For the Love of Sentences

Every once in a while (not sure about the schedule) Frank Bruni at the NYT publishes a list of sentences. They are a HOOT!

For the Love of Sentences

Josh HawleyDrew Angerer/Getty Images

Several times a year, there’s a sentence or passage nominated by so many of you that it’s as if you’ve organized a campaign: Citizens United for (fill in writer’s name). Your cause most recently was George Will, who eviscerated Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, like so: “Nimbly clambering aboard every passing bandwagon that can carry him to the Fox News greenroom, he treats the Senate as a mere steppingstone for his ascent to an office commensurate with his estimate of his talents.” (Thanks to Alice Kleeman of Redwood City, Calif., and Andy Robinson of Syracuse, N.Y., who were among the first to email this to me.)

Sticking with The Washington Post: Damon Young noted that most of the vehicles in the all-purpose-protest-on-wheels known as the People’s Convoy “are draped with American flags. Some with not just a flag or two, but a flag orgy. Flag Freaknik. I never understood the compulsion to be so conspicuously patriotic — to show every American in America that you’re the Americanest American.” (Phil Carlsen, South Portland, Maine)

And Kathleen Parker reflected on her reaction to a display of “simple civility” recently: “When did it become so rare that I’m startled by it? Was it the pandemic, or did Covid-19 merely place a headstone on the graves of common cause and community?” (Carol Ball, Boston)

To pivot to The Times, here’s Wesley Morris on the cosmetic signature of the basketball star Trae Young, who sports a “magnificent unsolved mystery” of a haircut. “I’m calling it a haircut. But that’s the thing about Young’s hair: cut where? How? This is hair so rich with paradoxical intrigue that a season of ‘Serial’ wouldn’t be unwarranted. It’s thin yet full, short and long, wet but also dry, seemingly ‘young buck’ despite seeming geriatric too, an optical illusion of barbering. There’s a fade, a part and bangs. It’s simply not a haircut. It’s a Michael Crichton novel.” (Kathy Haynie, Oregon City, Ore., and Barbara Lane, Kings Park, N.Y.)

Contemplating a certain social media platform’s appeal to a former president, Ezra Klein wrote: “From 2017 to 2021, the White House was occupied by what was, in effect, a Twitter account with a cardiovascular system.” (Nancy Bellhouse May, Little Rock, Ark., and Dennis Gorski, North Port, Fla.)

Bret Stephens observed that Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people “have reminded the rest of the free world that a liberal and democratic inheritance that is taken for granted by its citizens runs the risk of being taken at will by its enemies.” (Andy Robinson, Syracuse, N.Y.)

In The Wall Street Journal, Jason Gay came out against Major League Baseball’s efforts to speed up extra-inning games: “Why does baseball need to be like everything else? Why must it cave to the modern attention span? Baseball is played without a clock. There’s no horn or buzzer or countdown. It is what it is. It ends when it ends, like a pizza, or a State of the Union speech.” (James W. Brockardt, Pennington, N.J.)

In The New Yorker, Sam Knight pondered the bejeweled prison inhabited by British royalty: “It’s an unspeakable existence: brain-melting privilege with the agency of a root vegetable.” (Ste Kubenka, Austin, Texas, and Jennifer Knapp-Stumpp, Stow, Mass., among others)

Also in The New Yorker, Anthony Lane, reviewing and describing the plot of the new movie “Paris, 13th District,” presented this gift to F. Scott Fitzgerald fans, or at least to readers who recognize the name of a dating app: “One evening, Émilie, who is waitressing, pauses to check her cellphone, likes the look of the man she sees there, asks a colleague to cover for her while she runs an errand, hurries home, has sex with the man, and returns to the restaurant to resume normal service. Tinder is the night.” (Roy Oldenkamp, West Hollywood, Calif., and Patricia Stinehour, Seattle)

In a separate review, Lane noted: “The title of the new Michael Bay film is ‘Ambulance,’ which, coming from the man who brought us ‘Armageddon’ (1998) and ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ (2014), feels like a bit of a downgrade. It’s as if Wagner had decided to follow ‘Gotterdammerung’ with an opera about pest control.” (Mark Gray, Lacey, Wash.)

Last, here’s one of this feature’s occasional shout-outs to a headline, this one atop a movie review by Justin Chang in The Los Angeles Times: “Robert Eggers’ mighty Viking epic ‘The Northman’ puts the art before the Norse.” (Valerie Hoffmann, Montauk, N.Y.)

To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here, and please include your name and place of residence.