Lesson to be learned, keep the kids in Texas. Stay away from CT.

Yes, Chris Buckley seems a worthy subject after Austin Bramwell’s recent strictures, i.e., a non-movement figure whose talent has taken him well into the cultural mainstream, which latter’s presumed icesheet monolith, a convenient article of faith among many on the right, dissolves under disciplined scrutiny. Think Henry Hazlitt’s 32 years at, successively, the NYT and Newsweek, Buckley’s contrarian libertarian pal (and collaborator) John Tierney at the NYT today, James Grant’s NYT op-eds on credit crises, Nock in Harper’s and the Atlantic, all immunised from ghettoed habits in an ideological age.

A little movement immersion, especially in youth, isn’t the worst thing in the world, provided its limits and diminishing returns are recognized speedily enough. But the way of the true artist wills out in outgrowing its confines soon enough, assuming a capacity for ongrowing growth. By the age of 20 or so, wearing funny hats and booing on cue at conventions are *so* CPAC.