NEW ORLEANS — Dinner on Friday followed a bit of planned silliness. Columnists gathered outside the Hotel Monteleone where the Storyville Stompers were waiting. They comprised a dancing drum major, bass drummer, snare drummer, saxophonist, trumpeter, trombonist and sousaphone player. They played long versions of about three Dixieland classics and we were their “second-line,” sashaying […]
NEW ORLEANS — For several years (see the Grapevine, Boston and Philadelphia categories at right), Brick has had write-ups of the sessions of the annual confab of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. I’m not sure if many besides the fellow conferees will be interested, but it’s for the record. I am secretary, after all. […]
NEW ORLEANS — All morning, we visitors have been referring to Hurricane Katrina, occasionally to the other big one, Hurricane Rita, in the course of the all-day speeches and panel discussions. Instead of two days of workshops, this year’s National Society of Newspaper Columnists conference loaded up the teachin’ today so tomorrow we can move […]
Book report: The Art of Column Writing: Insider Secrets from Art Buchwald, Dave Barry Arianna Huffington, Pete Hamill and Other Great Columnists, by Suzette Martinez Standring The reviewing trade has a law that a critic doesn’t write up works created by friends. It’s a group of laws, actually. When a periodical’s staffer or regular contributor […]
Copyright 2008 Ben S. Pollock DATELINE MIRTHOLOGY — The way to be left alone in Fayetteville’s Wilson Park is to mutter to no one in particular. It’s not a particularly small town, but if you do leave your house you often run into people you know. So look moderately troubled, other park patrons tend to […]
Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock Humorist Richard Allin died Thursday in Little Rock. He was 77. The following is why he’s important. It’s from the acknowledgments page of my journalism master’s thesis, spring 2003. At the family breakfast table in Fort Smith, 30 to 35 years ago, Dad laughing would read aloud paragraphs from the […]