Word: touche
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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...Economic Mechanism" that introduced capitalistic profit-and-loss into socialist planning. Gdansk, the former German city of Danzig, is only a short ferryboat ride from Swedish Malmo across the Baltic, and is regularly invaded by fun-loving Swedes seeking beaches, booze and beaming blondes who are a soft touch for hard currency. West Germans are so obviously affluent that Poles ask one another sarcastically which of the two nations lost World War II. Never rapier-sharp at best, Polish humor has been improving on a diet of meatless Mondays, ersatz coffee and phantom slabs of butter...
...economists refer to as "the New Economic Strategy." It made sense in theory but, as Alexis de Tocqueville noted, the most dangerous time for a government is hot when conditions are bad but when the regime is trying to make them better. Demonstrating both arrogance and a lack of touch with popular feelings, the government neglected to explain adequately what it was doing; as rumors spread about price increases and wage freezes, people pulled money from under mattresses and went on buying sprees. When the government finally did attempt to spell out the complicated new system, explanatory meetings frequently dissolved...
...Florestan's piteous degradation. Austrian Stage Director Otto Schenk clothed the production in medieval-dungeon darkness that gave way brilliantly at the end to the blinding whiteness of day-and freedom. Though the Nazi-like greatcoat worn by Pizarro (formidably portrayed by Baritone Walter Berry) was an irrelevant touch, the eyeglasses he took from a pocket-a desk man-were the perfect way to suggest Pizarro as not just a vague, timeless man of evil but the product of a villainous system...
Howard has been in touch several times since then. When our son was born, though we made no announcement of the event, he sent an enormous bouquet of tropical plants to the hospital. There were other surprise gifts of flowers from Hughes' aides when we went on vacation. In 1966, when I was in New York for a brief visit from Viet Nam, I had a call. Could I come through Los Angeles on the way back out? Howard wanted to talk with me. I got to Los Angeles, checked in at a hotel, made my presence known...
What Tom Wolfe has done−with a touch of malice and more than a pinch of cheek−is create an appallingly funny, cool, small, deflative two-scene social drama about America's biggest, hottest and most perplexing problem, the confrontation between Black Rage and White Guilt...