{"id":321,"date":"2007-05-30T11:50:07","date_gmt":"2007-05-30T16:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2007\/05\/30\/almanac-you\/"},"modified":"2007-12-06T02:22:29","modified_gmt":"2007-12-06T08:22:29","slug":"almanac-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/05\/almanac-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Almanac You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock<\/small><\/p>\n

New anythings to town are governed by a series of publicity stunts. A new business will send out announcements that it has been formed, that it has hired executives, it has bought land, it is breaking ground, setting a cornerstone and so on. Even communities do similar things for, say a new park. Tuesday, the mayor of Fayetteville held a ceremony for new speed bumps<\/a> in roads, complete with ceremonial shovels — here presumably for asphalt, not dirt.<\/p>\n

A favorite ploy is the unveiling of the logo. The first professional baseball team for the area, the minor league Northwest Arkansas Naturals, an affiliate of the Kansas City Royals, has been proceeding through the PR steps, and Tuesday unfurled a logo<\/a> in Springdale.<\/p>\n

The management admitted difficulty in figuring out what to do with a mascot that sounds like a brand of beer<\/a>. It hired Phoenix Design Works of New York City (“New York City”?). Between the consultancy and the management, they looked stuff up in the almanac, it would seem.<\/p>\n

The Springdale city logo<\/a> shows green geometric hills, a white sun spewing narrow rays across a deep blue sky. I thought it was Hong Kong’s logo. Why not? Springdale is the flattest city in the region.The Nats’ executives rose with the Phoenix people to the challenge. Ozark Mountains? Ink in the hills. The “N” in Naturals naturally forms a lightning bolt? For athletic speed. A baseball whizzing along the rings of Saturn? No one will mistake this for football. Yet something was missing so they must have hit the almanac. Lo, Arkansas — the whole state, not just this corner, has 130 waterfalls, including “90 in the region targeted for marketing.”<\/p>\n

Are waterfalls something regular Arkies drive past on the way to Wal-Mart? No. Are they what bring Sooners or Show-mes into town? No, that’d be jobs.<\/p>\n

And are bodies of water and bolts of lightning something we want to encourage our young people to think as an enticing pair?<\/p>\n

A better symbol — surely it’s not too late — is to consider that name, the Naturals<\/a>, as a Great asset for the Arkansas Ozarks. The day will come, shortly after the first “batter-up!” in spring 2008, that radio announcers will call the team the Nats. It rolls off the tongue. The station’s color guy will call them the Great Nats. gNats. The gNats have a built-in logo, and a ready-to-caricature mascot, something that thousands of ticket buying baseball fans will appreciate, and surely buy every logo gewgaw from the vendors — buzzing bugs that are truly natural to the area.<\/p>\n

gNats<\/em>, play ball! -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock New anythings to town are governed by a series of publicity stunts. A new business will send out announcements that it has been formed, that it has hired executives, it has bought land, it is breaking ground, setting a cornerstone and so on. Even communities do similar things for, say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body-home-street"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":236,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/09\/it-was-a-tuesday\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":0},"title":"It was a Tuesday","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"On an infamous morning like 9\/11, the one five years ago, you don't know what terror the afternoon will see. Evening finally came, and whether or not you had constant access to television during the day, you sure kept your eyes on the tube that night. To make sense of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":177,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/03\/its-my-wifes-anniversary-too\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":1},"title":"It’s My Wife’s Anniversary, Too","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Tuesday, my poem was my wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. Now, she said she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mind if I share this sonnet. I Have Your Number Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock Thirteen never has been an unlucky number for me, I have neither lucky nor unlucky ones, so far as I can recall. As fortunes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":96,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/06\/self-evident\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":2},"title":"Self evident","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, June 7, 2005: Why is it that very smart people do such stupid things? I am a very smart person so I should know. -30-","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/12\/brows-beaten\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":3},"title":"Brows Beaten","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"DATELINE FAYETTEVILLE -- Masons working overtime to install the fireplace at the University of Arkansas' $2.77 million chancellor's residence suffered singed eyebrows Tuesday night when the gas logs erupted into flame even though the line hadn't been hooked up yet, and white smoke billowed from the chimney as high as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2003\/12\/tin-cans\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":4},"title":"Tin cans","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 30, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2003 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2003. Note to self: Tie string to cordless phone and other end to phone's base unit. Won't get misplaced that way. Note to self: Would wire work better? Note to self: How about speaker wire, and twisting around connection points? Maybe Radio\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":287,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/02\/corrections-so-far-this-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":5},"title":"Corrections So Far This Week","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\"An illustration Sunday with a story about the McClellan-Kerr waterway incorrectly showed the angles of the gates when closed and the position of the lower gate when open.\" \"A story in Monday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette incorrectly called President Bush a Republic when he actually is 1\/298 millionth of a Republic.\" \"A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}