Quotes by James Wolcott - Page 2

[Richard Crossley's] previous bird guide, for ID'ing Eastern birds, is the most imaginative, original attempt to re-envision the birding guide and set his approach apart from that of Sibley, Kaufman, Peterson, Nat'l Geo, and the other bibles in the field.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Bird
Fields
Guides
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What had brought me to New York in the autumn of 1972 was a letter of recommendation written by Norman Mailer, the author of 'The Naked and the Dead' and American literature's leading heavyweight contender, to Dan Wolf, the delphic editor of 'The Village Voice.'
James Wolcott / Journalist
New York
Autumn
Editors
Naked
Village
Author
Contender
Dan
Editor
Heavyweight
Letter
Norman
Recommendation
Wolf
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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 / Journalist
Class
Folly
Fun
Noisy
Reflection
Sage
Void
Divide
Holding
Mirror
Occupied
Partisan
Polarized
Warped
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There was a time when idealistic folksingers such as myself believed that Reality TV was a programming vogue that would peak and recede, leaving only its hardiest show-offs. Instead, it has metastasized like toxic mold, filling every nook and opening new crannies.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Filling
Idealistic
Leaving
Mold
Opening
Programming
Reality Tv
Toxic
Believed
Nook
Peak
Recede
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I've always stayed on the periphery of things. When I used to go to the punk clubs and things like that, I was never up front. I always wanted to be in the back, or on the side, because I wanted to get the whole view, rather than be staring up at someone's nostrils.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Clubs
Sides
Views
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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 / Journalist
Air
Bags
Dedicated
Npr
Outlook
Presentation
Voice
Male
Headline
Mount
Outset
Patriarchal
Plains
Sent
Voices
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On August 28, 2010, Fox News messiah Glenn Beck hosted a 'Restoring Honor' revival meeting featuring sexy guest star Sarah Palin, much as Bob Hope would roll out Raquel Welch in white go-go boots on his U.S.O. tours to give our fighting men a morale lift in their khakis.
James Wolcott / Journalist
August
Boots
Fighting
Fox News
Honor
Messiah
Morale
Palin
Restoring
Revival
Sexy
Stars
Beck
Tours
Fox
Glenn
Guest
Guest Star
Lift
Meeting
Sarah Palin
Sarah
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With Barack Obama as president and the super-happening Michelle Obama as First Lady, you would think a new tone, a new tune, a kicky new jazzitude, would have entered Washington discourse, but it remains a landlocked island unto itself, held captive by its tribal fevers.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Barack
Discourse
First Lady
Islands
President
Remains
Thinking
Tone
Barack Obama
Captive
Washington
Entered
Island
Held
Lady
Michelle
Michelle Obama
Tribal
Tune
Unto
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Like Andy Warhol and unlike God Almighty, Larry King does not presume to judge; all celebrities are equal in his eyes, saints and sinners alike sharing the same 'Love Boat' voyage into the dark beyond, a former sitcom star as deserving of pious send-off as Princess Diana.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Kings
Almighty
Boat
Deserving
Diana
Equal
Former
Larry
Pious
Princess
Sitcom
Stars
Warhol
Alike
Judge
Andy
Celebrities
God Almighty
Unlike
Presume
Saints
Sharing
Sinners
Voyage
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Since I'm a fan of collections and anthologies, believe that the best writing often shines in shards and galloping stretches, I never find myself lobbying for a writer I enjoy reading regularly to hole up in Heidegger's hut for four or five years to bring forth a mountain.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Believe
Collections
Galloping
Lobbying
Mountain
Reading
Writing
Best Myself Believe
Enjoy Reading
Forth
Hole
Hut
Regularly
Shines
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I understand that one of the purposes of bipartisanship is to cram something difficult and necessary down the American people's gullets for which neither party has the fortitude to assume full responsibility. It's a way of turning a possible gangplank into a teeter-totter.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Bipartisanship
Fortitude
Party
People
Responsibility
Assume
Turning
Cram
Neither
Purposes
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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 / Journalist
Capable
Technique
Tv
Broad
Favorite
Fraction
Hold
James
Physical
Pick
Tickle
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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 / Journalist
Envelopes
Fence
Fence Post
Jerry
Skinny
Woody
Allen
Buster
Richard
Historically
Jim
Jim Carrey
Lewis
Post
Pryor
Sliced
Thin
Woody Allen
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One reason I'm such a wayward prognosticator of rightwing trends is that I'm incapable of blacking out enough neural sectors to see the world through reptilian-brained eyes, a prerequisite for any true channeling of the mean resentments and implanted fears that drive hardcore conservatives.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Channeling
Hardcore
Incapable
Trends
Conservatives
Fears
Neural
Prerequisite
Sectors
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And what could be a hotter ticket than the improbable triumph of 'The Book of Mormon,' the musical-comedy moon shot of the season? Its creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, of Comedy Central's 'South Park,' are the most unlikely Rodgers and Hammerstein team ever to bowl a thundering strike.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Book
Hotter
Improbable
Moon
Team
Triumph
Unlikely
Shot
Bowl
Central
Creators
Hammerstein
Matt
Park
Rodgers
South Park
Stone
Strike
Thundering
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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 / Journalist
Barack
Bob
Buffets
Mccain
Moving
Seniority
Obama
Ahead
Barack Obama
Buffet
Democrats
Dole
Republicans
Front
John
Line
Ticket
Whipped
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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 / Journalist
Alcohol
Catholic
Children
Collectors
Household
Indulgence
People
Raised
Me People Duty
Bill
Wild
Enforced
Me Children People
Oldest
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Feature-length film comedy is harder to pull off than the episodic sitcom - it doesn't have the same factory machinery up and running, teams of writers putting familiar characters through permutations - but that doesn't explain the widening quality gap that makes movie humor look like a genetic defective.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Running
Humor
Character
Defective
