The following is my president’s column for the January 2011 edition of monthly newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. 1. Quit grasping onto obvious topics like “Columnist Lists New Year’s Resolutions.” 2. When writing, quit the posed, “I don’t know about you, but as for me …” or a similar phrase. Reflective columns […]
A final book list will close the 2010 year of Brick. After years of not starting then false starts, I resolved last January to keep a list of books on the home computer. It’s a vanity project — well, both the list and Brick are — but it’s been instructive: What do I like to […]
Earlier this month the cable television provider Cox Communications changed the access to the community and government access channels here in Northwest Arkansas. They sent a letter to customers (click for a PDF), and press releases to the news outlets. They’d say changed the location, but what they did is limit the access. The show-off […]
Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock The occasional, amateur anthropologist in me has been studying the spouse for 19 1/2 years. Occasional discoveries have been made during the field work, but a revelation has occupied the study recently: There’s two of her. I’m pretty sure of this because there’s two of me. My Beloved has the […]
My Reform Jewish family in Fort Smith, Arkansas, had schnecken for breakfast every Christmas. There was no recipe so every December in adulthood I’ve tried to recreate the childhood memory, with cookbooks, recollections of family and improvising. That was starting in my 20s. In my 30s, I also began cooking healthier. These cannot honestly be […]
Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock DATELINE MIRTHOLOGY — I grabbed a take-out coffee from Common Grounds and headed across Fayetteville’s Dickson Street to the rose garden of the current Walton Arts Center. I sat on the terraced brick wall, waiting for my client-friend Crystal Britches, and shivered. The flower bushes were faded, matching the mood. […]