Kane Webb

Worst Books '09

Hate the books, love the reviews

Bad books? I love 'em. Because the worst books produce the best reviews. Think about it: Can you remember a great book review about a great book? Neither can I. But let a talented reviewer get hold of some hardbound atrocity that has somehow oozed up from the literary tar pits and you're in for a treat.
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COLUMNISTS Entirely personal

This is the sixth time I've tried to start this column. An editor I once knew would tell me that means I have nothing to say. Not this time. This time, I have too much to say.
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In defense of sportswriting

On the back page of today's Perspective section, David Kinkade does a fine job of identifying a genre of commentary that's suddenly filling news pages everywhere: The Aging Journalist's Lament for Newspapers.
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Ballpark blues

As the city of Little Rock mulls two bids for Ray Winder Field, a compromise plan gains momentum

The television interview was set for the new Arkansas Studies Institute, that hybrid-actually, more like a tri-brid-structure at the corner of Clinton Avenue and Rock Street in Little Rock's hybrid River Market district. (Part beer halls, part libraries.)
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Coffee with Bud

The phones here at the office have caller i.d., so when mine rang Tuesday afternoon, I saw the name "Bud Cummins."
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Private schools: Keep out!

A plan to move the 21 private school members of the Arkansas Activities Association into their own championship bracket passed [at the district level].
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'Fine little machines'

The stories of Wells Tower are sad, strange, funny and wholly human-and a hit with critics. Do they foretell the popular return of the short story, those fine little machines?

Wells Tower had this great idea for a story. He'd go to Florida, land a job at a carnival, submerse himself in the carnival culture, and write a piece that would dispel all those stereotypes about carnies and the creepy lives they live. It'd be positively George-Plimptonesque.
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Players

With any luck (warning: delayed pun ahead) you'll be able to buy your lottery tickets this fall. Just in time for Christmas shopping! That is, if the new Lottery Commission can convince somebody to run the thing for a paltry 300-grand.
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Re-entering Plucky Newport

Faced with all the usual problems of a small Southern town, Newport is fighting back with plans by civic leaders to recruit businesses and redevelop downtown. Can they make it happen?

"These were two calamities that I lived through and remember, but both times the little town came back stronger and better than before. After the fire, [a man] coined the phrase, 'Plucky Newport' .
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Polspeak not heard here

The other day, I spent the afternoon with Penn, Wyatt, Sullivan and Aubrey. Including me, we had enough for a basketball team. Of course we'd have to play in the 3-year-old-and-under (plus a forty-something ) league.
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