#us

I just sit at a typewriter and curse a bit. ↗

— P. G. Wodehouse

#curse #i #just #sit #typewriter

Music enriches people's lives in the same way paintings and literature do. Everybody deserves that. ↗

— Victoria Wood

#enriches #everybody #literature #lives #music

A new political-entertainment class has moved into the noisy void once occupied by the sage pontiffs of yore, a class just as polarized as our partisan divide: one side holding up a fun-house mirror to folly, the other side reveling in its own warped reflection. ↗

— James Wolcott

#divide #folly #holding #into #just

Being raised Catholic in a pressure-cooker household besieged by alcohol and bill collectors enforced and heightened a sense of sentry duty in me, the oldest of five children and the one most responsible for keeping everything from capsizing. Wild indulgence was for other people, the non-worriers. ↗

— James Wolcott

#being #bill #catholic #children #collectors

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

Even the most piddling life is of momentous consequence to its owner. ↗

— James Wolcott

#even #life #momentous #most #owner

Historically, Hollywood comedy has arrived in skinny envelopes. From fence post Buster Keaton to herky-jerky Jerry Lewis to wiry nerve-bundle Woody Allen to hung-loose Richard Pryor to whippy contortionist Jim Carrey, its comics and clowns have tended to be sliced thin and bendable. ↗

— James Wolcott

#arrived #buster #carrey #clowns #comedy

Many questions torment America in its dark night of the soul, questions more urgently pressing, and yet it must be asked: How did we get stuck with Piers Morgan? Who is he, why is he here, is he returnable? ↗

— James Wolcott

#asked #dark #did #get #here

Pop music has been all but relegated to the remainder bin at MTV and VH1, where high-maintenance concoctions such as Paris Hilton, Flavor Flav, and Hulk Hogan's biohazard clan of bleached specimens provide endless hours of death-hastening diversion. ↗

— James Wolcott

#bin #bleached #clan #diversion #endless

Used to be, conservatives revered the Average American, that Norman Rockwell oil painting of diner food, humble faith, honest toil, and Capraesque virtue. ↗

— James Wolcott

#average #average american #conservatives #diner #faith