Posts by David Benjamin
Back to Kansas, Toto
by David Benjamin “Color is just not real enough … Perhaps it is for television, where your audience is sitting in a room with the lights on. But in a dark theater, confronted by that huge screen, I feel that it’s just not convincing.” ―Carol Reed MADISON, Wis.—On the eighteenth anniversary of D-Day, in the…
Read MoreJilted for an Apple
by David Benjamin “Hey, sunshine I haven’t seen you in a long time Why don’t you show your face and bend my mind?” ―Simon & Garfunkel, “Cloudy” MADISON, Wis.—While I was half-listening to a CD in my car, a snatch of lyrics brought her back to me in a rush. Technically, I guess, she was…
Read MoreThree-Pee-Oh was a steel-drivin’ droid, Lord, Lord …
by David Benjamin “John Henry said to his cap’n, ‘Oh, a man ain’t nothin but a man, And before I let that steam drill beat me down, I’ll die with this hammer in my hand, Lord, Lord, I’ll die with this hammer in my hand’ …” ―Josh White, “The Story of John Henry” MADISON, Wis.—During…
Read MoreThe newshounds of Bowling Villa
by David Benjamin LAS VEGAS—At a giant annual trade show whose emphasis is on the all-new and “innovative,” the vibe at the House of Journalists this year was refreshingly old-school. This residential subset of an immense media presence at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was launched five years ago by Scott Fosgard, a veteran of…
Read MoreThe artisanal child
by David Benjamin “‘No grownups allowed’ was, after all, the principle that defined every kid’s kidhood. You took orders from grownups. You ate the food they fed you (unless it was liver or Brussels sprouts). You went to bed when they said. You went to school because they said. You got stuff from them—clothes, dimes,…
Read MoreThe criminal inside me … and you, too
by David Benjamin “That’s the difference between crime and business. For business you gotta have capital. Sometimes I think it’s the only difference.” ― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye MADISON, Wis.—It was 1968, the bloodiest year in what came to be loosely termed the counterculture. I had hitchhiked to Chicago on a lovelorn mission that…
Read MoreMr. Dedrick and the idiot intern
by David Benjamin “College is about exposing students to many things and creating an aphrodisiac atmosphere so that they might fall in lifelong love with a few.” ― David Brooks MADISON, Wis.—The word that comes to mind when I remember Philip Dedrick is “unassuming.” He was a tweedy man with a gray thatch of unruly…
Read MoreThe constipated password
by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis.—Every Christmas season, I suffer an onset of password constipation. To shop for the holidays, I visit websites that I use infrequently, once a year at most. Usually, I’ve been there before. Typically, on my first visit there, I laboriously provided my personal data. Obeying orders, I made up a password…
Read MoreThe ICEmen cometh
by David Benjamin SOMEWHERE in Vermont—Santa Claus’s aide de camp, Olaf the elf, turned to Santa and said, “What’s that noise? Santa had finished his rounds in Canada and was guiding his sleigh toward the farmhouse of the Shaftoe family, in the northernmost reaches of snowy New England. From the pitch darkness came throbbing rumble,…
Read MoreGod and man at Lambeau Field
by David Benjamin “It’s all God’s timing, man … It was God trying to tell me to help my foot out a little bit.” —Jayden Reed, injured Green Bay Packer MADISON, Wis.—Katy, one of my coffee-shop friends, looked a little strange. She was wearing mostly men’s clothes as usual and pushing the walker she’s been…
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