The life of a bestselling novelist sounds like it ought to be spectacularly glamorous and fun, but in fact I spend most of my time incognito, and in fact were you to pass me in the street you would think I was just another dowdy suburban mom.

Since the time of Richard Nixon, there has been a strange lack of will in the media to identify the real cause for Americans' anger at politicians who fall, publicly and spectacularly.

Monday Night Football started in 1970 and when it started it was something extremely special because sports had not been aired in prime time. So it was a novelty and a lot of people thought it wouldn't work and of course it worked spectacularly well.

For the past two years President Obama has promised our children the moon stars rainbows unicorns and universal health care for all. But the White House Santa's cradle-to-grave entitlement mandates are a spectacularly predictable bust.

I have made a film about jazz that tries to look through jazz to see what it tells us about who we are as a people. I think that jazz is a spectacularly accurate model of democracy and a kind of look into our redemptive future possibilities.

After its hothouse incubation in the seventies appropriation breathed important new life into art. This life flowered spectacularly over the decades - even if it's now close to aesthetic kudzu.