At James Lileks' suggestion, I just read an amazing journalistic article on The Great Zucchini, a quirky performer at children's birthday parties in the Washington, DC, area. Lileks says:

This piece should be taught in J-schools. This is Pulitizerian. Stick with it, and you'll see what I mean.

I agree. Indeed, it's better than most of the Pulitzer-prize winning pieces I've read.

The article by Gene Weingarten was published in the Sunday "Washington Post." I was blown away by Weingarten's writing. In some strange way, it reminded me of the feelings that I had on reading some of the great journalism in the 1970s "Rolling Stone": Joe Eszterhas on Evel Knievel, Tom Wolfe writing the articles that later became "The Right Stuff," and Hunter Thompson on the 1972 campaign. The topic may not be grand, and Weingarten's style is very different from Eszterhas's, Wolfe's, or Thompson's, but Weingarten has a sympathetic, light touch that Eszterhas and Thompson never possessed.