Don’t look now, but James Wolcott’s been on fire lately. This “meditation”:http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2008/10/over-at-tpm-david-kurtz.html on hellish gridlock under a President McCain is brilliant, right up to the last deliciously _weltschmerz_-soaked line. And this “reminiscence”:http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2008/10/sheila-omalley-at-the-sheila.html of Pauline Kael’s connection to Barry Levinson’s _Diner_ really gets me where I live. I spent my college years inhaling as many of Kael’s words as I could get my hands on, and _Diner,_ which came out when I was 12, was the sort of quirky “how can this be a classic when TBS plays it every weekend?” gem that impressed me a lot during the same period. I didn’t know that she rescued the movie; more people should.