Balk zips through piles of inventories, lists, flowcharts, diagrams, sequential imagery and the like, whose mannered and sometimes
wackily Rube Goldberg-like inventiveness causes each to turn in on itself--less a critique of communication than a means to foreground its endless proliferation, even if in an initially manic way.
Even the Kevin Kline of In and Out (1997), hardly a work of deep social significance, performed a valuable service by
wackily demonstrating how hard it is to adhere to strict gender rules.
Without the daft stunts and
wackily dressed goofballs, all you'd have left would be a bunch of dull dolts, demanding wealth without graft, fame without talent.
Poised on its plaza like a deformed meteorite, it exhibits the usual OMA tension between a
wackily monumental exterior and fluidly informal interior.
Wharton's critical misfortunes make both informative and at times even entertaining reading: vitriolic disparagement from male reviewers has the authentic tang of the
wackily antique and includes the observation that 'her men are subtle and complex ladies wearing mustaches' (sounds promising to me), and the bizarre lament that she had not yet mastered the technique of always beginning a story with a conversation.
Kicking off with the gorgeous Delicate and Older Chests, you just knew this would be a special night, while other gems from the album, O, included Amie, Cannonball and the
wackily operatic Eskimo.
"I have to make this journey in heavy gilded buskins," he explains, seeming to supress a giggle at the very thought of such
wackily butch accessories.
In fact, [TABULAR DATA OMITTED] for a normal country, the combination of massive foreign debts, a chronic current account deficit, and
wackily overvalued financial markets, would be symptoms of an economy on the verge of crisis, like Mexico in 1994 or Thailand in 1997.
The chapters themselves--except for the last, which follows Jacques's withdrawal, a "real-life" epilogue stuffed with surprises--scarcely vary in length by more than a page or two, a fact worth mentioning since Queneau cared about such things and no doubt imposed this symmetry on his
wackily eclectic narrative.
Not to go on too much about this, but the same shelf holds the mounted flag used for page one of the first issue of the California Courier, a weekly that a couple of us
wackily started back in the summer of '58.
One almost
wackily incorruptible man really did create some lasting change.
While "Rumpelstiltskin," "The Emperors New Clothes," "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," and "King Midas" all benefit from the
wackily skewed Muppet approach, it is the opening and closing tales that steal the show.