Well, you know.
“Brokeback Mountain.” A Brick review. It’s a winner. It’s for mature audiences, mature as in for grown-ups who realize sadness exists as does love and passion. Mature as in people who love “story” and love characters developed in “story.” What I haven’t seen, though, is a professional review saying this: “Brokeback Mountain would be a […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock The four horsemen of the Christmas Tuesday, December 13, 2005. Season’s greetings! Happy holidays! Quonset hut! Darwin’s Canterbury Jitterbug! Intelligent menorahs! Now, have I covered the four horsemen of the Christmas season? (I count five, too. Gotta watch ’em.) Too much ink has been spilled on this fall’s from-out-of-nowhere, wholly […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock . "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us," says Walt Kelly’s Pogo. (Not Gene Kelly, who never danced punk’s pogo.) That classic Cold War punch line’s almost an affirmation for those of us who consider ourselves enlightened Americans. But as such, a maxim’s never as good as […]
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 […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, Aug. 19, 2005: The latest innovation in Internet advertising is a boon to humor columnists. Maybe it’s not the absolute newest improvement but now widespread is a customization factor: You open a newspaper Web site’s article on, for example, gardening, and a couple of ads on the same page […]
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, May 27, 2005: Here are a few tips on how to enjoy having a major museum in your area. This is advice for locals. Tourists, get on the Web or contact AAA; this isn’t for you. Bentonville’s coming Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (isn’t it nice that for […]