Steve Wozniak of all people showed up in Fayetteville, Ark., for a campus speech Sunday night. He spoke engagingly for a senior status wonk-nerd-geek — he is 62. Is there humility in a guy like that? Yes, after a fashion. “Woz” is certainly an electronics genius following a childhood as a certified math prodigy (literally, he …
Category Archives: Brick Bats Reportage
Euphonium Rocks!
Unemployment during the Good Depression is no time to be extravagant. I tend to be stingy during good times as well, but blowing a fair amount of money for top seats for The Who on Valentine’s night in Tulsa was crazy-right. The stop was on their Quadrophenia 2012–13 tour, playing through that double album then …
Concerti on Love in Minor Keys
TULSA — We left Oklahoma six days ago, but the memories are fresh, details helped by notes on the Oct. 14 Neil Young concert. The show, overall lasting 3:40, amazed me. I expected a great time, and it surpassed that. Reviews remain a parasitic genre: You should’ve been there. Careful essays on Young’s current Alchemy concert …
A Legacy of Carnegie
Laurence “Larry” Luckinbill should be a more familiar name. Sure, he’s from Fort Smith and I’ve seen a number of his movies, but if you start thinking about all those solid character actors from say childhood on — sigh, it’s a lot of folks. Why it was just the week before last that a stray Facebook …
Crotchety Old Ppl
Copyright 2011 Ben S. Pollock Reflections on the Paul Simon concert at Kansas City’s Midland Theater on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011 KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When a conversation turns to popular music, sometimes one is lectured on who has the definitive voice of the generation. Most of the time one learns it’s Bob Dylan. A dissenter …
A Columnist’s Scrapbook
The following is my president’s column for the June 2011 edition of the monthly newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. The NSNC Conference, three days out of 365, is a highlight of my year. Apparently, I mustn’t have a life. Actually, I do have a grand life, and NSNC has been a huge …
Hail to The Chieftains
Before The Chieftains review — which it’s not, because I lost my Lamy Al-Star pen following a disaster of a restaurant meal so I couldn’t take notes — a roundabout. I try to be a jack of all journalism tricks. I even covered a lecture and poetry reading by ex-NBA star Tom Meschery in about …
PEG o’ My Heart
Last year, which is to say 11 days ago, Brick described the local cable company as reneging on its agreement with area governments by moving the local access channels from its cheapest tiers, analog cable, to the more costly digital ones. This posting provoked interest among Facebook friends. They gave conflicting stories, hence some informal …
Over and Under
Columnist Stu Bykofsky of the Philadelphia Daily News, despite being quite the extrovert, rarely finds himself a news subject. It’s because he’s first a journalist, although with his in-your-face style, that might seem surprising. This week, however, Bykofsky has landed in the cable yaks war, “yaks” being those chat-show hosts on the 24/7 news/comment channels, …
Rock in Rococo
A concert by Mark Knopfler and his band, seen April 21 in Kansas City, promoting his album Get Lucky, was tremendous. If you live within 250 miles (the distance from Fayetteville, as it happens) and have some extra 20s for tickets, try to see it; otherwise listen to the record. Though usually featuring electric instruments, …
