Word: small-town
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...ANNIE PROULX, 70, on whose 1997 short story Brokeback Mountain was based. After Brokeback lost the Best Picture Oscar to Crash, Proulx wrote a vituperative column in the Guardian, attacking the winning film (which she refers to as Trash), Hollywood types ("somewhat dim"), the awards event ("reminiscent of a small-town talent show" with "an atmosphere of insufferable self-importance") and even innocent bystanders Three 6 Mafia ("an atrocious act"), who won the Oscar for Best Song. She also lays into the Academy ("conservative heffalumps"). Yep, she used the H word. This could get ugly. Someone might call...
...hidden essence of a thing, but they can also conceal it. That is an insight the reader will arrive at long before Whitehead's protagonist does (you may possibly be aware of it before opening the book). In the meantime he mopes around town riffing on the ephemera of small-town America and indulging his obsession with brand names. The tone is light, by turns over- and underwritten. Our hero seems as uninterested in his fate...
...Arsenault holds the promise of salvation for Larry. He is why Larry chose to attend Westcock, a small-town university. Jim is a cutting-edge poet and a star who rejected the "huckster" scene in Toronto for the authenticity of life in rural New Brunswick. Larry can't believe his luck. To be at the same university, to study with Jim, "it's like being able to call Shakespeare up on the phone." If only Jim recognizes some spark of genius in him, then all doubt will be banished. Larry is not alone in this hope. The poetry students...
...closings and consolidation in the industry, Macy's may soon be the last traditional, mid-priced mall-based American department store standing. Its future matters not just to Federated shareholders but also to a $100 billion chunk of the retail economy. Everyone from fashion designers to cosmetics companies to small-town malls is praying that Lundgren's strategy works. Department stores have struggled for years: they've cut service, cut prices, cut inventory and still lost customers to cheaper (Wal-Mart) or more stylish (Kohl's, Target) discounters and to specialty stores (Nordstrom) with top-end service. Millions of Americans...
...slow decline. In the past decade, flowers have made a comeback, but the salary for working in the greenhouses or out in the field still averages only $10 a day. At the same time, the cost of living is comparatively high in Tuxpan. As in much of small-town Mexico, the large influx of cash from the U.S. has thrown the economy out of balance. According to Pew Hispanic Center estimates, almost half the 10.6 million adult Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. sent at least some money back to their relatives last year, for a 2005 total...