Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock The difference between fiction and fact Friday 13 January 2006. I won’t do them the favor of hyperlinking these memoirists, James Frey and JT LeRoy. But there’s the names and here’s a news search engine. Memoirs are autobiographies and factual. The books by these men have been outed as not […]
Categories
Bad lessons for writers
Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday 10 January 2006. P.J. O’Rourke, in reviewing the novel Dog Days by Ana Marie "Wonkette" Cox last Sunday for The Washington Post, wrote: "Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words ‘Write what you know’ is confined to a labor camp. Please, […]
Categories
Surpassing expectations, Ltd.
Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock Surpassing expectations by accepting limits Wednesday 4 January 2006. Last issue, The New Yorker praised James Agee. Actually, it was New Yorker movie critic David Denby. (If I don’t always agree with Denby, he’s about the only current writer who every once in a while drops in a sentence or […]
Categories
Neigh, Justice
Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock Justice for horses Sunday, Jan. 1, 2006. NEWS ITEM — Fayetteville High’s band is scheduled Monday to march two places behind the Rose Parade’s grand marshal, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. They’ll find it easier to stay in step than me. In Fort Smith parades, my high school’s […]
Categories
Always waiting
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2005. Waiting. Some Enron executive pleaded guilty today to being a crook. Enron? Wasn’t that way back? (Wait here, I’ll check.) The corporation filed for bankruptcy in 2001. He’s a criminal who hurt thousands of employees, yet imagine waiting four years to learn how long your prison […]
Categories
Four horsemen of Christmas
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 […]