Stories by Philip Martin

5 Questions with James McMurtry It's been a while since James McMurtry put out a record.It feels like he's overdue. It's not like he was affected by the Writers Guild of America strike (which seems to have been settled a... September 29, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: The case for anxiety I read Josh Snyder's story about the mental health of Arkansans last Sunday. It is interesting and sad, because it basically points out that we were worse off than just about anybody when it came ... September 26, 2023

OPINION | ON BOOKS: John Hunter book on band R.E.M. is big and impressive Arguing over pop music is a young person's game. It's like Paul Simon said: "Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts" and who we cherish is as likely an accident of birth an... September 24, 2023

The mystery of a man As part of Six Bridges Literary Festival, I'll be at the Ron Robinson Theater in downtown Little Rock at noon Thursday talking with New Yorker writer Ben McGrath about his 2022 book "Riverman... September 24, 2023

OPINION: Los Lobos is an American band The best rock 'n' roll show I ever saw was Los Lobos at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas on April 22, 1987.The band was at the height of its power, a finely calibrated, piston-slamming beast of... September 22, 2023

Talking Heads brilliant all over again in Demme’s ‘Stop Making Sense’ revival via IMAX It has been years since I've been to the Toronto International Film Festival, and most of the time I don't miss it. There's a lot of standing in line and jostling for position at the Press... September 22, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Uncle Walt and Il Duce We were talking about Walt Disney and Benito Mussolini the other day.My friend swears he's seen the photograph: Disney and Mussolini, in Italy in 1931, giving the Fascist salute, extending their r... September 19, 2023

Five questions with zookeeper, musician Randal Berry Randal Berry is an interesting guy, an amateur historian who is one of the leading lay experts on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (and a vociferous critic of JFK assassination theories), founder ... September 17, 2023

A game that’s meaningless Imet Robert Redford in October 2000.I'd come to New York for a screening of his film "The Legend of Bagger Vance," and was scheduled to interview Redford (and Will Smith and Matt Damon a... September 17, 2023

Superstar Pola Negri dazzles after 100 years "Pola Negri comes to Yorkshire!"-- Lady Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern), remarking on the makeover of Lady Mary in a 2015 episode of "Downton Abbey"I never met the woman who considere... September 15, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Coach Prime and the mandarins Part of me appreciates what Deion Sanders has accomplished with the University of Colorado Buffaloes football team. He's disrupted an institution that deserved it.The NCAA's noxious euphemism ... September 12, 2023

OPINION: On audiobooks — and oh yeah, Tom Clancy’s gift tank I have a time management problem.I'm not a slow reader, but I have limited time. I do most of my reading for this column in the hour before I go to sleep. At this rate I can knock out about a book... September 10, 2023

Requiem for a Challenger I almost bought a Challenger in 2008, shortly after Dodge resurrected the muscle car after a 34-year hiatus. (There were other vehicles called "Challengers" in the interim, but they weren&#3... September 10, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Day after Labor Day blues Monday holidays are funny around this shop.To have a day off in the newspaper business generally means you have to work ahead. It’s not more work, it’s not so much hard as awkward. I like ... September 5, 2023

OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: ‘Hard Knocks’ provides fly on the wall in an NFL training facility There are better uses of one's time than fact-checking the would-be inspirational speeches of football coaches. But here we are.At the very beginning of the first episode of the 20th season of HBO... September 3, 2023

Making our own Sonnys In Shreveport in the 1980s, Sonny was not one of those people who embraced the 9-to-5; he pieced together a decent living playing bass in a few bands and flipping cheap houses.He'd buy one falling... September 3, 2023

POPNOTES: The Gospel of St. Peter Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?-- Ecclesiastes 2:3 (King James Version)According to Ra... September 1, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Take care of your people I remember a trip to the barbershop with my father when I was 6 or 7 years old.It was one of those two-chair places, with a rotating barber pole--a helix of red, white and blue--by the glass door.The ... August 29, 2023

OPINION | ON BOOKS: Clancy’s and Ryan’s legacies live on in ‘Weapons Grade’ Tom Clancy has been dead nearly 10 years."Weapons Grade," his latest novel, has just been released. Sucker that I am, I read every word of it.Obviously, Clancy didn't write the book. It ... August 27, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Dublin the Biter Twice in my adult life I've been mauled by dogs.The first time occurred when a pair of boxers escaped from their fenced yard without their keeper's knowledge. They attacked Bork, my 55-pound c... August 27, 2023

OPINION | REVIEW: ‘Golda’ Most Americans have a vague idea about who Golda Meir was, much in the same way they have a vague idea about Babe Ruth or Charlie Chaplin: They probably can call up in their mind's eye an image of... August 25, 2023

Getting a free play on monthly pizza night Sometimes on Tuesday nights when Karen goes to her book club, I meet my buddy for supper.I have a needle to thread with the next few sentences. I love my wife and there's no one with whom I would ... August 25, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Worked to death Nanakorobi yaoki.That's an old Japanese adage. It means: "Fall down seven times, get up eight."That's what most of us do, most of the time. We can't go on. We go on.Maybe if you ... August 22, 2023

OPINION | CRITICAL MASS: Robbie Robertson: A man, his guitar, his rocky relationship with Levon Helm As part of my annual LifeQuest summer movies class last month, I screened Martin Scorsese's "The Last Waltz" from 1978, about The Band's "farewell concert appearance" with ... August 20, 2023

Joe and Neil In 1920, 13-year-old Gordon Kinnock left school because his family was poor. He went to work as a miner in the Pochin Colliery near Tredegar in the Sirhowy Valley in Wales.Gordon was one of those odd ... August 20, 2023

