#ad

After a decade this glum, we deserved a shot of 'Glee,' a show that restored our faith in the power of song, the beauty of dance, and the magic of 'spirit fingers' to chase our cares and woes into somebody else's backyard. ↗

— James Wolcott

#backyard #beauty #cares #chase #dance

Broadway purists may deplore the influx of movie-spinoff musicals in recent years, wishing someone would turn off the popcorn machine and let more imaginative brainstorms blow through. ↗

— James Wolcott

#broadway #deplore #imaginative #influx #machine

High expectations weren't nurtured in my neck of nowhere back then - children weren't fawned over from an early age as 'gifted' and groomed for a prizewinning future; self-esteem was considered something you had to pick from the garden yourself. ↗

— James Wolcott

#back #children #considered #early #early age

If you were to hold me down and tickle me to pick my favorite 'plus-comic,' it would have to be Kevin James, a broad physical pratfaller capable of deadpan underplay, a technique honed from years of reaction-shot close-ups on TV, where every teeny fraction of a squint registers. ↗

— James Wolcott

#capable #down #every #favorite #fraction

In 2008, Barack Obama did get Democrats hyperventilating, whipped up to a creamy froth, while John McCain creaked ahead like a cranky granddad whom Republicans let move to the front of the buffet line, deferring to seniority, as they had in 1996, when Bob Dole turtled to the top of the ticket. ↗

— James Wolcott

#barack #barack obama #bob #buffet #cranky

It isn't that NPR is matriarchal but that it has dedicated itself to not being patriarchal in its outlook and presentation, stipulating from the outset that its headline voices would not resound across the fruited plains from big male bags of air sent from Mount Olympus. ↗

— James Wolcott

#air #bags #being #big #dedicated

Like 'Twin Peaks,' '24,' 'Mad Men,' and 'The Sopranos' before it, 'Downton Abbey' enriches the iconography and collective lore of pop culture. It replenishes the stream. ↗

— James Wolcott

#before #collective #culture #enriches #iconography

The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it. ↗

— Thomas Wolfe

#forget #reader #reads #reason #remember

Mitt Romney - he had a Rock Hudson thing going, shoeblack hair and a well-hung resume, but even for a shameless, position-shifting phony he seemed a trifle insincere. ↗

— James Wolcott

#going #had #hair #hudson #insincere

My high-school papers, my college-application essays, read like Norman Mailer packed in a crunchy-peanut-butter sandwich. ↗

— James Wolcott

#high-school #like #mailer #norman #norman mailer