Familiar
Harder
Machinery
Sitcom
Team
Episodic
Explain
Factory
Gap
Genetic
Pull
Teams
Widening
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Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian would have left little more than lipstick stains in their passing had it not been for the sex videos that lofted them into reality-TV notoriety. Once notoriety has warmed into familiarity, celebrity itself becomes one big 'Brady Bunch' reunion, or a therapy session with Dr. Drew.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Brady
Bunch
Familiarity
Lipstick
Notoriety
Paris
Passing
Reality
Reunion
Session
Sex
Therapy
Dr
Drew
Hilton
Paris Hilton
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The days when the words Hollywood actor framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics - candidate, consultant, pundit, and Tea Party crowd extra alike - is an actor now, a shameless ham in a hoked-up reality series that never stops.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Party
Reality
Tea
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The days when the words 'Hollywood actor' framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics - candidate, consultant, pundit, and Tea Party crowd extra alike - is an actor now, a shameless ham in a hoked-up reality series that never stops.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Fingers
Framed
Ham
Hollywood
Implied
Insult
Party
Quaint
Reality
Series
Shameless
Tag
Tea Party
Words
Now
Actor
Alike
Days
Nearly
Bunny
Candidate
Consultant
Crowd
Extra
Id
Seem
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In the voyeurism of Reality TV, the viewer's passivity is kept intact, pampered and massaged and force-fed Chicken McNuggets of carefully edited snippets that permit him or her to sit in easy judgment and feel superior at watching familiar strangers make fools of themselves. Reality TV looks in only one direction: down.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Easy
Familiar
Judgment
Looks
One Direction
Pampered
Passivity
Passivity Is
Permit
Reality
Reality Tv
Tv
Carefully
Chicken
Direction
Fools
Her
Intact
Strangers
Sit
Superior
Themselves
Viewer
Watching
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Stars wide of belt often cultivated a gentlemanly grandeur, a groomed refinement that filtered through their fingertips - the dainty fidgets of Hardy's plump digits, Orson Welles performing magic tricks with nimble dexterity, Jackie Gleason lofting a teacup to his lips as if he were Lady Bracknell - or through a fine set of twinkle-toes.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Dainty
Gentlemanly
Grandeur
Hardy
Jackie
Magic
Nimble
Performing
Refinement
Stars
Tricks
Wide
Belt
Cultivated
Filtered
Gleason
Lady
Welles
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Bad acting comes in many bags, various odors. It can be performed by cardboard refugees from an Ed Wood movie, reciting their dialogue off an eye chart, or by hopped-up pros looking to punch a hole through the fourth wall from pure ballistic force of personality, like Joe Pesci in a bad mood. I can respect bad acting that owns its own style.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Bad Acting
Bags
Dialogue
Eye
Fourth
Mood
Personality
Pure
Reciting
Wall
Ballistic
Cardboard
Chart
Hole
Joe
Owns
Performed
Pros
Punch
Refugees
Wood
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What's happening to movie critics is no different from what has been meted out to book, dance, theater, and fine-arts reviewers and reporters in the cultural deforestation that has driven refugees into the diffuse clatter of the Internet and Twitter, where some adapt and thrive - such as Roger Ebert - while others disappear without a twinkle.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Art
Dance
Inspirational
Book
Critics
Deforestation
Disappear
Driven
Reporters
Reviewers
Roger
Thrive
Adapt
Cultural
Diffuse
Happening
Refugees
Twinkle
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In the first weeks of the Obama administration, 'bipartisanship' was the reigning buzzword, and when the Beltway thinks 'bipartisan,' it pictures President Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill putting aside their differences and forging a legislative partnership, a ruddy pair of genial patriarchs bonding over the Blarney Stone.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Differences
House
Thinking
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One of the mistakes they often make is the designers over-accessorize or over-elaborate. So you realize: this would work if they removed X and Y. And actually, that's the sort of thing that translates into writing, because a lot of the time you realize, I feel I need to add something here but actually what I need to do is subtract. And then there's always the psychodrama and the tears and the rage and the feuds.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Mistake
Tears
Writing
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I remember reading about police arresting this filmmaker making this freaky movie and his name was John Waters. And I was like, wow, someone in Baltimore is doing something creative? I didn't know there were people running off and making eight-millimeter movies. Then I got to New York and realized, oh, there's a whole world of people who do these things. I was utterly bored being in the suburbs, but I didn't know why I was bored.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Running
People
Reading
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I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong--Mother Nature's fist of fury, Gaia's stern rebuke. Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Ocean
Mother
Strong
Stupid
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The whole ecosystem of celebrity has broken down for writers. If you go back to the '50s, '60s, and '70s, writers were on TV a lot, and they were allowed to misbehave a lot. Truman Capote was a pop figure, but it wasn't until he went on David Susskind's show and had that extraordinary voice and manner that everyone could imitate, that he really took off as a figure. Norman Mailer and Vidal, the same thing. The bestselling writers now, there's no great animal energy with them.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Animal
Broken
Energy
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The Internet and blogging made writing somewhat more solitary and more splintered. It removes the whole sense of the magazine as an organism. A certain dynamism. At The Village Voice, there were all these fevers inside the offices, that would break out into full-scale rumbles between writers. The New Yorker used to be notorious for everything that went on, sexual intrigues and people had individual offices, they could close the door and take a bottle out of their bottom drawer or have sex on their desk.
James Wolcott / Journalist
Office
People
Writing
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James Wolcott Quotes - Page 2

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