‘Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback’ shows singer’s victimhood and Parker’s greed A few months ago, during their pledge drive, Arkansas PBS reran Elvis Presley's 1968 comeback TV special. They asked me to sit in the studio and comment on the show during the breaks and I had a g... August 18, 2023

Iris DeMent writes memory-play songs I went looking in our archives for an interview I did with Iris DeMent a couple of years ago.I couldn't find it, so I widened my search, going back a couple more years. Still nothing.Third time wa... August 18, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Betting on Phil People ought to be able to do what they want with their money.It doesn't bother me if a rich guy like Phil Mickelson gambles what most people consider outrageous amounts. And if he bets on golf to... August 15, 2023

OPINION | ON BOOKS: Irish author, alter ego come together for ‘The Lock-Up’ A decade ago I wrote about Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville, an Irish writer who wrote detective fiction under the open pseudonym "Benjamin Black." I say "open pseudonym&quot... August 13, 2023

A new phase The hospice counselor came to see my sister the other day. It marked a new phase.Two nurses and the oxygen people also came to show her how to work a portable oxygen "concentrator." People w... August 13, 2023

OPINION | The living palimpsest: The state of the world I went back to OhioBut my city was gone-- Chrissie HyndeWe were taking the long way home from Bass Pro Shop on Sunday afternoon when we found ourselves at the intersection of Asher and University aven... August 11, 2023

‘Jules’ Wow. I just saw the first Ben Kingsley performance I've liked since, 2000's "Sexy Beast."No, that can't be right. Sir Ben has been in a lot of movies since then, 2002's &quot... August 11, 2023

‘The Miracle Club’ Somebody involved with the making of "The Miracle Club" knows how to build a team.The film, which isn't quite a "faith-based" movie though it's likely to appeal to that gen... August 11, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: The good life I am driving home from the gym, listening to satellite radio, not paying very close attention.Suddenly Tony Bennett's "The Good Life" cuts bel canto through the summer afternoon malaise.... August 8, 2023

Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at Museum of Modern Art needs time to ponder NEW YORK – Georgia O'Keeffe has never been my favorite painter.I don't have to defend that statement; all of us are entitled to like what we like. And I'm not sure I need to try to u... August 6, 2023

Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at Museum of Modern Art needs time to ponder NEW YORK -- Georgia O'Keeffe has never been my favorite painter.I don't have to defend that statement; all of us are entitled to like what we like. And I'm not sure I need to try to unders... August 6, 2023

Under the cloud "At exactly 15 minutes past 8 in the morning, on 6 August 1945 Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department ... August 6, 2023

Cowboys, cops and robbers: ‘Justified: City Primeval’ takes Raylan Givens to another time and place Some people can do what they want.-- Robert PalmerCops aren't supposed to be cowboys. Not in real life.Cops are supposed to be judicious, to attempt de-escalation first and resort to violence last... August 4, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Mad and brave On June 10, 1993, eight months after she had ripped apart a photograph of Pope John Paul II during a "Saturday Night Live" performance, Sinéad O'Connor bought a page in The Irish ... August 1, 2023

Play me, pay me I'm a hypocrite.I enjoy college sports. At the same time I know the college sports delivery system is corrupt and exploitative. And that our fascination with college sports--especially football--d... July 30, 2023

‘Southern Storytellers’ and its irregular Americans NEW YORK -- We think we know things we don't. The big guy with the rolling bag and the brusque air about him boarding the Q70 bus to LaGuardia Airport has to be a native New Yorker. It's there... July 28, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Small town blues "Wherever you come near the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense."-- Thornton Wilder, "Our Town"Jason Aldean isn't on my radar. His music is not my kind of cou... July 25, 2023

Five questions: Arkansas native and author Kelly J. Ford A free ride got Kelly J. Ford out of the state right after graduating from the University of Central Arkansas. She left with a friend and Walmart co-worker who had already planned to move out of state... July 23, 2023

Old secrets emerge in Kelly J. Ford’s novel ‘The Hunt’ A casino is a place apart, intentionally removed from all recognizable reality, a fantasy world of lights and musical jingle, windowless, clockless, timeless, a tuned environment where scented oils wa... July 23, 2023

Summertime blues "Summer is about longing for summer."-- Adam GopnikAmericans can be said to have invented summer, or at least the advertising myth of summer as a time of thought-free frolic. For most of us-... July 23, 2023

ON FILM: Rediscovering ‘Saving Private Ryan’ after 25 years "... Our great majority will emerge from the war almost as if it had never taken place, and not all the lip service in the world about internationalism will make that different. This and more and... July 21, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Having caught the car… I just finished a multi-year book project. I feel like the dog that caught the car. It feels good to be done, though I'm not really done. I'm just done enough to say I'm done.What's le... July 18, 2023

‘Indiana Jones’ film is a bomb; what that doesn’t mean The movies are not dead. Disney is not dying. The sky is not falling. Everything is changing except for human nature.These are things I believe. That does not necessarily mean they are true; none of u... July 16, 2023

Artifice and authenticity My summer movie class started last week.Judging from the class roster the LifeQuest of Arkansas folks sent me, we are finally back from covid-19. I might even need the public address system at Riverda... July 16, 2023

OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Rousseau’s Camaro I was throwing my golf clubs into my car when I noticed the Camaro--a late model ZL1. Let's say it was a 2020.I've never been a fan of the Camaro and don't keep up anymore (Karen let her s... July 11, 2023