throwaway

An archive of throwaways gets new life when presented as a natural history composed of cultural artifacts.

From a throwaway punchline in that 1996 film — exiling Saxon’s William Donloe to a remote radar station in Alaska — comes one of the most unexpected storylines in the new “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”

“Sometimes, people just didn't have enough money to buy a good cut of meat. So these throwaways were all offal that you were able to get for pennies and then feed your family.”

Then again, maybe that’s a popcorn kernel for critics and other nerds, like another episode’s throwaway line from a former journalist who says she got blackballed for sucker-punching Rex Reed.

At this point, what started as a throwaway joke has grown into something vaguely earnest — too big to fail and too enmeshed in the neighborhood to be abandoned in good conscience.