In a welcome break from fault-finding, here's my latest subjective sampling of sparkling prose from recent editions. Add your own favorites in the comments below.
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Dining, 10/9:
Nibbled to Death
A high-end anomaly a few years ago, three- or four-hour menus now look like the future of fine dining. Before corner delis begin parceling sandwiches into 18-course pastrami tastings, it's worth asking if this is the future we want.
Just one of many sharp passages in Pete Wells's discussion of elaborate, high-end tasting menus.
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Arts, 10/4:
Heathcliff and Cathy, With Lust and Mud
Too often, great works of literature arrive on screen weighed down by their reputations, immobilized in a straitjacket of cultural prestige. Emily Brontë's “Wuthering Heights†is a wild emanation of Victorian genius half-tamed by time and term papers, and Andrea Arnold's new film adaptation is an admirable, frustrating attempt to strip away the novel's inherited “classic†status and restore its raw and earthy passion.
Not much of a challenge to find brilliant phrases in A.O. Scott's reviews; here's an irresistible observation on “Wuthering Heights,†the novel.
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Arts, 10/4:
In a State of Sweaty Agitation in Steamy Florida
In the hands of Mr. Daniels - who directed “Precious Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire†and “Shadowboxer†- Mr. Dexter's complex tale pulsates with wayward desire and confused motivation. Not a few of the characters are driven to distraction by the swampy Florida heat and their own lust, and the movie itself seems to share their state of sweaty agitation. It is by turns lurid, humid, florid, languid and stupid, but it is pretty much all id all the time.
And while I'm at it, here's another from A.O. Scott, in his review of “The Paperboy.†Don't try this at home, though.
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Sports, 10/4:
O'Neal Names Top Two Cent ers, and a Net Is One of Them
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - There are only two types of centers in Shaquille O'Neal's world: those he respects and those he disdains.
In the first category: centers who play in the paint, score with post moves and look as manly as possible while doing it.
In the latter category: floppers, jump-shooters, Europeans and Dwight Howard.
A nice line to punctuation this lead by Howard Beck.
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Book Review, 10/1:
A New Breed of Hunter Shoots, Eats and Tells
They no longer wish to have an anonymous hit man between themselves and supper. They want to thoughtfully stare their protein in the face, to take locavorism to blood-flecked new heights.
One of many fine lines in Dwight Garner's look at a spate of books about hunters eager to meditate on the meaning of it all.
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Politics, 9/28:
Before Debate, Tough Crowds at the Practice
WASHINGTON - In a conference room at the Democratic headquarters, President Obama has been preparing for the debate next week, but the reviews of his staff are already in. Too long, they tell him. Cut that answer. Give crisper explanations. No one wants a professor; they want a president.
Hundreds of miles away in New England, Mitt Romney's team has been working to make sure he avoids coming off as a scold. His sparring partner, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, channeling Mr. Obama, has gone after him repeatedly, to the point of being nasty. The goal is to get Mr. Romney agitated and then teach him how to keep his composure, look presidential.
With quick strokes and sharp details, Peter Baker and Ashley Parker brought readers into a story about presidential debate prep.
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National, 9/27:
John Silber Dies at 86; Led Boston University
A philosopher by training but a fighter by instinct, Dr. Silber believed in old-fashioned hard work and academic excellence. He arrived in Boston when protests against every value he cherished were sweeping campuses across the country. He waded in, and from 1971 to 1996 ruled B.U. with a tigerish ferocity that delighted admirers and enraged critics. There were plenty of both.
A great summation by Robert D. McFadden, in his fascinating obit of John Silber.
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Foreign, 9/27:
Not in Script for Kremlin: A Real Race for Governor
RYAZAN, Russia - A funny thing happened during the elections this fall for governor in the Russian region of Ryazan: for a few weeks, no one knew who would win.
The “funny thing†device can be overdone, but it was a clever and arresting way into this piece on Russian politics by Ellen Barry.
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Business, 9/27:
United States Economy Still Weak, but More Feel Secure
Both economists and the Romney campaign are puzzling over the same paradox: The recovery has flagged and yet the country's mood appears to be improving.
A quick, accessible and engaging start to an interesting economic analysis by Annie Lowrey.
