450 words?

I can’t even order dinner in 450 words.

But so it is: the word limit on my brand-spanking new Arts & Entertainment column, featured in this here space every week. Those of you who have read the old Travels with Eli bits know that I’m a wordy sort, a rambler, a gasman, a dithering old windbag. I can’t help it, and don’t much care to, but the crack staff of editors at the Smoky Mountain News World Headquarters have flipped the discipline switch and drawn a 450-word line in the sand. Horrors, I say, but I’ll do my best.

In my role as an A&E columnist, the selfsame crack staff of editors have asked that I stick to topics that are at least nominally related to the subjects of Arts and Entertainment. Thus you can expect a rowdy mix of insight and commentary on books, movies, music, and more; the high arts, the low arts, and those in-between; beadwork, ballet, chainsaw sculpture, comic books, worm castings, architecture, tap-dancing, bears, tap-dancing bears, children’s literature, found poetry, deodorant jingles, and the funny sounds you can get by hitting old radiators with rubber mallets.

If that seems impossibly broad, remember that I consider broiled pork tenderloin with caramelized onions and a red wine reduction sauce to be a piece of Art, and find Entertainment in watching trained monkeys and politicians (although sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference).

There won’t be much talk of television in this column, mostly because I don’t watch much, at least not after college football season ends. But neither will I be a sanctimonious scold, kvetching about the daft vastness of the idiot box and asking you to turn yours off. Hey, it’s your life, and you can watch all the TV you want. I’ll waste my time in other ways.

Nor will you see much talk of celebrities here. While I’ll admit to a certain weakness for Reese Witherspoon, it embarrasses me to say so in print. I prefer the interesting to the famous, and while some folks are both, they’re already getting enough ink and don’t need my help.

With any luck, I’ll keep a local bent to my topics. Working from my lavish quarters at the Smoky Mountain News Satellite Office in Historic West Asheville (note to editors: the gilt fountains in our lobby are gurgling a bit wanly these days; please fix), I’ll survey the Asheville scene as well as things happening to the west... so if you know of something cool, feel free to let me know. Just make sure it’s cool: I don’t intend to recycle press releases and I’m probably not interested in the wicker handcrafts featured at your PTO bazaar. But I’ll listen to anything.

That’s 460 words right there, and not even to the dessert course. I’ll take the sorbet.

Jay Hardwig is a teacher and writer working out of the lavish Smoky Mountain News Satellite Office in Historic West Asheville. He can be reached at smardwig@charter.net.