a letter, the formal invitation sent by telegram. There is even, for some, instant bliss through LSD. The U.S. is running an economic fever trying to end poverty and pollution, put a man on the moon...
There has been nothing as good since." If Twain affected serious writers, he affected humorists even more. His timing as a public speaker is still being imitated by stand-up comedians. His wry one-line sermons ("Man is the Only Animal that blushes. Or needs to") have influenced every prose humorist who followed...
Twain had his circuit circus, Allen a large radio audience. But TV has exposed more Americans than ever before to a steady, if often unsatisfactory, diet of humor. It offers dozens of stand-up comics a month (on such as the Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson shows), and some 30 situation comedies every week. As the word fun becomes more and more an adjective, the comic is also spilling over into the commercials; where once the pitchman raved supreme, he now adds a light or whimsical touch to ads-in Buster Keaton's Ford-truck plugs, for example...
...opportunity of watching goalie Bill Diercks in action is alone worth the walk down to Watson (admission is free). From Edina, Minnesota, where he was coached by one of the greatest amateur goalies in American hockey history, Diercks is quick, confident, and bold--a stand-up goalie who is already expert at cutting down shooters' angles...