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Wilfrid Sheed

Wilfrid Sheed Quotes

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“To American critics, Gershwin sounded exactly like what they wanted to get away from. It was the essence of their own time and place represented musically, just as James Joyce had verbally rendered Dublin in Ulysses. This kind of rendering absolutely had to include the time and place's vulgarity, its flash and its hustle, and what can only be called its gorgeous ugliness. Two years earlier, G.K. Chesterton had pointed out how beautiful Times Square must look to someone who couldn't read, and here was that same thought set to music. If Gershwin's music had been any purer and more correct, it wouldn't have been New York.”

MusicNew York CityTime And Place
Book:The House That George Built : With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of about Fifty (Paperback)--by Wilfrid Sheed [2008 Edition]
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“Hear that lonesome whistle blowing/'cross the trestle' John Mercer would write to Arlen's music, and suddenly Tin Pan Alley seemed to contain railway yards and bus depots that hadn't been there before. 'It's a quarter to three/there's no one in the place except you and me,' writes Mercer also, and Arlen's music conveys all the solitude of a roadhouse in the outback, as far from Johnny's Savannah' social register as it is from the Arluck parlor. Both Mercer and Arlen saw this other America as clearly as the half-British Raymond Chandler saw Los Angeles, with the freshness and sharpness of outsiders, and their songs constitute priceless social documents.”

OutsidersPopular MusicTin Pan Alley
Book:The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty
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“I myself have not met a self‐confessed liberal since the late fifties (and even then it was a tacky thing to admit, like coming from the middle class or the Middle West, those two gloomy seedbeds of talent), yet hardly a day passes that I don't read another attack on the “typical liberal” — as it might be announcing a pest of dinosaurs or a plague of unicorns.”

TwoSelfMightClassMiddleTalentMetsLateWestMiddle ClassTypicalPlagueDinosaursGloomyUnicornAnnouncingPestsTacky
Author:Wilfrid Sheed
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“Unlike most wars, which make rotten fiction in themselves - all plot and no characters, or made-up characters - Vietnam seems to be the perfect mix: the characters make the war, and the war unmakes the characters. The gods, fates, furies had a relatively small hand in it. The mess was man-made, a synthetic, by think tank out of briefing session.”

ThinkingMenMadeWarCharacterHandsSeemsPerfectFictionFateMessPlotVietnamSessionFuryTanksRottenSyntheticBriefingSmall Hands
Author:Wilfrid Sheed
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“It is possible that the malice of writers has been overrated (by myself among others). Reading their ruminations on their craft, one sees why this writer could not possibly like that one, would indeed consider him a menace. Literature is a battleground of conflicting faiths, and nobler passions than envy are involved.”

Has BeensPassionReadingLiteratureInvolvedEnvyCraftsMaliceMenaceOverratedBattlegroundRumination
Book:The good word and other words
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“It is a fallacy to think that carping is the strongest form of criticism: the important work begins after the artist's mistakes have been pointed out, and the reviewer can't put it off indefinitely with sneers, although some neophytes might be tempted to try: "When in doubt, stick out your tongue" is a safe rule that never cost one any readers. But there's nothing strong about it, and it has nothing to do with the real business of criticism, which is to do justice to the best work of one's time, so that nothing gets lost.”

ThinkingTryingHas BeensImportantRealMightFormArtistLostStrongJusticeMistakeDoubtReaderCostSafeCriticismSticksTongueStrongestTemptedBest WorkFallacyReviewersWhen In DoubtSneerImportant Work
Author:Wilfrid Sheed
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“For now, I'm supposing that all movements are equal, which they're not, except in this respect: that none of them gives a damn about artists beyond their immediate utility. Good movements will use a writer just as ruthlessly as bad ones; since they all fancy they have better things to do than worry about one man's artistic survival.”

MenGivingUseArtistWorryMovementEqualSurvivalArtisticDamnThings To DoFancyOne ManUtilitySupposingSupposing ThatBetter Things To Do
Book:The good word and other words
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