Amber

amber







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D



–noun 

1. a pale yellow, sometimes reddish or brownish, fossil resin (樹脂) of vegetable origin, translucent, brittle, and capable of gaining a negative electrical charge by friction and of being an excellent insulator: used for making jewelry and other ornamental articles.

2. the yellowish-brown color of resin. 



–adjective 

3. of the color of amber; yellowish-brown: amber fields of grain. 

4. made of amber: amber earrings.  





 　

"Urban haute bourgeoisie," or U.H.B. (pronounced UB), is a term coined by Charlie, who is obsessed with the ongoing failure and imminent doom of his class.



Stillman obviously thinks something of the sort himself—the movie’s title is subtle in its archly irrelevant grandeur, but you wonder if Twilight of the Gods didn’t cross his mind. (At one point, Tom’s bedside book is shown to be Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West.) 



Fifteen years on, the picture looks positively prophetic in its choice of villain. The smirking, ponytailed Sloneker may possess a bona fide title, but he is the future of the moneyed class: trashy, smug, narcissistic, abusive, enthroned in his Hamptons beach house. 



The members of the Sally Fowler Rat Pack, by contrast, are preserved in amber, however temporarily—they are serious young people, most of them apparently virgins. 





calcification

mortar

plaster

and there is a Wall of Shame [plastered] with the photos of the girls back home who have dumped them.  

gelatinous

The leaves are covered with gelatinous [ooze]. Whatever the trouble is, it's everywhere.

gluttony

glutinous 

viscous

that viscous [stew] of naïveté, insecure leader-lust, psychotic self-righteousness, and [medieval] imbecility?



stodgy

a stodgy Victorian [novel]

a stodgy business [suit]

Depp's leisurely quest leads through a [posh], [stodgy] landscape of libraries, lecture halls, and back-alley biblio [troves] atingle [with] hissed warnings

Smock