Word: smug
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...that appeared in Harper's last summer. It opens with a great thesis: that the intellectual crossroads of America is O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, because that's where all America's intellectuals make connections while they're on the speaking circuit. From there Wolfe slides into a smug harangue about why socialism is ignored in America. We live the good life here--we're in the midst of what Wolfe calls a "happiness explosion"--and he's aghast that anyone might not think the way he does...
That's the only good thing one can say about this smug, sorry collection of "female" humor which is at best unfunny, at worst offensive and exploitative...
...scene. Foster (Michael Kitchen) and Briggs (Terence Rigby) are young, uncouth and vaguely sinister. They are apparently Hirst's factotums about the house, and his bodyguards. They aim insulting remarks at Spooner. While he is slightly intimidated, Spooner holds on like a barnacle, secure in the doggedly smug conviction of his genius despite his worldly failure. In retaliation, the bodyguards immerse Spooner in total darkness by switching off the lights and locking him in the drawing room for the night...
...nominating convention is sort of Ex-Lax for the body politic, a theater of ourselves, a legitimizing ceremony... We know that what we see is a 'media-event' and are smug in the knowledge. If Walter Cronkite takes it seriously, then we don't have to. His seriousness absolves us. There is a 'media-reality' for which we can disclaim responsibility, and a private reality, which is our watching of the magic show as if it had nothing to do with our lives...
...matter, they still gave me credentials. When I walked out of the room with my pinkcolored "news" tag dangling from my neck, I felt smug. But my confidence was jolted when I got back in the elevator. I was surrounded by a group of newsmen with orange tags, and New York Times picture i.d.'s. A caste system was developing. It wasn't until I was standing in an endless line with the rest of the "special" press for my pass to the floor in the $6.50 bleacher section--where no self-respecting Knicks fan would tread for free--that...