Classic Ebert...

He could have said:

'Sparks recently went on record as saying he is a greater novelist than Cormac McCarthy. This is true in the same sense that I am a better playwright than William Shakespeare.'

Since Ebert has never written play, to my knowledge, and since Shakespeare wrote more than just plays, this would have been more appropriate:

'Sparks recently went on record as saying he is a greater novelist than Cormac McCarthy. This is true in the same sense that I am a better writer than William Shakespeare.'

 

Never got the love for Ebert. Sorry.

 

No chance it could be just viewed as mindless, escapist TV, huh?

 

That SATC2 review was hilarious.

 

Ebert has been a screenwriter (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), however. So, he's close.

 

Good call. I'd forgotton about that.
Screenwriter is very much of the same ilk as playwright.

Of course, one might also argue that if he drew the playwright distinction he might be implying he is Shakespeare's equal in other forms of writing, ie poetry.


My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

 

Did you write that for Chris?

 

Are you back now?

 

Your passive-aggressive catty comments about 2002 Angels drew me back.

This is all your fault.

 

We're talking about Sandfrog over on the 'Post a Song you are listening to now' thread. Come join in.

 

my guess is that Ebert wrote it that way intentionally to make a broader point, but that it doesn't come across as clear as he thought it in his mind.
My first thought was that he was discounting all of them as novelists save for McCarthy; a little self-deprecation to blunt the thought that Ebert himself is being pompous.

 

I always thought Ally McBeal was about miniskirts.

At least, it was for me.