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National, 10/13:
At the Corner of Hope and Worry
A dozen years ago, Donna found a scrap of serendipity on the sidewalk: a notice that a local mom-and-pop restaurant was for sale. After cooking for her broken family as a child, after cooking for county inmates at one of her many jobs, she had come to see food as life's binding agent, and a diner as her calling. She maxed out her credit cards, cashed in her 401(k) and opened a business to call her own.
Donna's Diner. Donna's.
You know this place: It is Elyria's equivalent to that diner, that coffee shop, that McDonald's. From the vantage point of these booths and Formica countertops, the past improves with distance, the present keeps piling on, and a promising future is practically willed by the resilient patrons.
Take your pick of memorable and poetic passages from any installment of Dan Barry's lovely portrait of Elyria, Ohio, and the diner on the corner.
Â
In a Word
This week's grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.
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The very loans that are supposed to help seniors stay in their homes are in many cases pushing them out. … Some lenders are aggressively pitching loans to seniors who cannot afford the fees… Now, as the vast baby boomer generation heads for retirement and more seniors grapple with dwindling savings…
The Times's stylebook urges us to avoid the euphemistic “senior citizen,†and this short form isn't much better. Let's look for alternatives: use specific ages when possible, or consider “older people,†“the elderly,†etc.
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Some at the school wonder whether it served the institution's interests for its leader to be publicly linked with people accused in one of the only Wall Street cases to stem from the great recession.
This expression is i llogical as well as colloquial. Make it “one of the few,†or rephrase.
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Derek Jeter, the Yankees' captain and shortstop, dove to his left for a ground ball in the 12th inning of the first game of the American League Championship Series early Sunday morning against the Detroit Tigers.
Make it “dived.â€
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President Obama, above, addresses children's questions about gun control, jobs, illegal immigration, same-sex marriage, outsourcing, bullying and obesity in this election edition of “Nick News With Linda Ellerbee.†The views of Mitt Romney, whom Nickelodeon executives said declined to participate in the show because of scheduling conflicts, are represented in video clips.
Make it “who,†the subject of “declined.â€
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By 3:15, the small platters of complementary desserts had been consumed.
Make it “complimentary†(or “freeâ€).
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Follow along with this interactive replay of the vi ce-presidential debate, using fact checks and graphics to take a closer look at attacks and assertions by Mr. Biden and Mr. Ryan.
Hyphenate this phrase: fact-check, fact-checking. Also, the plural variant here has a whiff of jargon and should be rephrased: “with fact-checking,†perhaps.
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“Fashion people live to sound British, the same way they over-pronounce French and Italian words because of those country's fashion weeks,†said Peter Davis, the American-born editor of Scene, a New York society magazine.
Countries', not country's
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Despite never becoming the head coach at Cheshire, teachers and coaches recall that Pasqualoni changed the community's mind-set toward football, which became a rallying point for the town.
Dangler. It is Pasqualoni, not “teachers and coaches,†who never became the head coach at Cheshire.
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The hope is that by intervening early, the disease might be headed off.
Another dangler. The disease isn't intervening, doctors are.
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WASHINGTON - The former chief security officer for the American Embassy in Libya on Wednesday told a House committee investigating the fatal attack last month on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi that his request to extend the deployment of an American military team were thwarted by the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. …
The clashing perspectives of witnesses was echoed in the partisan sparring of lawmakers, with Republicans accusing the State Department of shortchanging security at the compound and Democrats countering that the vast majority of security requests from there had been met.
Mirror-image mistakes. Make it “his request … was thwarted†and “perspectives … were echoed.â€
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The I.R.S. commissioner Douglas Shulman announced Wednesday that he will leave his post next month, ending a four-and-a-half year term during which he modernized some of th e agency's infrastructure while cracking down on tax dodging by corporations and offshore tax evasion by individuals.
The name should be set off with commas. (This is a “nonrestrictive†construction. Since there is only one I.R.S. commissioner, that phrase is fully specific; the name provides additional information but could be removed while leaving the sentence intact.)
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Unlike the Midwest, which concentrates (devastatingly) on corn and soybeans, more than 230 crops are grown in the valley, including those indigenous to South Asia, Southeast Asia and Mexico, some of which have no names in English.
Another dangler.
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It looks like “Breakfast at Tiffany's†will finally reach Broadway, some 46 years after a musical adaptation became one of the most legendary flops in theater history.
Make it “as if,†not “like.â€
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