Home of the World’s Largest Golf Tee, Home of The World’s Largest Windchime, Home of the Annual Popcorn Festival … everything along this stretch declares itself to be the bullshit home of something. The selling points are meager, designed to … Read More
Author Archives: Bob Hill
Bob Hill’s America: Day Two (The Flatlands)
I meet Keith outside a rest stop in Indiana. Keith is a truck driver, slumped over and shapeless, wearing XXL sweat pants that clash beneath his paisley. Keith moved down this way “a while ago,” satisfying a mandatory prerequisite for … Read More
Bob Hill’s America: Day One (The Vital Signs of Pennsylvania)
The first day is a day of reminders. Reminders to disconnect appliances, to lock all windows and doors, to double-check for laptop and adaptor, Paxil, toiletries and phone. The first day is a day of refamiliarizing myself with the mechanisms … Read More
America
(A 7,000-mile road trip as told in words and pictures.)
Film Capsule: The Unknown Known
Errol Morris’s background as a private investigator might explain his unrivaled ability to gain access and answers, to know when to push or pull back, how to dig and where, what to look for, how to supply interviewees with just … Read More
Charlie LeDuff on The Bankruptcy of Detroit (2013)
“What happened? How Did Detroit – the most iconic of American cities – become a cadaver? Detroit’s slide was long and inexorable. You might blame it on white racism and legal mortgage covenants that barred blacks from living anywhere but the most squalid ghettos. … Read More
Film Capsule: Breathe In
Guy Pearce has reached that age, much like Clive Owen and Jude Law, where the industry has forced him to accept onscreen mortality. What this means, in a larger sense, is that, going forward, Pearce will make more sense as … Read More
Classic Capsule: First Blood (1982)
In May of 1986, my mother handed me $10, money allotted for to buy a souvenir while on a field trip to New York City. I spent that money on a poster, one I found inside a gift shop high … Read More