Two pollices down

Being a critic of anything is a thankless job (that’s critic in the formal sense, not in the Internet age “I’m brilliant because I have a computer” sense). The word “critic” comes from a Greek word (doesn’t everything?) that means “able to discern,” and that’s what the best critics do — they are discerning about what they’re watching (TV/movies) or eating (food) or listening to (classical music), and then they express what they discerned in a reasoned, hopefully entertaining, way.

But, as mentioned, in the Internet age, everyone’s a critic, because everyone has an opinion, and most think that an opinion is all it takes to be a critic.

Everybody must get …

I heard a story tonight I’ve heard before. This isn’t the first time this has happened — my grandmother had favorites she told over and over, and we laughed with gusto every time we heard them, because she told them in a way that made them fresh every time. It won’t be the last time it happens — as I get older, I hear myself telling stories I’ve told before and wonder whether I’ve told it to the current audience, and pray I haven’t, because I do not have Mimi’s gift for storytelling. Unfortunately, the yawns usually tell me I have …

This particular story involved two young girls and an evil man (I don’t throw that word around lightly, as you will see).