wolcott!

[jlh]

In the spirit of writing about things I flat out LOVE, I bring you James Wolcott.

Wolcott is a culture columnist for Vanity Fair, and his writing appears in almost every issue, in the same front-of-book section that features that drunken hack Christopher Hitchens* and war dispatches from dreamboat bar-owner Sebastian Junger. Back when I was reading a lot of magazines, VF was my favorite, and I still think it's the best for a flight—lots of photos mixed with actually meaty articles. Wolcott endeared himself to me when he wrote a long article about Pauline Kael and her accolytes the "Paulettes" and their collective impact on American film criticism. (Tip: he hates David Denby and calls him "excitable" which is absolutely true.)

Wolcott has a blog on vf.com, available as a feed here on LJ: wolcottsblog. I'd check out his post on the recent Woody Allen film Vicky Christina Barcelona; if your reaction is "my god, he speaks the truth!" then yeah, this is a blog for you. And it isn't just high brow—he also had something to say about the finale of The L Word, and frequently comments on the culture and political blogosphere in general.

Seriously, it's one of my favorite things right now.



*Aside from my personal distaste for smug writers who like to set themselves up as agents provocateur (but only when the opposing side is represented by carefully selected straw men or idiots), Hitch fell over on top of me at a party once. True story.

Comments

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Wrong post. (http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2009/03/so-finally-last-night-decided.html)

But I'm glad I read the wrong post, because not enough people have blogged about the loss of Updike to the world.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

No? I think I read a lot of culture blogs, because Updike was all over the place—not that being ubiquitous wasn't very well deserved. Anyway, thanks for letting me know—oops!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip! I feel badly that I didn't read any of the Updike poems, though.:-/

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Ack, I linked to the wrong thing! Try again for the Woody Allen post.

I tried to read Rabbit, Run and hated it, managed Memories of the Ford Administration, liked his criticism until he got old-mannish at the end.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I did read the right post. I read a few of them while I was over them--of course I had to read the L-word one. I just rarely read the poetry and fiction in the NYer and that's why I didn't read it. I had read a lot of his criticism, though.

[irinaauthor.livejournal.com]

Hitch fell over on top of me at a party once.

EW!