Monthly Archives: November 2005

Food, shelter and story?

Copy­right 2005 Ben S. Pol­lock Thanks­giv­ing, Thurs­day, Novem­ber 24, 2005. Old School by Tobias Wolff pro­voked this riff. (I checked out the audio book from the library per­haps a year ago and returned it after hear­ing only most of the first disc, going by that’s when its famil­iar­ity ended. Hav­ing for­got­ten I had it out …

Thursday, November 24, 2005 – 5:45 pm | By Ben | Posted in The Course of Words | Comments (2)

What killed downtown? And when?

Copy­right 2005 Ben S. Pol­lock Fri­day, Nov. 18, 2005: What hap­pened to the Mall? I thought the Mall is what destroyed Down­town, not Wal-Mart. The lat­est batch of Wal-Mart-bashing ignores the his­tory of Amer­i­can retail. I don’t know this his­tory in a schol­arly way, only that por­tion I’ve lived. So this is a chip of a …

Friday, November 18, 2005 – 5:47 pm | By Ben | Posted in American Culture | Comments Off

How green is my Pollock?

The Pol­locks are always greener on the other side Copy­right 2005 Ben S. Pol­lock Sun­day, Novem­ber 13, 2005. Among the better-known peo­ple to whom I’m not related: Ben Pol­lock, the big band leader of the 1920s and ‘30s, no con­nec­tion Jack­son Pol­lock, the abstract expres­sion­ist painter, no con­nec­tion Syd­ney Pol­lack, the movie direc­tor and occa­sional actor, …

Sunday, November 13, 2005 – 6:01 pm | By Ben | Posted in Body, Home, Street | Comments Off

Pinned in public

Copy­right 2005 Ben S. Pol­lock Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 12, 2005. Two obser­va­tions from a lun­cheon. OK, two and a half. This is long; sorry. It’d make a dandy under­pin­ning of a story or play, and be clearer, but it’s taken me a lot of years for one hour today to merge these thoughts into an infor­mal essay. …

Saturday, November 12, 2005 – 6:06 pm | By Ben | Posted in Body, Home, Street | Comments Off

The G (rated) spot

Copy­right 2005 Ben S. Pol­lock Not tonight, dear, this is a G-rated spot Fri­day, Novem­ber. 11, 2005. Michael Scherer, Salon.com’s Wash­ing­ton cor­re­spon­dent, reported today on a hear­ing con­ducted Thurs­day by the Senate’s Sub­com­mit­tee on the Con­sti­tu­tion, Civil Rights and Prop­erty Rights. A writer named Pamela Paul tes­ti­fied, quoted as hav­ing said the fol­low­ing: “‘If they …

Friday, November 11, 2005 – 6:09 pm | By Ben | Posted in News, Spin | Comments Off

A perfect day

Copy­right 2005 Ben S. Pol­lock Mon­day, Novem­ber 7, 2005. Now I can under­stand­ing the irri­tat­ing habit of young brides to have every­thing “per­fect” on their wed­ding day, the heck with the con­fused groom and the belea­guered par­ents. Birth­days are like that. At least for me, every year I want my birth­day to be per­fect, a cel­e­bra­tion …

Monday, November 7, 2005 – 6:11 pm | By Ben | Posted in Body, Home, Street | Comments Off

Really Simple Syndication Isn’t

Copy­right 2005 Ben S. Pol­lock Wednes­day, Novem­ber 2, 2005. There is noth­ing sim­ple about Really Sim­ple Syn­di­ca­tion. RSS makes lit­tle sense. I finally under­stand that with it I can cre­ate a per­sonal Inter­net con­nec­tion for all of my favorite sites to let me know when they update; I think I get a phone call. But …

Wednesday, November 2, 2005 – 6:12 pm | By Ben | Posted in Technical Difficulties | Comments Off