(R)eality TV (is) a medium dedicated to the proposition that with the help of judicious editing, carefully chosen half-wits can hold the attention of millions of their fellow half-wits for weeks on end.

I'm especially interested in what I call practitioner criticism, which is when people who practice an art form start writing about it on blogs. I think that's an immensely important development. I want to see much, much more of that. People who make music who are verbally articulate. And not all musicians are verbally articulate. But those who are should be encouraged to write about what they do and their perception of what other people do. It makes the discourse smarter.

The problem with the Jude Law "Hamlet" was simply that it wasn't unpredictable, that it was a very down-the-center modern production. You wouldn't go to the theater expecting to see an old-fashioned "Hamlet" where everybody wears an old fashioned costume. You don't get points for putting on a "Hamlet" where everybody dresses in black. I've seen that one several times. But again, it's not that it has to be new, it simply that it has to be different, fresh, that it doesn't bore, that it doesn't make me - I don't feel as I'm watching it that I know where it's going to go.

EXTREMELY FUNNY! A SUPER-VIRTUOSO! I expected to enjoy 'The Two and Only,' but I didn't expect to be touched, much less to find my eyes growing moist.

(R)eality TV (is) a medium dedicated to the proposition that with the help of judicious editing, carefully chosen half-wits can hold the attention of millions of their fellow half-wits for weeks on end.

We are born into a vast room whose walls consist of a thousand doors of possibility. Each door is flung open to the world outside, and the room is filled with light and noise. We close some of the doors deliberately, sometimes with fear, sometimes with calm certainty. Others seem to close by themselves, some so quietly that we do not even notice.

A critic should always strive to recapture the sense of wonder and surprise with which he first beheld a now-familiar work of art.