He's asked to offer constant smug asides to the camera, as in "It may take a while, but Eleanor's going to blossom!"

Simeti herself periodically pauses to offer little asides on the nature and quality of medieval life, and these are among the most illuminating passages in the narrative.

Too many of his pages are devoted to scorching what he sees as a political wasteland, while offering little in the way of fresh seed but rhetorical asides and laments.

As self-styled bards of varying talent read verse ranging from onanistic reveries to logistically complex scenarios involving barnyard animals, Ms. Radakovich offered occasional asides.

My daughter joined in the grown-up chitchat, offering such asides as: "Babe Ruth?

He communicates mostly by offering sarcastic asides delivered as if they were zingy one-liners, which they aren't.

By contrast, Mr. Green, once again, stayed on the sidelines, offering joking asides about the fights going on around him, in the latest indication of just how confident he is about his position.

Julia describes their peripatetic lives in a bubbly style, offering asides on everything from the horrors of McCarthyism back home to the exhilaration of her first mistral in Marseille.

And Mr. Zusak's narrator offers constant manipulative asides, as in the clever Lemony Snicket books, although in this case wit is not much of an option.

While people testify against him, Hauptmann offers critical asides to the audience.