‘Next to Normal,’ Drama Pulitzer Winner, Is in Some Way

NYTimes.com: I’ve never put much stock in artistic prizes. I enjoy the Academy Awards for much the same reason I imagine most of you do: being able to make fun of the tedium, the clothes and the fatuity the day after the presentation. (Of course, Hollywood on Oscar night has become so circumspect and airbrushed in recent years that those pleasures ain’t what they used to be.) But it’s become a self-evident truth that the correlation between Oscars and actual merit is arbitrary at best. And don’t get me started on the Tonys.