Notes From A Bear's Journey

     Not to belabor the point but somewhere along the way we seem to have lost Thanksgiving.  Oh they're will be cases of turkeys and pumpkins, and watching college football games.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Perhaps I've just noticed this more each year since Halloween decorations now began appearing in August.  Yes, August!  And this year they were huge...and expensive.  But really, who buy these monster figures, say, other than my neighbor who has already put up his Christmas lights (didn't we just begin fall not that long ago?).  And I couldn't help but notice that even at places such as Costco and Home Depot, the Halloween displays are quickly being shoved into smaller and smaller sections of the stores, the part with all those patio furniture closeouts.  A few pallets of bagged candy, one rack of cheap, glittery costumes aimed at parents with 2-year olds, and it's time to make way for Christmas!  What has happened to us?  How did a candy-filled fest

     You have to love those hooks, those words that either pull you in or baffle you.  Take the piece in The London Review which featured words such as corbels and gibbets, precentor and prising (what??).  I had to look them up; cool words but really, who uses them in everyday life?  Advertising is sometimes like that with catchy phrases or jingles (We Are Farmers...), or more often a play on words.  That Rolex watch ad from the last post came from the same book that these award-winning 1989 ads did, a book which i remember from way back when the idea of spending $40 or $50 for a book was far out of my league.  This was 1989 after all and that amount of money, in today's dollars, was over $125.  Who'd be crazy enough to spend that amount on a book?  And an advertising book, no less.  But I went ahead and got it...go figure.  As it turned out, it would be the first time such a book had been put together for such "awards" (the annual versions of The One Show continue