Word: smug
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Carter is expected to fill several top-level posts this week, and to complete his Cabinetmaking by Christmas (with perhaps one or two exceptions). Meanwhile, the expectant capital hums with reports about the probable choices for high posts (see profiles). Some smug veterans of past Administrations speculated that Carter had already settled on his team and was prolonging the suspense to make news. This appeared not to be the case. At week's end he did not seem to have made up his mind about anyone other than the two Cabinet-level nominees already announced: Cyrus Vance as Secretary...
...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...
...Coltrane records on the stereo. All that can be said for Wolfe's own style is that it's, well, catty. It's the style of a gossip columnist for a small-town newspaper who describes some awful shotgun wedding where all the principals involved hate each other with smug sarcasm as "a good time...
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...